International Pop is a groundbreaking historical survey that chronicles the global emergence of Pop art from the mid-1950s to the early 1970s. Critically acclaimed by such publications as The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, the exhibition presents more than 125 works drawn from over 13 countries on four continents and features over 100 artists including familiar names such as Andy Warhol, David Hockney, Roy Lichtenstein, and Gerhard Richter alongside perhaps lesser known artists in America including Ushio Shinohara, Cildo Meireles, Edgardo Giménez, and Tadanori Yokoo.

International Pop, on view at the Dallas Museum of Art October 11, 2015 through January 17, 2016, is the first exhibition to explore such a vast and diverse array of Pop-related production. It asserts that Pop was not a singular artistic style or brand, but a roving spirit moving with unprecedented force through culture at large in the 1960s through a new abundance of everyday commodities, mass media production, and mainstream advertising.

Although Pop is among the most broadly recognized phenomena of postwar art, primarily identified with Britain and the U.S., as a cultural movement the Pop impulse was strikingly nomadic, contagiously spreading through Japan, Latin America, and both Eastern and Western Europe. From its inception, Pop migrated across borders and media, seizing the power of mass media and communication to reach new audiences who would be drawn to its dynamic attributes.

“Pop art was a global movement that began more than six decades ago, and this exhibition complements the global collection at the DMA, which spans five millennia, providing a new and focused view of a revolutionary moment in art history,” said Gabriel Ritter, the DMA’s Nancy and Tim Hanley Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art. “International Pop reassesses the conventional scope and understanding of Pop art in exciting new ways. It challenges our preconceived notion that Pop was primarily a U.S. and British invention, and instead shows us how truly pervasive and varied this aesthetic was.”

International Pop emphasizes the distinct iterations of Pop art developed worldwide with particular focus on the socio-historical contexts from which it emerged, from the social democracies of Europe; to the politically and socially turbulent U.S.; to the military regimes of Latin America; to the postwar climate of Japan; and the restricted pop cultural palette of countries in Eastern and Central Europe. This multimedia installation is organized along five different thematic sections (“New Realisms,” “The Image Travels & the Archive Shifts,” “Distributions & Domesticity,” “Pop & Politics,” “Love & Despair”) as well as geographic sections dedicated to Argentina, Brazil, Great Britain, Japan, and Germany.

DMA Friends will be able to earn the International Pop Special Exhibition Badge while the show is on view. For more information on the DMA Friends program, visit DMA.org/friends. The Museum will celebrate International Pop during the October 16 Late Night featuring a talk on the artists represented in the exhibition. Additional programs, including gallery talks, will be scheduled throughout the run of the exhibition. For dates, prices, and details, visit DMA.org.  

International Pop requires a special exhibition ticket of $16 for adults, with discounts for students, military personnel, and seniors; DMA Partners and children 11 and under are free.

Exhibition Organization and Tour

International Pop is organized by the Walker Art Center. The curator of the Dallas presentation is Gabriel Ritter, The Nancy and Tim Hanley Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art, DMA. This exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities. Major support for the exhibition is provided by the Henry Luce Foundation, the Prospect Creek Foundation, the Terra Foundation for American Art, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and the Margaret and Angus Wurtele Family Foundation. Additional support is generously provided by Judy Dayton, Lyn De Logi, Marge and Irv Weiser, and Audrey and Zygi Wilf. The DMA’s presentation is made possible with major support provided by Deutsche Bank.  Additional support is provided by TWO X TWO for AIDS and Art, an annual fundraising event that jointly benefits amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research and the Dallas Museum of Art, and the Contemporary Art Initiative.  Marketing support is provided by the Dallas Tourism Public Improvement District and the Dallas Convention & Visitors Bureau and Texas Monthly.

The exhibition tour includes:

• Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (April 11–September 6, 2015)

• Dallas Museum of Art (October 11, 2015–January 17, 2016)

• Philadelphia Museum of Art (February 18, 2016–May 15, 2016)

Exhibition Catalogue

The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue. The volume includes some 320 illustrations, including full-color plates of each work in the exhibition, integrating many classics of Pop art with other rarely seen works. This dynamic new volume is the first major survey to chronicle the emergence and migration of Pop art from an international perspective, focusing on the period from the 1950s through the early 1970s. Including original texts from a diverse roster of contributors, this catalogue provides important new scholarship on the period. Published by the Walker Art Center in English and designed by its award-winning in-house studio, the hardbound 368-page publication will be produced in an edition of 8,000 and distributed by Distributed Art Publishers.

. For more information, visit DMA.org

Images: Edward Ruscha, Standard Station, Amarillo, Texas, 1963, oil on canvas, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire; gift of James Meeker, Class of 1958, in memory of Lee English, Class of 1958, scholar, poet, athlete and friend to all, © Ed Ruscha; Cildo Meireles, Insertions into Ideological Circuits: Coca-Cola Project (Inserções em Circuitos Ideológicos: Projeto Coca-Cola), 1970, 3 glass bottles, 3 metal caps, liquid, and adhesive labels with text, Courtesy the artist and Galerie LeLong, New York, © Cildo Meireles; Ushio Shinohara, Oiran, 1968, plexiglass and acrylic on canvas, Courtesy the artist and Nanzuka Gallery Tokyo, © Ushio and Noriko Shinohara