Accompanying book to the recent Tate Modern exhibition, Pop Life. Comes with a Warning of Contains explicit imagery, wit woo. Lots of additional goodies available.
From Tate Shop. By Jack Bankowsky, Alison Gingeras and Catherine Wood
"Good business is the best art." Andy Warhols notorious statement provides a starting point for this book, which examines the legacy of Pop art and its most celebrated exponent in the lives and work of succeeding generations of artists. Rather than shying away from the limelight, these post-Warhol artists have wholeheartedly embraced both the cult of celebrity and the commercial cut and thrust of the art market. Keith Haring set up his Pop Shop in Manhattan to sell his own branded products direct to the public; alongside making painting and sculpture, Takashi Murakami produces editions via his multinational corporation, Kaikai Kiki; and Damien Hirst arranged his own, hugely successful auction of his work at Sotheby's, entitled Beautiful Inside My Head Forever.
Jeff Koons's celebration in painting and sculpture of his marriage and sexual union with porn star and latter-day politician Illona Staller (aka La Cicciolina) is just one example of an artist crossing the usually accepted boundaries between the public and the personal, and between art and flagrant sensationalism. British artist Cosey Fanni Tutti caused similar outrage by electing to make performance art by working within the sex industry, appearing as a model in 'adult' magazines. For other artists featured, including Tracey Emin, Richard Prince and Martin Kippenberger, their public persona or 'brand' is something to be knowingly manipulated as part of their artistic practice.
Extensively illustrated and with illuminating essays by critics and curators from both the United States and Britain, this book is guaranteed to be as entertaining, challenging and provocative as the art it portrays.
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