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Exhibition

Dark Pop

until
Ausstellung 'Dark Pop. Andy Warhol Bruce Nauman Robert Gober Sigmar Polke Louise Lawler et al.' im Museum Brandhorst

Andy Warhol, Bruce Nauman, Robert Gober, Sigmar Polke, Louise Lawler et al.

Exhibition info

Period

until

About the exhibition

Parallel to the exhibition ‘Yes!Yes!Yes! Warholmania in Munich’, the collection display ‘Dark Pop’, on show on the entrance level of the Museum Brandhorst, marks Andy Warhol’s pivotal position in the history of Pop Art and Neo-Pop.
Ever since Pop Art, a dark undertone has lurked beneath the apparently warm and cuddly embrace of the world of consumerism. Andy Warhol’s depictions of glamorous celebrities and glossy consumer fetishes are interspersed by symbols of death, images of violence, a craving for sensationalism, and societal conflicts – with the cynicism of our allegedly enlightened pragmatism seemingly reflected back at us in the smooth surfaces of his pictures. Since the 1960s, countless other artists have also probed the dark side of modern everyday culture, such as Sigmar Polke and his sarcastic commentary on the ideals of the French Revolution – ‘liberté, egalité, fraternité’, Bruce Nauman with his cat corpse strung up to symbolize the equally cold and brachial treatment of animals by industrial means, Damien Hirst and his medicine cabinet filled with pain relievers and antidepressants as a modern-day shrine, and, most recently, Robert Gober and his nightmarish creations of defunct sinks and hair-matted candles that serve as disturbing imitations of our familiar everyday world.
United under the title ‘Dark Pop’ are highlights from the Brandhorst Collection on show in a thematically arranged presentation on the ground floor of the museum. The display is enriched by two important new acquisitions of works by Louise Lawler.