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Pop Art and the Symbiosis of Post-War American Consumer Culture

Author(s)

Shengxi Cai*

Affiliation(s)

School of Humanities, Central Academy of Fine Arts, Chaoyang, Beijing, China *Corresponding Author

Abstract

Based on this paper, the symbiotic relationship among American Pop Art and consumer society after World War II, at that time, the movement was not an attack on mass consumption but rather a process of cultural legalization. According to Bourdieu's concept of cultural capital and Jameson's discussion about cultural logic in the era of late capitalism, this study will conduct a detailed analysis of Pop Art techniques for transforming commercial images into purely artistic works through close readings of artworks such as "Canned Soup," "Green Coca-Cola Bottle," and "Duplex Paintings by Marilyn Monroe." Research showed that a three-pronged symbol construction of Pop Art's repetition pattern, strict branding implementation, and celebrity commercial model jointly creates an aesthetically inclined image-for-use product network that transfers social value among users while eliminating the gap in taste definition by marketization mechanisms. The most far-reaching legacy of pop art is to legalize brand consumption as an aesthetic experience. This culture is still driving brand promotion and international collaboration of arts and business, as well as consumers' self-definition in the new era.

Keywords

Pop Art; Consumer Culture; Sign-value; Cultural Capital; Post-war America; Brand Symbolism; Andy Warhol

References

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