Discuss how you feel one can apply the concepts presented by Berger in looking at the Modern Art exhibition at MOMA?  Post by Sunday 12 pm.

For our Macaulay Honors arts seminar, we were given an assignment to go to the MoMA to visit a particular art movement. John Berger’s Ways of Seeing provides meaningful insight to my topic in modern art. The topic I was studying was Pop Art, a movement that took place mainly in the 1960’s. Prior to my visit to the Museum of Modern Art, I researched the subject to get a better idea of what Pop Art is. The art form takes images popular at the time, such as Marilyn Monroe’s face or an advertisement for a vacation, and changes the context to completely alter the content. By changing the image through selecting a different color or a way the art is shown, meaning can be given to the art.

John Berger’s Ways of Seeing allowed me to explore the meaning of using an image in a different context. He explains that an artist intends to have their work displayed in a certain setting, but when the image is reproduced or moved, that setting and original meaning can be lost. Instead, for reproduced work, there is a holiness attributed to the original. The different situations may cause a conflict of interests between the artist’s intent and the viewer’s reality.

In Pop Art, artists spin this idea around. For example, Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe paintings used an image of Monroe and changed the color to send a message about her true beauty to the public. He mass-produces these images, so that there was no control over who saw the paintings, and thus they spread. On the other hand, that was viewed right after her death, when she was fresh in the minds of society. In today’s world, the paintings would be viewed in much the same way that John Berger spoke, as high art. This is a sad truth, as that was the opposite of what Andy Warhol seemed to have wanted.

Meira