How Do You Recognize Pop Art From Spain?
Pop Art from Spain took much from American Pop Art (its use of mass media communication, cartoons and popular images), but to fully understand Spanish Pop Art, you must recognize its political content. Most Pop Art in Spain was created to criticize Spanish politics and the dictatorship of Francisco Franco. American Pop Art was embraced by many Spanish artists because it gave impetus to the figure in art against the incursion of abstraction. Study American Pop Art in order to recognize the roots of Pop Art from Spain. Read “Arroyo” by Pierre Astier at Amazon (see Resources below). The Spanish artist Eduardo Arroyo began his career as a caricaturist in Parisian bars. He can be labeled as a Pop Artist because of his environmental interests, his critique of media culture which incorporates the icons of mass media and communication, his disdain of nearly all established artistic styles and his use of cartoon-like shapes and block color. Check out “Pop Impressions Europe/USA: Prints and Mult
