POP! A Flashback to the Sixties

Last week, wandering through Neuberger Museum of Art, I was transported to the Greenwich Village and Lower East Side of my youth. Graphic and sculptural interpretations of Campbell Soup cans, bathrobes, lipsticks and other ordinary objects were suddenly appearing in galleries as high ticket items. The movement that started in the fifties seemed to flourish and expand beyond my imagination into the 60s, 70s and 80s. It was an era when items of popular culture were repurposed from billboards, dime stores and even kitchen pantries. The prints in the Museum’s POP! exhibition are all from its permanent collection and will be on view until February 19th. That means you’ll have to hurry to check out these works by a stellar roster of artists that includes Jim Dine, Robert Indiana, Jasper Johns, Alex Katz, Nicholas Krushenick, Roy Lichtenstein, Richard Lindner, Claes Oldenburg, Mel Ramos, Robert Rauschenberg, Larry Rivers, James Rosenquist, Ed Ruscha, Andy Warhol, and Tom Wesselmann.

Some people have an uncanny way of being at the right place at the right time. That usually isn’t me. But through an unanticipated stroke of luck, I spent my last few years of college during the sixties in Greenwich Village, at NYU, wandering through Soho, and seeing some of the same awesome images that you can see at the Neuberger this weekend.

Image above: Uncle Sam by Andy Warhol