With Brouhaha choosing 1KStyles’ debut solo exhibition ‘Pop Attack!’ to make its public debut, we thought it only fitting to delve into pop art in all its opinion-splitting glory and its undeniable influence over the last fifty years.

Andy Warhol, arguably the most famous pop artist of all-time, once said: “Once you ‘got’ Pop, you could never see a sign the same way again.” If he meant the simplicity of the art form or the irony behind it, is debatable. But whatever you think of the movement – that it’s entirely representative of the ironic 20th century, or that’s it’s just a pile of simplistic bullshit which degrades the idea of a “fine art” to dry wit – you can’t deny its staying power.

From the priceless Lichtenstein adorning the centre wall of that chic-hipster’s penthouse loft, to the endless supply of cultural revolution caricatures along Hollywood Road, to the “Garbage Pail Kids”-on-canvas rip-off your buddy bought for $100 on Pottinger Street, it’s always been the most widespread way of embracing your popular culture obsession – not to mention easy to pass off as classy and respectable.

Many scholars state that the purpose of pop art, the defining characteristic of the movement isn’t really about the art itself. It’s about the attitudes that lead to that piece of art – for Lun, his attitude is based on his upbringing and all that he was exposed to, how the past 20 years of pop culture have infected and shaped mainstream culture.

His formidable years, the ’80s, were the “big embrace” of popular culture, a time when nearly every major medium was at its forefront: movies were endlessly re-watchable on VCRs, Nintendo broke video games into the mainstream, comic books and Saturday morning cartoons were hitting peak after peak – an infinite amount of creative diversions at your fingertips, enough to shape views that would last well into the years when they could be channelled into their own art form.

And it seems only fitting that for an art movement that was inspired out of the swinging ’60s, through the pop music phenomenon and ideas of rebellious youth damning the man, should once again begin to change, to move from away from the ironic and humorous and into fields of respect and reverence.

Because for all the Basquiat’s and Schnabel’s, all the post-’80s hubbub about how Chinese art will dominate, the one thing that truly came out of that decade and lasted in the mind of every young artist emerging on the scene is an obsessive sense of admiration for popular culture. And nowhere is that more evident than at “Pop Attack!”

Tags: 1KStyles, Andy Warhol, Brouhaha, Garbage Pail Kids, hong kong, Lichtenstein, magazine, Nintendo, Pop Art, Pop Attack, Pottinger Street
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