Author Description

"What exactly is new and different about this exhibition in terms of art and cultural history? On one hand, there's the intense look at female protagonists of Pop Art, the strong focus on the future-oriented architects Alison and Peter Smithson, Cedric Price, and Archigram (each of whom was closely linked to the art scene), as well as the determined inclusion of music, magazines, television, and film as media of equal value that also crossed borders. Second, there’s the expanded timeframe: the exhibition ranges from Eduardo Paolozzi's early Parisian collages from 1947 to the climax and culmination of "Swinging London" around Mick Jagger and Robert Fraser, the star gallerist and pop-networker par excellence, in 1968...In every case, it’s about exemplifying and bringing to life the numerous cross-connections, largely forgotten today, between the then increasingly fluid forms of culture and their creative stakeholders. The exhibition’s broad scope--ranging from the initial spark of Paolozzi's early magazine collages and the works by Colin Self and Gerald Laing, which oscillate between nuclear fear and a euphoric belief in progress, to Hamilton's pictorial relief of Mick Jagger and Robert Fraser in handcuffs after being arrested for drug abuse--enables visitors to experience the artistic and cultural-historical significance of British Pop Art with all their senses, while presenting this period as an essential prehistory of our own present day." -- Publisher's description