The scribble. The original, the purest, most primal expression of man. Like a squirt of life itself.
When Andre Masson made his “automatic drawing” in 1924, a pure, primal, scribble was too much for the art world to bear. Fast forward to 1948, and Jackson Pollock has picked up the ball of “pure psychic automatism”, and run it across the goal line.
On the left: Andre Masson "Automatic Drawing" 1924. On the right: Jackson
Pollock "No. 1A" 1948
The lowbrow/pop surrealists (LPS) of today aren’t interested in “pure psychic automatism”. The LPS of today are concerned, first and foremost, with demonstrating what they believe to be “painterly skill”, or Salvador Dali-esque chops. This is often confused with being able to paint like a Rennaisance master. In other words, the LPS of today imagines him or herself as Vermeer, as if Vermeer painted pop culture fantasies.
As if.
The LPS paintings of today scream “look ma! I can paint like a real artist!”…. Gone is the automatic spew of the authentic surrealism. Gone is the Pop Art dialectic on pop culture tactics. All replaced by anal-pseudo-painterly mannerisms, pubescent psycho drama, and derivative pop culture tributes. No wonder “pop surrealism” never made it to the big leagues. I liked it better when it was lurking in the head shop, on the sci-fi fantasy pulp covers, in the pages of hippie comic books, and on the covers of acid rock LPs. For my money, I’ll take the artists in Raw Vision Magazine over those in High Fructose. As far as Juxtapoz Magazine, it sits somewhere in the middle, as a catch all, but has way too much hip-hop sneaker culture for my taste.
But this was supposed to be a history of “pop surrealism”, so let us get started, shall we?
1945... Pop Culture Hollywood film maker Alfred Hitchcock (lowbrow), teams up with original European surrealist painter Salvador Dali (highbrow), to create the dream sequence in the movie "Spellbound"...
Remember, terms like “pop surrealism” are invented by galleries to help sell paintings. Genre terms, and the magazines that go with them, are part of what I like to call “the inescapable paradigm”…
The painter’s imperative = get seen and picked up by gallery owner
The gallery owner’s imperative = sell paintings to rich collectors
The rich collector’s imperative = buy paintings that will increase in value
Another way to look at it is:
Rich collector needs tax dodge cum money laundry
Gallery owner needs to pay rent, mortgage
Artist needs to show mum, dad, co-workers, that art 'career' is not a fantasy
It is also helpful to remember that most of what preceeds “pop surrealism” in look, smell and taste, comes from the world of lowbrow graphics, i.e. illustration work for pulp paperbacks, comic books, LP jackets, etc… and in that world, the actual painting is secondary to the printed object, the illustration is in service to the pop culture object. So, for example, the painting that Roger Dean made for the cover of “Fragile Yes” will never be in the same league as the paintings in the MoMA, Met, or Guggenheim. Even though it was Roger Dean whose work was stolen by blockbuster filmaker James Cameron for “Avatar”. Instead of pop culture inspiring the pulp fantasy artist, it’s the other way ‘round. I hope Roger got his piece of the pie.
On the left: Roger Dean's 1977 head shop art. On the right: Hollywood's 2009 Blockbuster film
If you’re not familiar with the work of artists like Roger Dean, Patrick Woodroffe, Mati Klarwein, Brad Johannsen, Robert Williams, Robert Crumb, Jim Nutt, Donald Roller Wilson, Basil Wolverton, or you never owned a pack of Topps Ugly Stickers, or never owned copies of Burnt Weenie Sandwich, Weasels Ripped My Flesh, and Sleep Dirt… then maybe you need to click the links…
One could argue that "pop surrealism" was invented in the 1970s, on Frank Zappa's LP jackets.
The term “pop surrealism” was coined by The Aldrich Contemporary Museum for their 1998 exhibit of the same name. This was the first time the phrase was ever used in an art world context, and probably the first time ever. It is ironic to note that a term created by a highbrow art establishment, has since been taken up as the slogan for a wide spread body of work by unknown “lowbrow” artists.
159 pages, fully-illustrated
Softcover, perfect bound
Foreword by Harry Philbrick
Essays by Richard Klein, Dominique Nahas, and Ingrid Schaffner
Published by The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, 1998
Design by Lisa Feldman Design, Inc.
ISBN: 1-888332-08-5
Shortly before the Robert Williams, Juxtapoz, L.A. art scene took up the phrase as their brand name, “pop surrealism” was a real art show at a real art museum, written up in real newspapers and real art magazines. The show was not specific to a scene (like the L.A. art scene), nor was it trying to exhibit a “school” of artists. The Aldrich show was the first "highbrow" entity to pick up on a growing trend in contemporary art.
One of the artists in the 1998 Aldrich show, a veteran of the early ‘80s NYC club scene, a scene often thought of as synonymous with Basquiat and Haring, was Kenny Scharf. I like his quote from The New York Times article about “pop surrealism”… “Mr. Scharf calls his style Pop Surrealism. “A Surrealist is using imagery from the subconscious, or dream imagery,” he said. “My subconscious is full of popular imagery.”
Or how about this quote from Wayne White, about the creation of "Pee-wee's Playhouse" in the 1980s. "We felt complete freedom to borrow from any source we could. I was thinking a lot about German Expressionism and Little Golden Books from the '50s. We were all thinking about toys from the '50s and '60s, too. We were thinking about abstract painting. You name it, we would throw it in there." This kinda makes Pee-wee's Playhouse the next stop on the "pop surrealism" train, after the Zappa LP covers.
If there was a way to describe “pop surrealism”, Kenny Scharf nailed it. Most people who throw the term around, and many of the self-proclaimed “pop-surrealists”, don’t know what Pop Art, or Surrealism, really is.
Remember, surrealism is a process; Surrealism is a specific early 20th Century art movement; and “surrealism” used as an umbrella term, refers to any paintings that look like Salvador Dali’s, Rene Magritte’s or Frida Khalo’s.
Pop Art is when artists in the late 1950s and early '60s used both visual and production tactics from the world of print advertising. It wasn't so much about "pop culture", as it was about the production of pop culture, specifically advertising tactics, and modern printing techniques, such as photo reproduction methods. Like classic Surrealism, it's not so much a look, but a way of thinking about making art.
Now if we go back to Kenny Scharf's explanation, it seems like we are getting somewhere towards a proper art genre. If one is to engage in “pure psychic automatism”, aka surrealism, and the automatic outpouring of that person’s subconscious results in images drawn from pop culture, then maybe we can grasp a true process, and give it a name, “pop surrealism”, and not use it as some umbrella term for bad unknown contemporary art (aka “underground” art).
Using the term as an umbrella term, is like calling any noisy, unknown, poorly played rock music “punk”, as opposed to using it to refer to the real punk bands of 1977. Or like calling any abstract painting “abstract expressionist”, instead of referring to the real AbEx paintings from 1945-1960. In strict, real art world terms, Surrealism is a movement that started in Europe with Andre Breton and Andre Masson, and ended when the Nazis drove the artists out of Europe and into NYC, where in the 1940s their surrealist tendencies sparked the AbEx movement. In strict, real world art terms, Pop Art was a movement that started in London and New York in the late 1950s, and gave way in the late 1960s to installation art and conceptual art.
So it begs the question, is there, or was there, an official, “real”, Pop Surrealism movement, or is it a generic, umbrella term? And why is most of the painting today that is tagged "pop-surrealism" an arid display of anal-retentive "technique" lacking in "soul"?
We see that more recently, in the post-Juxtapoz era, there are those who wish to use the term to describe a look, a visual style, as opposed to using it to describe a specific movement, or group of artists. When I think of “pop surrealism”, and the way most people today want to apply it, I think of artists like Robert Williams, Mark Ryden and Todd Schorr. Robert Williams is really more of a late 1960s peer of Robert Crumb, yet his work fits right in with the late 1990s L.A. Juxtapoz scene, and rightfully so, as he was a co-founder of the magazine. He would have used the term “lowbrow” however, not “pop surrealism”.
“Lowbrow” is a generic term to describe anything that is not “highbrow”. A person with a low brow is a neanderthal, a homo sapien has a high brow. Lowbrow=caveman. Get it? A short list of lowbrow culture would include, but is not limited to, tattoo art, comic books, childrens books, rock and jazz LP art, sci-fi fantasy book cover art, pulp fiction cover art, monster movies, saturday morning cartoons (and the cereal brands that go with them), 1960s psychedelia, hot rod graphics, surf graphics, toys, rock concert poster art, big eye paintings, black light posters, airbrushing on motorcycles, and “head shop” artists like M.C. Escher, Salvador Dali, Rene Magritte, Mati Klarwein, etc…
It is worth devoting a paragraph here to the idea of Lowbrow vs. Pseudo-Highbrow. Because I see the pedestrian view of "pop surrealism" as pseudo-highbrow, especially the type espoused by people like Kirsten Anderson in her book "Pop Surrealism: The Rise of Underground Art", or Jon Beinart in his "Beinart Collective". In their minds, "pop surrealism" has become a notion about technique, as opposed to a marriage of classic Surrealism and classic Pop Art. The Kirsten Anderson / Jon Beinart version of "pop surrealism", is the notion that a person who can paint like Salvador Dali (photorealistic technique is used to render fantastic and impossible situations), and who infuses this Dali-esque technique with content derived from "lowbrow" culture, is the visual style indicator of a "pop surrealist". This view confuses technique as being an indicator of highbrow status. A similar situation arises with, let's say, prog rock. Rock music is lowbrow. When it is played by those with proper musical skills (Frank Zappa, Yes, King Crimson, etc), the musical skill does not elevate the work to a "highbrow" status, no matter how much the Prog fans want it to be so. It is still lowbrow rock music. Likewise, JRR Tolkien was an Oxford professor. Oxford, and its professors, are highbrow. But if one of them writes a series of fantasy novels, the fantasy novels are not highbrow. Fantasy "literature", unless we are talking Greek mythology, is not highbrow, it is lowbrow. "The Lord of the Rings" is pseudo-highbrow. Another way to look at it is, just because a painter can display the chops to outdo the special effects of lowbrow Hollywood movies like "Inception" or "The Matrix", does not elevate that painter to the status of the painters in major league, blue chip art museums and galleries.
In the late '80s early '90s, Kenny Scharf, Mark Ryden and Robert Williams got their biggest exposure ever, with platinum selling album covers. Robert Williams’ 1978 painting “Appetite for Destruction” featured on the cover of “Guns 'n Roses” 1987 album; in 1991, Mark Ryden’s work was seen on the cover of the blockbuster Michael Jackson album “Dangerous”; and Kenny Scharf himself on the B-52's 1986 "Bouncing Off The Satellites"
Given that these LPs were blockbuster pop culture products, one could argue that this marks a proper moment in the art history books, lending some legitimacy to the art and artists we now think of as “pop surrealists”. Keep in mind though, these were pop music LP covers, not museum paintings. Lowbrow, not highbrow.
A highbrow contemporary artist is somebody like, let’s say, Takashi Murakami. Murakami could be classified as a “pop surrealist”, based on the look of his work. But Murakami is a major league, blue chip artist, he’s not “lowbrow”. In essence, the whole idea of lowbrow pop surrealism has “jumped the shark” as they say, with museum grade artists riding its back into the MoMAs, Mets, and Tates of the world. When the MoMA gave an entire show to film maker Tim Burton, in 2009, one got the feeling that the pop culture which inspired an entire nation of underground lowbrow artists, had reached out and grabbed the trophy for itself.
The newest and most notable development in the journey of "pop surrealism" is the new AI device called "DALL-E"... input any phrase, and the AI searches the image database and combines the images into the new 'free association' image, just like the old-timey surrealists did with their oil paintings... except instead of Dali taking a month to make a painting, DALL-E does it in seconds. But it's not an oil painting, is it. It's a JPEG...
But let’s get back down to Earth. Back to a place where mere mortals toil over paintings, tattoos, posters, and comic books. A place where magazines like Juxtapoz magazine, or websites like Etsy.com, serve the everyday artists of the everyday world. In the pages of Juxtapoz, or in the Etsy shops, we can see an entire shift in contemporary “Sunday painters”, just like one can see in the major league contemporary art scene. When looked at this way, “pop surrealism” is much like impressionism, or abstract art. That is, a new way of making art that anybody can do. In other words, a revolution.
It definitely goes to show the incredible impact that both classic Surrealism and Pop Art have had on human culture. It makes sense. As humans take over more of the planet, destroying nature in the process, and replacing it with our own man-made crap, future generations of artists will be more familiar with a cartoon character, or an advertising mascot, or a movie meme, than they will be with a bird, or a flower, or a tree.
Poplow Pigasso, 2021
