In response to your lucid comparisons of flavors of Pop, Ken:
I really don't think american pop was cynical in the least. I think it
represents precisely that straightforward American pragmatism that you
mention. There's a sort of sunny romance, a Saturday-morning bliss, to
Warhol in particular that becomes totally obvious looking at his
commercial work and juvenilia. (There was a wonderful show of Warhol
drawings at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis this year that made
this very obvious.)
I don't think Rosenquist et al. differ that much. Pop seemed to be the
becoming conscious of the phenomenon of childhood infiltrating adulthood
that made the 60s and 70s and on possible. Grownups going to work in
jeans and tennis shoes--what absurd luxury! Americans became the
children of the world--competent, wealthy children, that is, people for
whom desire, sensual whim, laughter, are some sort of right--and Pop
was, and remains (it's a style that arises over and over, see Kara
Walker and Lari Pittman, see a whole bunch of young LA artists) their
very un-ironic text.
AK
