It's interesting how radical movements of one period are dismissed as traditional in others. Pop Art burst on the scene in the Fifties and Sixties as a phenomenon dedicated to eradicating the mystique out of art that had grown up with successive movements such as Expressionism, Cubism, Dadaism and the like. Spearheaded by seminal figures such as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichstenstein, pop art restored painting to its popular cultural origins, using everyday objects and combining them in suggestive forms to make statements about rapidly changing cultures in the West.
Alistair Sooke's comprehensive documentary recaptures some of the furor that erupted when Pop Art occupied the mainstream cultural agenda. Like a naughty child screaming for attention, the artists manipulated the rapidly-emerging media of television and film to publicize their work, even though much of it scandalized traditionalist critics. But no one really cared: art had been restored to its rightful position as a force by which people could express their dissatisfaction with the political and social inequalities of the time, during a period - it must be said - when America and Great Britain were experiencing something of a consumerist boom. Pop art satirized that boom through its use of everyday objects.
Looked at today, the genre might seem rather artificial, an expression, perhaps, of an optimism that societies had the potential to change, even though they had apparently devoted themselves to consumerism. Half a century later it seems that this capacity for change has virtually evaporated, with governments being less and less willing to provide subsidies for struggling artists so that they might continue their work. Now Pop Art can be viewed nostalgically as a production from cultures that still believed that painting had an important role to play in their people's social and political education.