FIRST OF ALL I have to mention that I'm not affiliated with The Larva Labs or any other thing!! I am just me Ever since I was a teenager I have been fascinated by the essential unreality of the zeitgeist. What starts out as triumph soon becomes finessed into a hegemony of distress, leaving only a sense of decadence and the dawn of a new reality. As wavering forms become distorted through studious and repetitive practice, the viewer is left with a clue to the outposts of our culture. I CopyPaste some bullshits here as keywords: CryptoPunks was released in June of 2017 as one of the first non-fungible tokens (NFT) on the Ethereum blockchain. The project was developed by American studio Larva Labs, a two-person team consisting of Canadian software developers Matt Hall and John Watkinson. The experimental project was inspired by the London punk scenes, the cyberpunk movement and William Gibson's novel Neuromancer, Johnny Mnemonic, Blade Runner[1] and also electronic music artists Daft Punk. The crypto art blockchain project was an inspiration for the ERC-721 standard for NFTs and the modern crypto art movement, which has since become an ever-expanding part of the cryptocurrency and decentralized finance ecosystems on multiple blockchains.

CryptoPunks are commonly credited with starting the NFT craze of 2021, along with other early projects including MoonCatRescue, CryptoKitties, and more recently, Bored Apes Yacht Club and the sale of Beeple's Everydays: The First 5000 Days. There will never be more than the original 10,000 CryptoPunks.[2][3][4] Today, due to their rarity and exclusivity, they are often used as the ultimate status symbols in close-knit cryptocurrency communities, however, they have begun to attract significant attention as they begin to fetch higher prices on the open market and made their way to auction houses like Christie's.[5]

Background There are only 10,000 unique CryptoPunks (6,039 males and 3,840 females), all of which are made digitally scarce through the use of blockchain technology. Each one was algorithmically generated through computer code and thus no two characters are exactly alike, but some traits are more rare than others. They were originally released for free and could be claimed by anyone with an Ethereum wallet. The only cost to claim a CryptoPunk during their initial release were Ethereum (ETH) "gas fees", which at the time, were negligible due to little use of both the Ethereum blockchain and little knowledge of the project as well.[6]

1000 of the existing 10,000 images[7] Types and attributes The collectible appeal of CryptoPunks is enhanced by the rarities of certain traits and types of characters. While many projects of more recent development often sample through hundreds of possible traits, the CryptoPunks project was not as complex. Most of the 10,000 total punks are humans, but there are also three special types: Zombie (88), Ape (24) and Alien (9).[8][9] Aside from character type, there were a potential of 87 additional attributes.

See also EtherRock Banksy From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigationJump to search Banksy Banksy-art.jpg Banksy art on Brick Lane, East End, 2004 Born Bristol, England[1] Nationality British Known for Street art Banksy is a pseudonymous England-based street artist, political activist, and film director whose real name and identity remain unconfirmed and the subject of speculation.[2] Active since the 1990s, his satirical street art and subversive epigrams combine dark humour with graffiti executed in a distinctive stenciling technique. His works of political and social commentary have appeared on streets, walls, and bridges throughout the world.[3] Banksy's work grew out of the Bristol underground scene, which involved collaborations between artists and musicians.[4] Banksy says that he was inspired by 3D, a graffiti artist and founding member of the musical group Massive Attack.[5]

Banksy displays his art on publicly visible surfaces such as walls and self-built physical prop pieces. Banksy no longer sells photographs or reproductions of his street graffiti, but his public "installations" are regularly resold, often even by removing the wall they were painted on.[6] A small number of Banksy's works are officially, non-publicly, sold through an agency created by Banksy named Pest Control.[7] Banksy's documentary film Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010) made its debut at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.[8] In January 2011, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for the film.[9] In 2014, he was awarded Person of the Year at the 2014 Webby Awards.[10]

Contents 1 Identity 2 Career 2.1 Early career (1990–2001) 2.2 Exhibitions (2002–2003) 2.3 £10 notes to Barely Legal (2004–2006) 2.4 Banksy effect (2006–2007) 2.5 2008 2.5.1 The Cans Festival (2008) 2.6 2009 2.7 Exit Through the Gift Shop and United States (2010) 2.8 2011 2.9 2012 2.10 2013 2.10.1 Better Out Than In (2013) 2.11 2015 2.11.1 "Banksy in Gaza" clip 2.11.2 Dismaland 2.11.3 The Son of a Migrant from Syria 2.12 2017 2.12.1 Walled Off Hotel 2.13 2018 2.13.1 Return to New York 2.13.2 Balloon Girl Shredding 2.13.3 Season's Greetings 2.14 2019 2.14.1 Trademark dispute 2.14.2 Record sale for Devolved Parliament 2.15 2020 2.15.1 Valentine's Day 2.15.2 Painting for Saints 2.16 2021 2.16.1 Escaping prisoner in Reading 2.17 A Great British Spraycation 3 Other notable artworks 3.1 Damaged artwork 4 Technique 5 Political and social themes 6 Philanthropy and activism 7 Criticism 8 Books 9 See also 10 References 11 Further reading 12 External links Identity Banksy's name and identity remain unconfirmed and the subject of speculation. In a 2003 interview with Simon Hattenstone of The Guardian, Banksy is described as "white, 28, scruffy casual—jeans, T-shirt, a silver tooth, silver chain and silver earring. He looks like a cross between Jimmy Nail and Mike Skinner of the Streets." Banksy began as an artist at the age of 14, was expelled from school, and served time in prison for petty crime. According to Hattenstone, "anonymity is vital to him because graffiti is illegal".[11] Banksy reportedly lived in Easton, Bristol during the late 1990s, before moving to London around 2000.[12][13][14]

Banksy is commonly believed to be Robin Gunningham, as first identified by The Mail on Sunday in 2008,[15] born on 28 July 1973 in Yate, 12 miles (19 km) from Bristol.[16][17][12] Several of Gunningham's associates and former schoolmates at Bristol Cathedral School have corroborated this, and in 2016, a study by researchers at the Queen Mary University of London using geographic profiling found that the incidence of Banksy's works correlated with the known movements of Gunningham.[18][19][20][21] According to The Sunday Times, Gunningham began employing the name Robin Banks, which eventually became Banksy. Two cassette sleeves featuring his art work from 1993, for the Bristol band Mother Samosa, exist with his signature.[22] In June 2017, DJ Goldie referred to Banksy as "Rob".[23]

There has been alternative speculation that Banksy is:

Robert Del Naja (a.k.a. 3D), member of the trip hop band Massive Attack. Del Naja had been a graffiti artist during the 1980s prior to forming the band and had previously been identified as a personal friend of Banksy.[24][25][26] In 2020, users on Twitter began to speculate that former Art Attack presenter Neil Buchanan was Banksy. This was denied by Buchanan's publicist.[27] In October 2014, an internet hoax circulated that Banksy had been arrested and his identity revealed.[28]

Career See also: List of works by Banksy Early career (1990–2001) Banksy started as a freehand graffiti artist in 1990–1994[29] as one of Bristol's DryBreadZ Crew (DBZ), with two other artists known as Kato and Tes.[30] He was inspired by local artists and his work was part of the larger Bristol underground scene with Nick Walker, Inkie and 3D.[31][32] During this time he met Bristol photographer Steve Lazarides, who began selling Banksy's work, later becoming his agent.[33] By 2000 he had turned to the art of stencilling after realising how much less time it took to complete a work. He claims he changed to stencilling while hiding from the police under a rubbish lorry, when he noticed the stencilled serial number[34] and by employing this technique, he soon became more widely noticed for his art around Bristol and London.[34] He was the goalkeeper for the Easton Cowboys and Cowgirls football team in the 1990s, and toured with the club to Mexico in 2001.[35] Banksy's first known large wall mural was The Mild Mild West painted in 1997 to cover advertising of a former solicitors' office on Stokes Croft in Bristol. It depicts a teddy bear lobbing a Molotov cocktail at three riot police.[36]

Banksy's stencils feature striking and humorous images occasionally combined with slogans. The message is usually anti-war, anti-capitalist, or anti-establishment. Subjects often include rats, apes, policemen, soldiers, children, and the elderly.

In July 2011 one of Banksy's early works, Gorilla in a Pink Mask, which had been a prominent landmark on the exterior wall of a former social club in Eastville for over ten years, was unwittingly painted over after the premises became a Muslim cultural centre.[37][38]

Exhibitions (2002–2003) On 19 July 2002, Banksy's first Los Angeles exhibition debuted at 331⁄3 Gallery, a tiny Silver Lake venue owned by Frank Sosa and was on view until 18 August.[39][40] The exhibition, entitled Existencilism, "an Exhibition of Art, Lies and Deviousness" was curated by 331⁄3 Gallery, Malathion LA's Chris Vargas, Funk Lazy Promotions' Grace Jehan, and B+.[41] The flyer of the exhibition indicates an opening reception was followed by a performance by Money Mark with DJ's Jun, AL Jackson, Rhettmatic, J.Rocc, Coleman.[39] Some of the paintings exhibited included Smiley Copper H (2002), Leopard and Barcode (2002), Bomb Hugger (2002), and Love is in the Air (2002).[40][42]

Banksy mural in Bethlehem In 2003, at an exhibition called Turf War, held in a London warehouse, Banksy painted on animals. At the time he gave one of his very few interviews, to the BBC's Nigel Wrench.[43] Although the RSPCA declared the conditions suitable, an animal rights activist chained herself to the railings in protest.[44] An example of his subverted paintings is Monet's Water Lily Pond, adapted to include urban detritus such as litter and a shopping trolley floating in its reflective waters; another is Edward Hopper's Nighthawks, redrawn to show that the characters are looking at a British football hooligan, dressed only in his Union Flag underpants, who has just thrown an object through the glass window of the café. These oil paintings were shown at a twelve-day exhibition in Westbourne Grove, London in 2005.[45]

Banksy, along with Shepard Fairey, Dmote, and others, created work at a warehouse exhibition in Alexandria, Sydney, for Semi-Permanent in 2003. Approximately 1,500 people attended.

A stencil of Charles Manson in a prison suit, hitchhiking to anywhere, Archway, London £10 notes to Barely Legal (2004–2006) In August 2004, Banksy produced a quantity of spoof British £10 notes[46] replacing the picture of the Queen's head with Diana, Princess of Wales's head and changing the text "Bank of England" to "Banksy of England". Someone threw a large wad of these into a crowd at Notting Hill Carnival that year, which some recipients then tried to spend in local shops. These notes were also given with invitations to a Santa's Ghetto exhibition by Pictures on Walls. The individual notes have since been selling on eBay. A wad of the notes was also thrown over a fence and into the crowd near the NME signing tent at the Reading Festival. A limited run of 50 signed posters containing ten uncut notes was also produced and sold by Pictures on Walls for £100 each to commemorate the death of Princess Diana. One of these sold in October 2007 at Bonhams auction house in London for £24,000.[47]

The reproduction of images of the banknotes classifies as a criminal offence (s.18 Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981). In 2016, the American Numismatic Society received an email from a Reproductions Officer at the Bank of England, which brought attention to the illegality of publishing photos of the banknotes on their website without prior permission.[48] The Bank of England holds the copyright over all its banknotes.[49]

In August 2005, Banksy, on a trip to the Palestinian territories, created nine images on the Israeli West Bank wall.[50]

There are crimes that become innocent and even glorious through their splendour, number and excess.

Banksy[51] Banksy held an exhibition called Barely Legal, billed as a "three-day vandalised warehouse extravaganza" in Los Angeles, on the weekend of 16 September 2006. The exhibition featured a live "elephant in a room", painted in a pink and gold floral wallpaper pattern, which, according to leaflets handed out at the exhibition, was intended to draw attention to the issue of world poverty. Although the Animal Services Department had issued a permit for the elephant, after complaints from animal rights activists, the elephant appeared unpainted on the final day. Its owners rejected claims of mistreatment and said that the elephant had done "many, many movies. She's used to makeup."[52] Banksy also made artwork displaying Queen Victoria as a lesbian and satirical pieces that incorporated art made by Andy Warhol and Leonardo da Vinci.[53]

Graffiti by Banksy on the West Bank barrier Banksy effect (2006–2007)

Naked Man image by Banksy, on the wall of a sexual health clinic[54] in Park Street, Bristol. Following popular support, the City Council has decided it will be allowed to remain. (wider view) After Christina Aguilera bought an original of Queen Victoria as a lesbian and two prints for £25,000,[55] on 19 October 2006, a set of Kate Moss paintings sold in Sotheby's London for £50,400, setting an auction record for Banksy's work. The six silk-screen prints, featuring the model painted in the style of Andy Warhol's Marilyn Monroe pictures, sold for five times their estimated price. Their stencil of a green Mona Lisa with real paint dripping from her eyes sold for £57,600 at the same auction.[56] In December, journalist Max Foster coined the phrase, "the Banksy effect", to illustrate how interest in other street artists was growing on the back of Banksy's success.[57]

On 21 February 2007, Sotheby's auction house in London auctioned three works, reaching the highest ever price for a Banksy work at auction: over £102,000 for Bombing Middle England. Two of his other graffiti works, Girl with Balloon and Bomb Hugger, sold for £37,200 and £31,200 respectively, which were well above their estimated prices.[58] The following day's auction saw a further three Banksy works reach soaring prices: Ballerina with Action Man Parts reached £96,000; Glory sold for £72,000; Untitled (2004) sold for £33,600; all significantly above price estimates.[59] To coincide with the second day of auctions, Banksy updated his website with a new image of an auction house scene showing people bidding on a picture that said, "I Can't Believe You Morons Actually Buy This Shit."[60]

In February 2007, the owners of a house with a Banksy mural on the side in Bristol decided to sell the house through Red Propeller art gallery after offers fell through because the prospective buyers wanted to remove the mural. It is listed as a mural that comes with a house attached.[61]

In April 2007, Transport for London painted over Banksy's image of a scene from Quentin Tarantino's film Pulp Fiction (1994), featuring Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta clutching bananas instead of guns. Although the image was very popular, Transport for London claimed that the graffiti created "a general atmosphere of neglect and social decay which in turn encourages crime" and their staff are "professional cleaners not professional art critics".[62] Banksy painted the same site again and, initially, the actors were portrayed as holding real guns instead of bananas, but they were adorned with banana costumes. Sometime later, Banksy made a tribute artwork over this second Pulp Fiction work. The tribute was for 19-year-old British graffiti artist Ozone who, along with fellow artist Wants, was hit by an underground train in Barking, east London on 12 January 2007.[63] Banksy depicted an angel wearing a bullet-proof vest holding a skull. He also wrote a note on his website saying:

Ozone's Angel The last time I hit this spot I painted a crap picture of two men in banana costumes waving handguns. A few weeks later a writer called Ozone completely dogged it and then wrote "If it's better next time I'll leave it" in the bottom corner. When we lost Ozone we lost a fearless graffiti writer and as it turns out a pretty perceptive art critic. Ozone—rest in peace.[64]

On 27 April 2007, a new record high for the sale of Banksy's work was set with the auction of the work Space Girl and Bird fetching £288,000 (US$576,000) around 20 times the estimate at Bonhams of London.[65] On 21 May 2007 Banksy gained the award for Art's Greatest living Briton. Banksy, as expected, did not turn up to collect his award and continued with his anonymous status. On 4 June 2007, it was reported that Banksy's The Drinker had been stolen.[66][67] In October 2007, most of his works offered for sale at Bonhams auction house in London sold for more than twice their reserve price.[68]

Banksy has published a "manifesto" on his website.[69] The text of the manifesto is credited as the diary entry of British Lieutenant Colonel Mervin Willett Gonin, DSO, which is exhibited in the Imperial War Museum. It describes how a shipment of lipstick to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp immediately after its liberation at the end of World War II helped the internees regain their humanity. However, as of 18 January 2008, Banksy's Manifesto has been replaced with Graffiti Heroes No. 03, which describes Peter Chappell's graffiti quest of the 1970s that worked to free George Davis from imprisonment.[69] By 12 August 2009 he was relying on Emo Philips' "When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realised God doesn't work that way, so I stole one and prayed for forgiveness." A small number of Banksy's works can be seen in the movie Children of Men, including a stenciled image of two policemen kissing and another stencil of a child looking down a shop.[70]

Banksy, who "is not represented by any of the commercial galleries that sell his work second hand (including Lazarides Ltd, Andipa Gallery, Bank Robber, Dreweatts etc.)",[71] claims that the exhibition at Vanina Holasek Gallery in New York City (his first major exhibition in that city) is unauthorised. The exhibition featured 62 of their paintings and prints.[72]

Banksy Swinger in New Orleans 2008 In March, Nathan Wellard and Maev Neal, a couple from Norfolk, UK, made headlines in Britain when they decided to sell their mobile home that contains a 30-foot mural, entitled Fragile Silence, done by Banksy a decade prior to his rise to fame.[73] According to Nathan Wellard, Banksy had asked the couple if he could use the side of their home as a "large canvas", to which they agreed. In return for the "canvas", the Bristol stencil artist gave them two free tickets to the Glastonbury Festival. The mobile home purchased by the couple 11 years earlier for £1,000, was priced at £500,000.[74]

Also in March 2008, a stencilled graffiti work appeared on Thames Water tower in the middle of the Holland Park roundabout, and it was widely attributed to Banksy. It was of a child painting the tag "Take this—Society!" in bright orange. London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham spokesman, Councillor Greg Smith branded the art as vandalism, and ordered its immediate removal, which was carried out by H&F council workmen within three days.[75]

In late August 2008, marking the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and the associated levee failure disaster, Banksy produced a series of works in New Orleans, Louisiana, mostly on buildings derelict since the disaster.[76]

Work on building in the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans, August 2008 A stencil painting attributed to Banksy appeared at a vacant petrol station in the Ensley neighbourhood of Birmingham, Alabama on 29 August as Hurricane Gustav approached the New Orleans area. The painting, depicting a hooded member of the Ku Klux Klan hanging from a noose, was quickly covered with black spray paint and later removed altogether.[77] His first official exhibition in New York City, The Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill, opened 5 October 2008. The animatronic pets in the store window include a mother hen watching over her baby Chicken McNuggets as they peck at a barbecue sauce packet, and a rabbit putting makeup on in a mirror.[78]

The Westminster City Council stated in October 2008 that the work One Nation Under CCTV, painted in April 2008 would be painted over as it was graffiti. The council said it would remove any graffiti, regardless of the reputation of its creator, and specifically stated that Banksy "has no more right to paint graffiti than a child". Robert Davis, the chairman of the council planning committee told The Times newspaper: "If we condone this then we might as well say that any kid with a spray can is producing art."[79] The work was painted over in April 2009. In December 2008, The Little Diver, a Banksy image of a diver in a duffle coat in Melbourne, Australia, was destroyed. The image had been protected by a sheet of clear perspex; however, silver paint was poured behind the protective sheet and later tagged with the words "Banksy woz ere". The image was almost completely obliterated.[80]

The Cans Festival (2008) In London, over the weekend 3–5 May 2008, Banksy hosted an exhibition called The Cans Festival. It was situated on Leake Street, a road tunnel formerly used by Eurostar underneath London Waterloo station. Graffiti artists with stencils were invited to join in and paint their own artwork, as long as it did not cover anyone else's.[81] Banksy invited artists from around the world to exhibit their works.[82]

2009

The location of the damaged 1985 graffiti by Robbo in Camden, London allegedly painted over by Banksy and subsequently painted over by Robbo in retaliation. In May 2009, Banksy parted company with agent Steve Lazarides and announced that Pest Control,[83] the handling service who act on his behalf, would be the only point of sale for new works. On 13 June 2009, the Banksy vs Bristol Museum show opened at Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery, featuring more than 100 works of art, including animatronics and installations; it is his largest exhibition yet, featuring 78 new works.[84][85] Reaction to the show was positive, with over 8,500 visitors to the show on the first weekend.[86] Over the course of the twelve weeks, the exhibition was visited over 300,000 times.[87] In September 2009, a Banksy work parodying the Royal Family was partially destroyed by Hackney Council after they served an enforcement notice for graffiti removal to the former address of the property owner. The mural had been commissioned for the 2003 Blur single "Crazy Beat" and the property owner, who had allowed it to be painted, was reported to have been in tears when she saw it was being painted over.[88]

In December 2009, Banksy marked the end of the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference by painting four murals on global warming. One included the phrase, "I don't believe in global warming;" the words were submerged in water.[89] A feud and graffiti war between Banksy and King Robbo broke out when Banksy allegedly painted over one of Robbo's tags. The feud has led to many of Banksy's works being altered by graffiti writers.[90]

Exit Through the Gift Shop and United States (2010) The world premiere of the film Exit Through the Gift Shop occurred at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, on 24 January. He created 10 street artworks around Park City and Salt Lake City to tie in with the screening.[91] In February, The Whitehouse public house in Liverpool, England, was sold for £114,000 at auction. The side of the building has an image of a giant rat by Banksy.[92]

In March 2010, a modified version of the work Forgive Us Our Trespassing–a kneeling boy with a spray-painted halo–was displayed at London Bridge Station on a poster. This version of the work did not possess the halo due to its stylistic nature and the prevalence of graffiti in the underground.[93] After a few days the halo was repainted by a graffitist, so Transport for London disposed of the poster.[93][94]

Banksy paints over the line between aesthetics and language, then stealthily repaints it in the unlikeliest of places. His works, whether he stencils them on the streets, sells them in exhibitions or hangs them in museums on the sly, are filled with wit and metaphors that transcend language barriers.

Shepard Fairey in Time magazine on Banksy's entry in the Time 100 list, April 2010[95] In April, to coincide with the premiere of Exit Through the Gift Shop in San Francisco, five of his works appeared in various parts of the city.[96] Banksy reportedly paid a San Francisco Chinatown building owner $50 for the use of their wall for one of his stencils.[97] In May 2010, seven new Banksy works of art appeared in Toronto, Canada,[98] though most have been subsequently painted over or removed.

In May, to coincide with the premiere of Exit Through the Gift Shop in Royal Oak, Banksy visited the Detroit area and left his mark in several places in Detroit and Warren.[99] Shortly after, his work depicting a little boy holding a can of red paint next to the words "I remember when all this was trees" was excavated by the 555 Nonprofit Gallery and Studios. They claim that they do not intend to sell the work but plan to preserve it and display it at their Detroit gallery.[100] There was also an attempted removal of one of the Warren works known as Diamond Girl.[101] While in the United States, Banksy also completed a painting in Chinatown, Boston, known as Follow Your Dreams.[102]

In late January 2011, Exit Through the Gift Shop was nominated for a 2010 Oscar for Best Documentary Feature.[103] Banksy released a statement about the nomination, stating, "This is a big surprise... I don't agree with the concept of award ceremonies, but I'm prepared to make an exception for the ones I'm nominated for. The last time there was a naked man covered in gold paint in my house, it was me."[104] Leading up to the Oscars, Banksy blanketed Los Angeles with street art. Many people speculated if Banksy would show up at the Oscars in disguise and make a surprise appearance if he won the Oscar. Exit Through the Gift Shop did not win the award, which went to Inside Job. In early March 2011, Banksy responded to the Oscars with an artwork in Weston-super-Mare, UK, of a little girl holding the Oscar and pouting. Many people think that it is about 15-month-old Lara, who dropped and damaged her father's (The King's Speech co-producer Simon Egan) Oscar statue.[105] Exit Through the Gift Shop was broadcast on British public television station Channel 4 on 13 August 2011.

Banksy was credited with the opening couch gag for the 2010 The Simpsons episode "MoneyBart", depicting people working in deplorable conditions and using endangered or mythical animals to make both the episodes cel-by-cel and the merchandise connected with the program.[106] His name appears several times throughout the episode's opening sequence, spray-painted on assorted walls and signs. Fox sanitised parts of the opening "for taste" and to make it less grim. In January 2011, Banksy published the original storyboard on its website.[107] According to Banksy, the storyboard "led to delays, disputes over broadcast standards and a threatened walkout by the animation department." Executive director Al Jean jokingly said, "This is what you get when you outsource."[106]

2011

Banksy art in Bethlehem, 2007 In May 2011 Banksy released a lithographic print which showed a smoking petrol bomb contained in a 'Tesco Value' bottle. This followed a long-running campaign by locals against the opening of a Tesco Express supermarket in Banksy's home city of Bristol. Violent clashes had taken place between police and demonstrators in the Stokes Croft area. Banksy produced the poster ostensibly to raise money for local groups in the Stokes Croft area and to raise money for the legal defence of those arrested during the riots. The posters were sold exclusively at the Bristol Anarchists Bookfair in Stokes Croft for £5 each.

In December, he unveiled Cardinal Sin at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool. The bust, which replaces a priest's face with a "pixelated" effect, was a statement on the child abuse scandal in the Catholic Church.[108]

2012 In May his Parachuting Rat, painted in Melbourne in the late 1990s, was accidentally destroyed by plumbers installing new pipes.[109]

In July, prior to the 2012 Olympic Games Banksy posted photographs of paintings with an Olympic theme on his website but did not disclose their location.[110][111]

2013 On 18 February, BBC News reported that a recent Banksy mural, known as the Slave Labour mural portraying a young child sewing Union Flag bunting (created around the time of the Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II) had been removed from the side of a Poundland store in Wood Green, north London, and soon appeared for sale in Fine Art Auctions Miami's catalogue (a US auction site based in Florida). News of this had reportedly caused "lots of anger" in the local community and is considered by some to be a theft. Fine Art Auctions Miami had rejected claims of theft, saying it had signed a contract with a "well-known collector" and that "everything was above board"; despite this, the local Councillor for Wood Green campaigned for the work's return.[112]

On the scheduled day of the auction, Fine Art Auctions Miami announced that it had withdrawn the work of art from the sale.[113]

On 11 May, BBC News reported that the same Banksy mural was up for auction again in Covent Garden by the Sincura Group. The auction was scheduled to take place in June, and was expected to fetch up to £450,000.[114] On 24 September, after over a year since his previous piece, a new mural went up on his website along with the subtitle Better Out Than In.

Better Out Than In (2013) Main article: Better Out Than In On 1 October 2013, Banksy began a one-month "show on the streets of New York [City]", for which he opened a separate website[115] and granted an interview to The Village Voice via his publicist.[116]

A pop-up boutique of about 25 spray-art canvases appeared on Fifth Avenue near Central Park on 12 October. Tourists were able to buy Banksy art for just $60 each. In a note posted to his website, the artist wrote: "Please note this was a one-off. The stall will not be there again." The BBC estimated that the street-stall art pieces could be worth as much as $31,000. The booth was manned by an unknown elderly man who went about four hours before making a sale, yawning and eating lunch as people strolled by without a second glance at the work. Banksy chronicled the surprise sale in a video posted to his website noting, "Yesterday I set up a stall in the park selling 100% authentic original signed Banksy canvases. For $60 each."[117][118][119] Two of the canvasses sold at a July 2014 auction for $214,000.[120]

Asked about the artist's presence in New York, then-New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who had led a citywide graffiti cleanup operation in 2002, said he didn't consider graffiti a form of art.[121] One creation was a fiberglass sculpture of Ronald McDonald and a real person, barefoot and in ragged clothes, shining the oversized shoes of Ronald McDonald. The sculpture was unveiled in Queens but moved outside a different McDonald's around the city every day.[122][123][124] Other works included a YouTube video showing what appears to be footage of jihadist militants shooting down an animated Dumbo; travelling installations that toured the city including a slaughterhouse delivery truck full of stuffed animals and a waterfall; and a modified painting donated to a charity shop which was later sold in an online auction for $615,000.[125][126] Banksy also posted a mock-up of a New York Times op-ed attacking the design of the One World Trade Center after the Times rejected his submission.[127] The residency in New York concluded on 31 October 2013;[125][128] many of the pieces, though, were either vandalised, removed or stolen.[129]

2015 "Banksy in Gaza" clip In February 2015 Banksy published a 2-minute video titled Make this the year YOU discover a new destination about his trip to Gaza Strip. During the visit he painted a few artworks including a kitten on the remains of a house destroyed by an Israeli air strike ("I wanted to highlight the destruction in Gaza by posting photos on my website—but on the internet people only look at pictures of kittens") and a swing hanging off a watchtower. In a statement to The New York Times his publicist said,

I don't want to take sides. But when you see entire suburban neighbourhoods reduced to rubble with no hope of a future—what you're really looking at is a vast outdoor recruitment centre for terrorists. And we should probably address this for all our sakes.[130]

Dismaland (2015), a "bemusement park" in Weston-super-Mare Dismaland Main article: Dismaland Banksy opened Dismaland, a large scale group show modelled on Disneyland on 21 August 2015. It lampooned the many disappointing temporary themed attractions in the UK at the time. Dismaland permanently closed on 27 September 2015. The "theme park" was located in Weston-super-Mare, United Kingdom.[131][132] According to the Dismaland website, artists represented on the show include Damien Hirst and Jenny Holzer.[133]

The Son of a Migrant from Syria Main article: The Son of a Migrant from Syria In December 2015, Banksy created several murals in the vicinity of Calais, France, including the so-called "Jungle" where migrants live as they attempt to enter the United Kingdom. One of the pieces, The Son of a Migrant from Syria, depicts Steve Jobs as a migrant.[134]

2017 Walled Off Hotel Main article: The Walled Off Hotel In 2017, marking the 100th anniversary of the British control of Palestine, Banksy financed the creation of the Walled Off Hotel in Bethlehem. This hotel is open to the public and contains rooms designed by Banksy, Sami Musa, and Dominique Petrin, and each of the bedrooms face the wall. It also houses a contemporary art gallery.[135]

2018 Return to New York 2018 saw Banksy return to New York five years after his Better Out Than In residency. A trademark rat running around the circumference of a clock-face, dubbed Rat race, was torn down by developers within a week of it appearing on a former bank building at 101 West 14th Street,[136] but other works, including a mural of imprisoned Kurdish artist Zehra Doğan on the famed Bowery Wall and a series of others across Brooklyn, remain on display.[137]

Balloon Girl Shredding Main article: Love is in the Bin In October 2018, one of Banksy's works, Balloon Girl, was sold in an auction at Sotheby's in London for £1.04m. However, shortly after the gavel dropped and it was sold, an alarm sounded inside of the picture frame and the canvas passed through a shredder hidden within the frame, partially shredding the picture.[138] Banksy then posted an image of the shredding on Instagram captioned "Going, going, gone...".[139] After the sale, the auction house acknowledged that the self-destruction of the work was a prank by the artist.[140] The prank received wide news coverage around the world, with one newspaper stating that it was "quite possibly the biggest prank in art history."[138] Joey Syer, co-founder of an online platform facilitating art dealer sales,[141] told the Evening Standard: "The auction result will only propel this further and given the media attention this stunt has received, the lucky buyer would see a great return on the £1.02M they paid last night, this is now part of art history in its shredded state and we'd estimate Banksy has added at a minimum 50% to its value, possibly as high as being worth £2m+."[142] A man seen filming the shredding of the picture during its auction has been suggested to be Banksy.[143][144] Banksy has since released a video on how the shredder was installed into the frame and the shredding of the picture, explaining that he had surreptitiously fitted the painting with the shredder a few years previously, in case it ever went up for auction. To explain his rationale for destroying his own artwork, Banksy quoted Picasso: "The urge to destroy is also a creative urge".[145][146] (Although Banksy cited Picasso, this quote is usually attributed to Mikhail Bakunin.)[147] It is not known how the shredder was activated.[148] Banksy has released another video indicating that the painting was intended to be shredded completely. The video shows a sample painting completely shredded by the frame and says: "In rehearsals it worked every time...".[149]

The woman who won the bidding at the auction decided to go through with the purchase. The partially shredded work has been given a new title, Love is in the Bin, and it was authenticated by Banksy's authentication body Pest Control. Sotheby released a statement that said "Banksy didn't destroy an artwork in the auction, he created one," and called it "the first artwork in history to have been created live during an auction."[150][151] On 14 October 2021, the half-shredded painting was reported to have been sold for $25.4 million.[152]

Season's Greetings

Season's Greetings was created by Banksy in Port Talbot, Wales, in December 2018, and was quickly provided with a temporary protective covering to prevent vandalism. A two-sided graffiti piece, one side depicting a child tasting the falling snow, the other revealing that the snow is in fact smoke and embers from a dumpster fire, appeared on two walls of a steelworker's garage in Port Talbot in December.[153][154] Banksy then revealed that the painting was in fact his via an Instagram video soundtracked by the festive children's song 'Little Snowflake'.[155] Many fans of the artist went to see the painting and Plaid Cymru councillor for Aberavon, Nigel Thomas Hunt, stated that the town was "buzzing" with speculation that the work was Banksy's. The owner of the garage, Ian Lewis, said that he had lost sleep over fears that the image would be vandalised.[156] A plastic screen, partially funded by Michael Sheen, was installed to protect the mural, but was attacked by a "drunk halfwit".[157] Extra security guards were subsequently drafted to protect the graffiti piece.[158] In May 2019, the mural was moved to a gallery in the town's Ty'r Orsaf building.[159]

2019 Trademark dispute In early October 2019, Banksy opened a "pop-up shop" named Gross Domestic Product in Croydon, South London to strengthen his position in a trademark dispute with a greetings cards company who had challenged his trademark on the grounds that he was not using it. In a statement, Banksy said "A greetings cards company is contesting the trademark I hold to my art, and attempting to take custody of my name so they can sell their fake Banksy merchandise legally."[160] Mark Stephens, arts lawyer and founder of the Design and Artists Copyright Society, called the case a "ludicrous litigation" and is providing the artist legal advice. Stephens recommended opening the shop to Banksy on the grounds that it would show he is making use of his trademark, saying: "Because [Banksy] doesn't produce his own range of shoddy merchandise and the law is quite clear—if the trademark holder is not using the mark, then it can be transferred to someone who will."[161]

On 4 October 2019, greetings cards distributor Full Colour Black publicly revealed itself as the company involved in the trademark dispute whilst rejecting Banksy's claims as "entirely untrue". The company claimed it had contacted Banksy's lawyers several times to offer to pay royalties.[162]

On 14 September 2020, the European Union Intellectual Property Office ruled in favour of Full Colour Black in the trademark dispute over Banksy's infamous "Flower Thrower"[163] The European panel judges in (Full Colour Black Ltd v Pest Control Office Ltd [2020] E.T.M.R. 58) decided that Banksy's trademark was invalid as it had been filed in Bad Faith according to Regulation 2017/1001 art.59(1)(b).[164] The judges were not convinced that the opening of the artist's "pop-up shop" demonstrated a real intention to legitimise the trademark, condemning it as "inconsistent with the honest practices of the trade" [at 1141]. The artist's choice to be represented anonymously was not received well by the court either, noting that even if they found in favour of Banksy, legal rights could not be attributed to an unidentifiable person [1151]. However, counsel for the defence strongly argued that to reveal his identity would diminish the persona of the artist [at 1135]. Although not binding, the judges also referenced Banksy's previously critical statements about copyright, which contributed to the lack of sympathy for the artist's case [at 1144].

Record sale for Devolved Parliament Main article: Devolved Parliament (Banksy) In October 2019, Devolved Parliament, a 2009 painting by Banksy showing Members of Parliament depicted as chimpanzees in the House of Commons, sold at Sotheby's in London for just under £9.9 million. On Instagram, the artist said it was a "record price for a Banksy painting" and "shame I didn't still own it".[165] At 13 feet (4.0 m) wide it is Banksy's biggest known work on canvas. The auction house stated: "Regardless of where you sit in the Brexit debate, there's no doubt that this work is more pertinent now than it has ever been."[165]

2020 Valentine's Day On 13 February 2020, the Valentine's Banksy mural appeared on the side of a building in Bristol's Barton Hill neighbourhood, depicting a young girl firing a slingshot of real red flowers and leaves.[166] In the early hours of Valentine's Day (14 February), Banksy confirmed this was his work on his Instagram account and website.[167] The painting was defaced just days after appearing.[168]

Painting for Saints Banksy dedicated a painting titled Painting for Saints or Game Changer to NHS staff, and donated it to the University Hospital of Southampton during the global coronavirus pandemic in May 2020.[169] The painting was sold for £14.4m (£16.8m including buyer premium) on 23 March 2021, which is a record for an artwork by Banksy. The proceeds from the sale would benefit a number of NHS-related organisations and charities.[170]

2021

Escaping prisoner in at Reading Prison Escaping prisoner in Reading In March 2021, the image of an escaping prisoner appeared overnight on the side of Reading Prison.[171]

Two days later Banksy claimed the artwork. The former jail's next use had been disputed locally, some wanting it to be used as an arts hub, while developers proposed it could be sold to a housing developer.[172]

The escaping prisoner was said to resemble Oscar Wilde, who had been imprisoned in Reading Prison, with the "rope" as tied together bedsheets with a typewriter attached to the end.[172]

A Great British Spraycation Main article: A Great British Spraycation In August 2021, several Banksy artworks, collectively titled A Great British Spraycation, appeared in several East Anglian towns.[173][174]

Other notable artworks Banksy has claimed responsibility for a number of high-profile artworks, including the following:

At London Zoo, he climbed into the penguin enclosure and painted "We're bored of fish" in 7-foot-high (2.1 m) letters.[175] At London Zoo, he left the message "I want out. This place is too cold. Keeper smells. Boring, boring, boring." in the elephant enclosure.[176] In 2004, he placed the piece Banksus Militus Ratus into London's Natural History Museum.[177] In March 2005, he placed subverted artworks in the Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan as well as the Brooklyn Museum in Brooklyn.[178] In May 2005 Banksy's version of a primitive cave painting depicting a human figure hunting wildlife while pushing a shopping trolley was hung in gallery 49 of the British Museum, London.[179] In August 2005, Banksy painted nine images on the Israeli West Bank barrier, including an image of a ladder going up and over the wall and an image of children digging a hole through the wall.[50][180][181] In October 2005, Banksy designed six station IDs for Nickelodeon.[182] In April 2006, Banksy created a sculpture based on a crumpled red phone box with a pickaxe in its side, apparently bleeding, and placed it in a side street in Soho, London. It was later removed by Westminster Council."[183] In June 2006, Banksy created Well Hung Lover, an image of a naked man hanging out of a bedroom window on a wall visible from Park Street in central Bristol. The image sparked "a heated debate",[184] with the Bristol City Council leaving it up to the public to decide whether it should stay or go.[185] After an internet discussion in which 97% of the 500 people surveyed supported the stencil, the city council decided it would be left on the building.[184] The mural was later defaced with blue paint.[186] In August/September 2006, Banksy placed up to 500 copies of Paris Hilton's debut CD, Paris, in 48 different UK record stores with his own cover art and remixes by Danger Mouse. Music tracks were given titles such as "Why Am I Famous?", "What Have I Done?" and "What Am I For?". Several copies of the CD were purchased by the public before stores were able to remove them, some going on to be sold for as much as £750 on online auction websites such as eBay. The cover art depicted Hilton digitally altered to appear topless. Other pictures feature her with her chihuahua Tinkerbell's head replacing her own, and one of her stepping out of a luxury car, edited to include a group of homeless people, which included the caption "90% of success is just showing up."[187][188][189] In September 2006, Banksy dressed an inflatable doll in the manner of a Guantanamo Bay detainment camp prisoner (orange jumpsuit, black hood, and handcuffs) and then placed the figure within the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad ride at the Disneyland theme park in Anaheim, California.[190][191] He makes stickers (the Neighbourhood Watch subvert) and was responsible for the cover art of Blur's 2003 album Think Tank. In September 2007, Banksy covered a wall in Portobello Road with a French artist painting graffiti of Banksy's name.[192] In July 2012, in the run up to the London 2012 Olympic games he created several pieces based upon this event. One included an image of an athlete throwing a missile instead of a javelin, evidently taking a poke at the surface to air missile sites positioned in the Stratford area to defend the games.[193][194] In April 2014, he created a piece in Cheltenham, near the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) headquarters, which depicts three men wearing sunglasses and using listening devices to "snoop" on a telephone box, evidently criticising the recent Global surveillance disclosures of 2013. This was only confirmed by Banksy as his work later in June 2014.[195] This piece 'disappeared' on 20 August 2016 during renovations to the building it was on, and may have been destroyed.[196] In June 2016, a 14 ft painting of a child with a stick chasing a burning tyre was found in the Bridge Farm Primary School in Bristol with a letter from Banksy thanking the school for naming one of its houses after him. BBC News reported that a spokesman for Banksy confirmed that the artwork was genuine. In the letter, Banksy wrote that if the members of the school did not like the painting, they should add their own elements.[197][198] In May 2017, Banksy claimed the authorship of a giant Brexit mural, painted on a house in Dover (Kent)[199] Banksy's Dream Boat, originally made for the Dismaland exhibition, was donated to the NGO Help Refugees (now called Choose Love) to help raise funds for the charity. The artwork was displayed in Help Refugees' London Choose Love pop-up shop in the run-up to Christmas 2018, and members of the public could pay £2.00 to enter a competition to guess the weight of the piece. The person with the closest guess would win Dream Boat.[200] The 'guess-the-weight' competition was seen as 'deliberately school fair' in style.[201]

Near Bethlehem – 2005

The ''Grin Reaper''

The Girl with the Pierced Eardrum

Damaged artwork Main article: Works by Banksy that have been damaged or destroyed Many artworks by Banksy have been vandalised, painted over or destroyed.

In 2008, in Melbourne, paint was poured over a stencil of an old-fashioned diver wearing a trench coat.[202] In April 2010, the Melbourne City Council reported that they had inadvertently ordered private contractors to paint over a rat descending in a parachute adorning the wall of an old council building behind the Forum Theatre.

Many works that make up the Better Out Than In series in New York City have been defaced, some just hours after the piece was unveiled.[203][204] At least one defacement was identified as done by a competing artist, OMAR NYC, who spray-painted over Banksy's red mylar balloon piece in Red Hook.[205] OMAR NYC also defaced some of Banksy's work in May 2010.[206][207]

Technique

ATM attacking a girl, Rosebery Avenue, London, January 2008 Because of the secretive nature of Banksy's work and identity, it is uncertain what techniques he uses to generate the images in the stencils, though it is assumed he uses computers for some images due to the photographic quality of much of his work. He mentions in his book Wall and Piece that as he was starting to do graffiti, he was always either caught or could never finish the art in one sitting. He claims he changed to stencilling while hiding from the police under a rubbish lorry, when he noticed the stencilled serial number. He then devised a series of intricate stencils to minimise time and overlapping of the colour.

There exists a debate about the influence behind his work. Some critics claim Banksy was influenced by musician and graffiti artist 3D. Another source credits the artist's work to resemble that of French graffiti artist Blek le Rat. It is said that Banksy was inspired by their use of stencils, later taking this visual style and transforming it through modern political and social pieces.[208]

Banksy's stencils feature striking and humorous images occasionally combined with slogans. The message is usually anti-war, anti-capitalist or anti-establishment. Subjects often include rats, apes, policemen, soldiers, children, and the elderly.

In the broader art world, stencils are traditionally hand drawn or printed onto sheets of acetate or card, before being cut out by hand. This technique allows artists to paint quickly to protect their anonymity. There is dispute in the street art world over the legitimacy of stencils, with many artists criticising their use as "cheating".

In 2018, Banksy created a piece live, as it was being auctioned. The piece, titled, Love is in the Bin, was originally the painting, Girl with Balloon, before it was shredded at Sotheby's. While the bidding was going on, a shredder was activated from within the frame, and the piece was partially shredded, thus creating a new piece.

Political and social themes

Shop Until You Drop in Mayfair, London. Banksy has said "We can't do anything to change the world until capitalism crumbles. In the meantime we should all go shopping to console ourselves."[209] Part of a series on Anti-consumerism Theories and ideas Notable works Organizations and groups People Jean BaudrillardMauro BonaiutiNoam ChomskyErich FrommNicholas Georgescu-RoegenEdward GoldsmithPaul GoodmanAndré GorzIvan IllichSerge LatoucheDonella MeadowsPierre RabhiJohn RuskinE. F. SchumacherBernard StieglerHenry David Thoreau Related social movements See also vte Banksy once characterised graffiti as a form of underclass "revenge", or guerrilla warfare that allows an individual to snatch away power, territory and glory from a bigger and better equipped enemy.[51] Banksy sees a social class component to this struggle, remarking "If you don't own a train company then you go and paint on one instead."[51] Banksy's work has also shown a desire to mock centralised power, hoping that their work will show the public that although power does exist and works against you, that power is not terribly efficient and it can and should be deceived.[51]

Banksy's works have dealt with various political and social themes, including anti-war, anti-consumerism, anti-fascism, anti-imperialism, anti-authoritarianism, anarchism, nihilism, and existentialism. Additionally, the components of the human condition that his works commonly critique are greed, poverty, hypocrisy, boredom, despair, absurdity, and alienation.[210] Although Banksy's works usually rely on visual imagery and iconography to put forth their message, Banksy has made several politically related comments in various books. In summarising his list of "people who should be shot", he listed "Fascist thugs, religious fundamentalists, (and) people who write lists telling you who should be shot."[211] While facetiously describing his political nature, Banksy declared that "Sometimes I feel so sick at the state of the world, I can't even finish my second apple pie."[212]

Banksy's work has also critiqued the environmental impacts of big businesses. When speaking about his 2005 work Show me the Monet, Banksy explained:

“The vandalised paintings reflect life as it is now. We don’t live in a world like Constable’s Haywain anymore and, if you do, there is probably a travellers’ camp on the other side of the hill. The real damage done to our environment is not done by graffiti writers and drunken teenagers, but by big business… exactly the people who put gold-framed pictures of landscapes on their walls and try to tell the rest of us how to behave.”[213]

Show me the Monet repurposes Claude Monet's Bridge over a Pond of Water Lilies, with the inclusion of two shopping carts and an orange traffic cone. This painting was later sold for £7.5 million at Sotheby's Contemporary Evening Auction in 2020.[213]

During the 2017 United Kingdom general election, Banksy offered voters a free print if they cast a ballot against the Conservative candidates standing in the Bristol North West, Bristol West, North Somerset, Thornbury, Kingswood and Filton constituencies.[214] According to a note posted on Banksy's website, an emailed photo of a completed ballot paper showing it marked for a candidate other than the Conservative candidate would result in the voter being mailed a limited edition piece of Banksy art. On 5 June 2017 the Avon and Somerset Constabulary announced it had opened an investigation into Banksy for the suspected corrupt practice of bribery,[215] and the following day Banksy withdrew the offer stating "I have been warned by the Electoral Commission that the free print offer will invalidate the election result. So I regret to announce that this ill-conceived and legally dubious promotion has now been cancelled."[216]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Banksy referenced medical advice to self-isolate by creating an artwork in his bathroom.[217]

Philanthropy and activism Banksy has donated a number of works to promote various causes, such as Civilian Drone Strike, which was sold in 2017 at £205,000 to raise funds for Campaign Against Arms Trade and Reprieve. It was part of the exhibition 'Art the Arms Fair' set up in opposition to the DSEI arms fair.[218] In 2018, a sculpture titled Dream Boat, which was exhibited in Dismaland in 2015, was raffled off in aid of the NGO Help Refugees (now called Choose Love) for a minimum donation of £2 for every guesses of its weight in a pop-up Choose Love shop in Carnaby Street.[219] In 2002, he produced artwork for the Greenpeace campaign Save or Delete. He also provided works to support local causes; in 2013, a work titled The Banality of the Banality of Evil was sold for an undisclosed amount after a failed auction to support an anti-homelessness charity in New York,[220] In 2014, an artwork on a doorway titled Mobile Lovers was sold £403,000 to keep a youth club in Bristol open,[221][222] and he created merchandise for homeless charities in Bristol in 2019.[223]

Banksy has been producing a number of works and projects in support of the Palestinians since the mid-2000s, including The Walled Off Hotel in Bethlehem.[224][225][226][227] In July 2020, Banksy sold three paintings forming a triptych titled Mediterranean Sea View 2017, which raised £2.2 million for a hospital in Bethlehem. The paintings were original created for The Walled Off Hotel, and are Romantic-era paintings of the seashore that have been modified with images of lifebuoys and orange life jackets washed up on the shore, a reference to the European migrant crisis.[228]

Banksy gifted a painting titled Game Changer to a hospital in May 2020 as a tribute to National Health Service workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.[229] It was later sold for £14.4m in March 2021 to benefit a number of NHS-related organisations and charities.[170]

In August 2020, it was revealed that Banksy had privately funded a rescue boat to save refugees at risk in the Mediterranean Sea. The former French Navy boat, renamed after Louise Michel, has been painted pink with an image of a young girl holding a heart-shaped safety float.[230]

Criticism Peter Gibson, a spokesman for Keep Britain Tidy, asserts that Banksy's work is simple vandalism.[231] Another official for the same organisation stated: "We are concerned that Banksy's street art glorifies what is essentially vandalism."[60]

Banksy has also been long criticised for copying the work of Blek le Rat, who created the life-sized stencil technique in early 1980s Paris and used it to express a similar combination of political commentary and humorous imagery.[232] Blek has praised Banksy for his contribution to urban art,[232] but said in an interview for the documentary Graffiti Wars that some of Banksy's more derivative work makes him "angry", saying that "It's difficult to find a technique and style in art so when you have a style and you see someone else is taking it and reproducing it, you don't like that."[233]

Some have criticised the "obviousness" of Banksy's work and accused it of being "anarchy-lite" geared towards a middle class "hipster" audience. Much of this criticism came forward during his series of works in New York in 2013. Many New York street artists, such as TrustoCorp, criticised Banksy, and much of his work was defaced.[234][235] In his column for The Guardian, satirist Charlie Brooker wrote that Banksy's "work looks dazzlingly clever to idiots."[236]

Banksy was accused of being "inconsistent with honest practices" when trying to trademark his image of a protester throwing a bunch of flowers. The European Union trademark office threw out his trademark claim, "saying he had filed it in order to avoid using copyright laws, which are separate and would have required [him] to reveal his true identity. The ruling quoted from one of his books, in which he said 'copyright is for losers'."[237]

Books Banksy has published several books that contain photographs of his work accompanied by his own writings:

Banging Your Head Against a Brick Wall (2001) ISBN 978-0-9541704-0-0 Existencilism (2002) ISBN 978-0-9541704-1-7 Cut It Out (2004) ISBN 978-0-9544960-0-5 Pictures of Walls (2005) ISBN 978-0-9551946-0-3 Wall and Piece (2007) ISBN 978-1-84413-786-2 Banging Your Head Against a Brick Wall, Existencilism, and Cut It Out were a three-part self-published series of small booklets.[238]

Pictures of Walls is a compilation book of pictures of the work of other graffiti artists, curated and self-published by Banksy. None of them are still in print, or were ever printed in any significant number.[239]

Banksy's Wall and Piece compiled large parts of the images and writings in their original three book series, with heavy editing and some new material.[240] It was intended for mass print, and published by Random House.[240]

The writings in their original three books had numerous grammatical errors, and his writings in them often took a dark, and angry, and a (self-described) paranoid tone.[241][242][243] While the content in them was almost entirely kept in Wall and Piece, the stories were edited and generally took a less provocative tone, and the grammatical errors were resolved (presumably to make it suitable for mass market distribution).[240]

See also Biography portal icon Visual arts portal Above, American stencil artist with social and political themes List of urban artists Street installation BrandalismA non-fungible token (NFT) is a unique and non-interchangeable unit of data stored on a digital ledger (blockchain).[1] NFTs can be used to represent easily-reproducible items such as photos, videos, audio, and other types of digital files as unique items (analogous to a certificate of authenticity), and use blockchain technology to establish a verified and public proof of ownership. Copies of the original file are not restricted to the owner of the NFT, and can be copied and shared like any file. The lack of interchangeability (fungibility) distinguishes NFTs from blockchain cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin.

The first NFT project was launched in 2015 on the Ethereum blockchain, and interest grew with the rise of interest in crypto currencies. According to NonFungible.com, sales exceeded $2 billion in the first quarter of 2021, more than 20 times the volume of the previous quarter.[2] NFTs have drawn criticism with respect to the energy cost and carbon footprint associated with validating blockchain transactions.

Contents 1 Description 2 Uses 2.1 Digital art 2.2 Collectibles 2.3 Ticketing 2.4 Games 2.5 Virtual Worlds 2.6 Music 2.7 Film 2.8 Memes 2.9 Sports 2.10 Fashion 2.11 Pornography 2.12 Academia 2.13 Political Protest 2.14 Performance Art 3 Copyright 4 Standards in blockchains 4.1 Ethereum 4.2 FLOW 4.3 Tezos 4.4 Solana 5 History 5.1 Early history (2012–2017) 5.2 Public awareness (2017–2021) 5.3 NFT buying surge (2021–present) 6 Popular culture 6.1 Popularity 7 Criticism 7.1 Storage off-chain 7.2 Environmental concerns 7.3 Plagiarism and fraud 8 See also 9 References 10 External links Description An NFT is a unit of data stored on a digital ledger, called a blockchain, which can be sold and traded. The NFT can be associated with a particular digital or physical asset (such as a file or a physical object) and a license to use the asset for a specified purpose.[3] NFTs (and the associated license to use, copy or display the underlying asset) can be traded and sold on digital markets.[4]

NFTs function like cryptographic tokens, but, unlike cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, NFTs are not mutually interchangeable, hence not fungible. While all bitcoins are equal, each NFT may represent a different underlying asset and thus have a different value.[5] NFTs are created when blockchains string records of cryptographic hash, a set of characters identifying a set of data, onto previous records therefore creating a chain of identifiable data blocks.[6] This cryptographic transaction process ensures the authentication of each digital file by providing a digital signature that is used to track NFT ownership.[6] However, data links that point to details like where the art is stored can die.[7]

Uses

This image, Hashmask 15753 (1 of 16,384) by "Suum Cuique Labs GmbH", sold with an NFT on the Ethereum blockchain. The unique identity and ownership of an NFT is verifiable via the blockchain ledger.[8] Ownership of the NFT is often associated with a license to use the underlying digital asset, but generally does not confer copyright to the buyer, some agreements only grant a license for personal, non-commercial use, while other licenses also allow commercial use of the underlying digital asset.[9]

Digital art

Everydays – The First 5000 Days, by Mike Winkelmann,sold for US$69.3 million in 2021 Digital art was an early use case for NFTs, because of the ability of blockchain technology to assure the unique signature and ownership of NFTs.[10] The digital artwork entitled "Everydays – The First 5000 Days", by artist Mike Winkelmann, also known as Beeple, sold for US$69.3 million in 2021.[4][11] The purchase resulted in the third-highest auction price achieved for a living artist, after Jeff Koons and David Hockney, respectively.

Another Beeple piece entitled "Crossroad", consisting of a 10-second video showing animated pedestrians walking past a figure of Donald J. Trump, sold for US$6.6 million at Nifty Gateway, an online cryptocurrency marketplace for digital art.[12][13]

A 3D-rendered model of a home named "Mars House", created by artist Krista Kim, was sold as a piece of digital real estate on the NFT market for over US$500,000.[14]

Erwin Wurm released a NFT as one of the first already internationally renowned artist in August 2021.[15] The work "Breathe In, Breathe Out" was released by Berlin-based König gallery's website MISA 20 years after Wurm's first Fat Car. The sequence shows a loop of a seemingly breathing Porsche 911.[16][17][18]

Curio Cards, a digital set of 30 unique cards considered the first NFT art collectibles on the Ethereum blockchain,[19] sold for $1.2 million at Christie's Post-War to Present auction.[20] The lot included the card "17b," a rare digital "misprint" (a series of which were made by mistake).[21]

Collectibles NFTs can represent digital collectibles like physical card collections, however in a completely digital format. In February 2021, a LeBron James slam dunk NFT card on the NBA Top Shot platform sold for $208,000.[22]

Ticketing Tickets, for any type of event, have been suggested as a use case for NFTs.[23][24][25] One such use case is the possibility for artists to receive royalties on resales. Another one would be a more intimate relationship between fans and artists.[26]

Games NFTs can also be used to represent in-game assets, such as digital plots of land, which are controlled by the user instead of the game developer. NFTs allow assets to be traded on third-party marketplaces without permission from the game developer.

In October 2021, one of the two largest gaming platforms Steam banned applications that make use of blockchain technology or use NFTs to exchange value or game artifacts[27] while Epic Games said they would allow the use of NFT technology, but only as curated by Epic, for age-appropriate and legal compliance with laws.[28]

Virtual Worlds Community NFTs such as "Bored Ape Yacht Club" and "Pudgy Penguins" entitles token holders to benefits, including membership entry to a private Discord server by validating the NFT exists in the wallet against entry.[29][30]

Described as the Metaverse, virtual worlds such as Decentraland, Sandbox, Star Atlas, CryptoVoxels, and Somnium Space allow users to create galleries to show off NFT art, clothes, real estate and attend live events with friends online. They use NFTs to auction off limited objects such as virtual land. The open standards means users can seamlessly transact and bring external NFT objects onto their purchased land. In June 2021, a plot of virtual land sized 16 acres on Decentraland was sold for $913,228.20.[31]

Music Blockchain and the technology enabling the network have given the opportunity for musicians to tokenize and publish their work as non-fungible tokens. This has extended the list of options for musicians and artists alike to monetize and profit from their music as well as other content surrounding the themes of the music and the artists' public image. Additionally, NFTs have provided the opportunity for artists and touring musicians to recuperate lost income due to the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic which resulted in music industry revenues falling nearly 85%.[32]

NFTs were utilized by artists to increase revenue during the COVID-19 pandemic. In February 2021, NFTs reportedly generated around $25 million within the music industry (in an industry with annual revenue of over $20 billion or .125%).[33] On February 28, 2021, electronic dance musician 3LAU sold a collection of 33 NFTs for a total of $11.7 million to commemorate the three-year anniversary of his Ultraviolet album.[34][35] On March 3, 2021, rock band Kings of Leon became the first to announce the release of a new album, When You See Yourself, in the form of an NFT which generated a reported $2 million in sales.[36] Other musicians that have used NFTs include American rapper Lil Pump,[37][38][39] visual artist Shepard Fairey in collaboration with record producer Mike Dean,[40] and rapper Eminem.[41]

Film In May 2018, 20th Century Fox partnered with Atom Tickets and released limited-edition Deadpool 2 digital posters to promote the film. They were available from Opensea.io and the GFT exchange.[42][43] In March 2021 Adam Benzine's 2015 documentary Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah became the first motion picture and documentary film to be auctioned as an NFT[44][45] via the Rarible platform.[46]

In 2021, an NFT associated with the score of the movie Triumph, composed by Gregg Leonard, was minted as the first NFT for a feature film score.[47]

Other projects in the film industry using NFTs include the announcement that an exclusive NFT artwork collection will be released for Godzilla vs. Kong[48] and director Kevin Smith announcing in April 2021 that his forthcoming horror movie Killroy Was Here would be released as an NFT.[49] The upcoming 2021 film Zero Contact, directed by Rick Dugdale and starring Anthony Hopkins, will also be released as an NFT.[50][51]

Memes A number of internet memes have been associated with NFTs, which were minted and sold by their creators or by their subjects.[52] Examples include Doge, an image of a Shiba Inu dog whose NFT was sold for $4 million in June 2021,[53] as well as Charlie Bit My Finger,[54] Nyan Cat[55] and Disaster Girl.[56]

Sports NFTs have also been used in sports, in September 2019, NBA player Spencer Dinwiddie tokenized his contract so that others can invest into it.[57][58] In addition, Dapper Labs, a blockchain technology-based company, has collaborated with the NBA to create "NBA Top Shot", a marketplace for digital highlight clips.[12]

Fashion In 2019, Nike acquired a patent that allows for blockchain technology to attach cryptographically secured digital assets in the form of NFTs to physical products, such as a pair of sneakers, under the name "CryptoKicks".[59][60]

Pornography Some porn stars have also tokenized their pornographic work, allowing for the sale of unique content for their customers, though hostility from NFT marketplaces towards pornographic material has presented significant drawbacks for creators.[61][62]

Academia In May 2021, UC Berkeley announced that it would be auctioning NFTs for the patent disclosures for two Nobel Prize-winning inventions: CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing and cancer immunotherapy.[63] The university will continue to own the patents for these inventions, as the NFTs relate only to the university patent disclosure form, an internal form used by the university for researchers to disclose inventions.[63] The NFTs were sold on June 8, 2021 for 22 ETH (ca. $55,000).[64]

Political Protest The first credited political protest NFT ("Destruction of Nazi Monument Symbolizing Contemporary Lithuania") was a video filmed by Professor Stanislovas Tomas on April 8th, 2019 and minted on March 29th, 2021. In the video, Tomas destroys a state-sponsored Lithuanian plaque locate on the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences honoring Nazi war criminal Jonas Noreika with a sledgehammer.[65][66]

Performance Art In March, 2021, Injective Protocol (through the name BurntBanksy) destroyed a $95,000 original screen print entitled "Morons" from the famous English graffiti artist Banksy as an act of performance art which they minted and sold as a video NFT.[67] According to the performance artist, the act was a way to transfer a physical work of art to the NFT space.[68]

Copyright Ownership of an NFT does not inherently grant copyright to whatever digital asset the token represents.[69][70] While someone may sell an NFT representing their work, the buyer will not necessarily receive copyright privileges when ownership of the NFT is changed and so the original owner is allowed to create more NFTs of the same work.[71][72] In that sense, an NFT is merely a proof of ownership that is separate from a copyright.[70][73] According to legal scholar Rebecca Tushnet, "In one sense, the purchaser acquires whatever the art world thinks they have acquired. They definitely do not own the copyright to the underlying work unless it is explicitly transferred."[74] In practice, NFT purchasers do not generally acquire the copyright of the underlying artwork.[75]

Standards in blockchains Specific token standards have been created to support various blockchain use-cases. These include the Ethereum ERC-721 standard of CryptoKitties, and the more recent ERC-1155 standard.[76] The FLOW and Bitcoin Cash blockchains support NFTs.[77][78]

Ethereum ERC-721[76] was the first standard for representing non-fungible digital assets on the Ethereum blockchain. ERC-721 is an inheritable Solidity smart contract standard, meaning that developers can create new ERC-721-compliant contracts by importing them from the OpenZeppelin library. ERC-721 provides core methods that allow tracking the owner of a unique identifier, as well as a permissioned way for the owner to transfer the asset to others.[79]

The ERC-1155 standard[76] offers "semi-fungibility", as well as providing a superset of ERC-721 functionality (meaning that an ERC-721 asset could be built using ERC-1155). Unlike ERC-721 where a unique ID represents a single asset, the unique ID of an ERC-1155 token represent a class of assets, and there is an additional quantity field to represent the amount of the class that a particular wallet has.[80] The assets under the same class are interchangeable, and the user can transfer any amount of assets to others.[80]

FLOW The FLOW blockchain which uses proof of stake consensus model supports NFTs, for example NBA Top Shot is run on the FLOW blockchain. Cryptokitties plans to switch from Ethereum to FLOW in the future.[77]

Tezos Tezos is a blockchain network that operates on proof of stake and supports the sale of NFT art.[81]

Solana The Solana blockchain also supports non-fungible tokens.[82]

History Early history (2012–2017)

Presentation of Etheria at DEVCON 1. November 13, 2015. The first one-off NFT avant la lettre was minted on May 2, 2014, by Kevin McCoy, in preparation to the Seven on Seven conference at the New Museum in New York City.[83] The experiment of creating a "monetized graphics" live at the conference on May 3rd represented the second time a non-fungible, tradable blockchain marker was explicitly, via on-chain metadata (enabled by Namecoin), linked to a unique work of art, and the first time ever it was sold,[84] standing in stark contrast to the multi-unit, fungible, metadata-less "colored coins" of other blockchains and Counterparty.

In October 2015, the first fully-fledged NFT project, Etheria, was launched and demonstrated live at DEVCON 1, Ethereum's first developer conference, in London, UK, just three months after the launch of the Ethereum blockchain itself. Most of Etheria's 457 purchasable and tradable hexagonal tiles went unsold for more than 5 years until March 13, 2021, when renewed interest in NFTs sparked a buying frenzy. Within 24 hours, all tiles of the current version and a prior version, each hardcoded to 1 ETH ($0.43 cents at the time of launch), were sold for a total of $1.4 million.[85]

Public awareness (2017–2021) In 2017 the Ethereum blockchain began gaining prominence over bitcoin based token platforms, largely due to having token creation and storage built into its blockchain; this eliminated the need for third-party platforms such as Counterparty. Furthermore, the company[clarification needed] coined the term "non-fungible token".[citation needed] Also in 2017, the American studio Larva Labs released CryptoPunks, a project to trade unique cartoon characters, on the Ethereum blockchain.[86][87][88] In late 2017, another project called CryptoKitties where players adopt and trade virtual cats was released and quickly went viral, raising a $12.5 million investment and some kitties were selling for over $100,000.[89][90][91]

In 2018, Decentraland, a blockchain-based virtual world which first sold its tokens in August 2017, raised $26 million in an initial coin offering, and had a $20 million internal economy as of September 2018.[92][93] Following CryptoKitties' success, another similar NFT-based online game Axie Infinity was launched in March 2018, which then proceeded to become the most expensive NFT collection in May 2021.

In 2019, Nike patented a system called CryptoKicks that would use NFTs to verify the authenticity of physical sneakers and give a virtual version of the shoe to the customer.[94]

In early 2020, the developer of CryptoKitties, Dapper Labs, released the beta version of NBA TopShot, a project to sell tokenized collectibles of NBA highlights.[95] The project was built on top of Flow, a newer and more efficient blockchain compared to Ethereum.[77] Later that year, the project was released to the public and reported over $230 million in gross sales as of February 28, 2021.[96]

The NFT market experienced rapid growth during 2020, with its value tripling to $250 million.[97] In the first three months of 2021, more than $200 million were spent on NFTs.[98]

NFT buying surge (2021–present) In 2021, interest in NFTs increased. Blockchains such as Ethereum, Flow, and Tezos established specific standards to ensure that the digital item represented are authentically one-of-a-kind. NFTs are now being used to commodify digital assets in art, music, sports, and other popular entertainment, with most NFTs part of the Ethereum blockchain, while other blockchains can implement their own versions of NFTs.[99] A number of high-profile sales were made just in the first few months of the year.[100] In February 2021, the musician Grimes sold around $6 million worth of tokens representing digital art on Nifty Gateway.[101] Later that month, an NFT representing the meme animation Nyan Cat was sold in an Internet marketplace for just under $600,000.[102] On February 28, 2021, electronic dance musician 3LAU sold a collection of 33 NFTs for a total of $11.7 million to commemorate the three-year anniversary of his Ultraviolet album.[34] On March 5, 2021, the band Kings of Leon became the first to sell a newly released album, When You See Yourself, in the form of an NFT, generating a reported $2 million in sales.[103][104] On March 11, 2021, American digital artist Beeple's work Everydays: The First 5000 Days became the first NFT artwork to be listed at prominent auction house Christie's and sold for $69.3 million.[105][106] On March 22, 2021, Jack Dorsey, founder of Twitter and Square, sold an NFT representing his first tweet for over $2.5 million.[72][107]

The speculative market for NFTs has led more investors to trade at greater volumes and rates.[106] The buying surge of NFTs was called an economic bubble by experts, who also compared it to the Dot-com bubble.[108][109] By mid-April 2021, demand appeared to have substantially subsided, causing prices to fall significantly; early buyers were reported to have "done supremely well" by Bloomberg Businessweek.[110][111] An NFT of the source code of the World Wide Web, credited to internet inventor computer scientist Sir Tim Berners-Lee, was auctioned in June 2021 by Sotheby’s in London,[112][113][114] and was sold for USD$5.4 million.[115]

Popular culture Popularity In 2017, NFTs circulated by CryptoKitties, a project developed by Dapper Labs to sell ownership of unique cat avatars, jumped so much in popularity that a surge in demand took up significant transaction space on the Ethereum blockchain and slowed the entire Ethereum network in December of that year.[116][117]

NFTs became increasingly popular in the early months of 2021 because of numerous high-profile sales,[100] including an NBA Top Shot video clip of LeBron James for $208,000, a 3LAU album for $11.7 million, and a piece by digital artist Beeple for $69.3 million.[100][118][119] NFT sales exceeded $220 million in March 2021 alone, making up nearly half of all-time NFT sales up to that point.[120] This renewed interest in NFTs, particularly those in art, music, and sports, made way into public consciousness, especially amongst the younger generation.[121][122] A comedy skit on the March 27, 2021 episode of Saturday Night Live satirized the popularity of NFTs; the skit was sold as an NFT itself for $365,000 on April 6, 2021.[123]

In 2021, many investors have been willing to pay high rates to secure and promote NFTs, anticipating them to be the biggest and most profitable collectibles in the future.[124][125] In April 2021, venture capitalist David Pakman claimed that the growing value of NFTs was redefining the major entertainment industry.[126] Investors like Mark Cuban have proposed new ways of implementing NFT technology to monetize sports tickets and merchandise sales.[127]

Criticism Storage off-chain NFTs involving digital art generally do not store the file on the blockchain due to its size. The token functions in a way more similar to a certificate of ownership, with a web address pointing to the piece of art in question, making the art still subject to link rot.[84]

Environmental concerns NFT purchases and sales are enmeshed in a controversy regarding the high energy use, and consequent greenhouse gas emissions, associated with blockchain transactions.[128] A major aspect of this is the proof-of-work protocol required to regulate and verify blockchain transactions on networks such as Ethereum, which consumes a large amount of electricity;[129][130] Estimating the carbon footprint of a given NFT transaction involves a variety of assumptions about the manner in which that transaction is set up on the blockchain, the economic behavior of blockchain miners (and the energy demands of their mining equipment),[131] as well as the amount of renewable energy being used on these networks.[132] There are also conceptual questions, such as whether the carbon footprint estimate for an NFT purchase should incorporate some portion of the ongoing energy demand of the underlying network, or just the marginal impact of that particular purchase.[133] An analogy that's been described for this is the footprint associated with an additional passenger on a given airline flight.[128]

Some more recent NFT technologies use alternative validation protocols, such as proof of stake, that have much less energy usage for a given validation cycle. Other approaches to reducing electricity include the use of off-chain transactions as part of minting an NFT.[128] A number of NFT art sites are also looking to address these concerns, and some are moving to using technologies and protocols with lower associated footprints.[134] Others now allow the option of buying carbon offsets when making NFT purchases, although the environmental benefits of this have been questioned.[135] In some instances, NFT artists have decided against selling some of their own work to limit carbon emission contributions.[136]

Plagiarism and fraud There have been examples of "artists having their work copied without permission" and sold as an NFT.[137] After the artist Qing Han died in 2020, her identity was assumed by a fraudster and a number of her works became available for purchase as NFTs.[138] Similarly, a seller posing as Banksy succeeded in selling an NFT supposedly made by the artist for $336,000 in 2021; with the seller in this case refunding the money after the case drew media attention.[139]

A process known as "sleepminting" can also allow a fraudster to mint an NFT in an artist's wallet and transfer it back to their own account without the artist becoming aware.[140] This allowed a white hat hacker to mint a fraudulent NFT that had seemingly originated from the wallet of the artist Beeple.[140]

See also List of most expensive non-fungible tokens References Dean, Sam (2021-03-11). "$69 million for digital art? The NFT craze, explained". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2021-04-08. Frank, Robert (13 April 2021). "NFT sales top $2 billion in first quarter, with twice as many buyers as sellers". CNBC. Retrieved 1 July 2021. Dean, Sam (March 11, 2021). "$69 million for digital art? The NFT craze, explained". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved March 12, 2021. Kastrenakes, Jacob (2021-03-11). "Beeple sold an NFT for $69 million". The Verge. Archived from the original on 2021-03-21. Retrieved 2021-03-21. "WTF Is an NFT, Anyway? And Should I Care?". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved 2021-03-13. Boscovic, Dragan. "How nonfungible tokens work and where they get their value – a cryptocurrency expert explains NFTs". The Conversation. Retrieved 2021-04-08. Kastrenakes, Jacob (March 25, 2021). "Your Million-Dollar NFT Can Break Tomorrow If You're Not Careful". The Verge. Retrieved March 31, 2021. "Want to Buy an NFT? Here's What to Know". The Wall Street Journal. March 13, 2021. Retrieved March 14, 2021. "NFTS' Nifty Copyright Issues - Intellectual Property - Canada". Patterson, Dan (March 4, 2021). "Blockchain company buys and burns Banksy artwork to turn it into a digital original". CBS News. Retrieved March 17, 2021. Thaddeus-Johns, Josie (2021-03-11). "What Are NFTs, Anyway? One Just Sold for $69 Million". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-04-14. Reyburn, Scott (2021-03-11). "JPG File Sells for $69 Million, as 'NFT Mania' Gathers Pace". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-04-14. Solomon, Tessa (2021-02-25). "Beeple NFT Artwork Sells for $6.6 M. Ahead of Viral Christie's Auction". ARTnews.com. Retrieved 2021-04-14. "Artist Krista Kim sells "first NFT digital house" for over $500,000". Dezeen. 2021-03-22. Retrieved 2021-04-15. michael.huber (2021-08-31). "Künstler Erwin Wurm steigt mit fettem Porsche in den NFT-Markt ein". kurier.at (in German). Retrieved 2021-09-06. "Erwin Wurms "Fat Car" als digitale Signatur - "Get rich or die tryin'": NFTs und der Kunstmarkt". Deutschlandfunk Kultur (in German). Retrieved 2021-09-06. "BREATHE IN, BREATHE OUT. ERWIN WURM IN CONVERSATION ABOUT HIS FIRST NFT". misa.art. Retrieved 2021-09-06. "Berlin's MISA Launches NFT Marketplace". www.sleek-mag.com. Retrieved 2021-09-06. León, Riley de (2021-10-01). "Doodles used to create Gary Vaynerchuk NFT collection sell for $1.2 million in Christie's auction". CNBC. Retrieved 2021-10-18. Gonzalez, Oscar. "You can get a free DC x Palm NFT tomorrow. What to know about the digital tokens now". CNET. Retrieved 2021-10-19. Nover, Scott. "Early NFT collection Curio Cards makes its debut at Christie's". Quartz. Retrieved 2021-10-19. "How a 10-second video clip sold for $6.6 million". Reuters. 2021-03-01. Retrieved 2021-03-22. "NFTs in Practice – Non-Fungible Tokens as Core Component of a Blockchain-based Event Ticketing Application". Researchgate. Retrieved 2021-09-08. "Golden Ticket: How NFTs Can Help Artists Profit From Ticket Resales". MiamiLaw. 12 April 2021. Retrieved 2021-09-08. "NFTs: The future of ticketing?". IQ Mag. 6 May 2021. Retrieved 2021-09-08. "How NFTs Are Set to Disrupt the Music Industry". Entrepreneur. Retrieved 2021-09-08. DiSalvo, Matthew (16 October 2021). "Steam Bans Crypto Games While Epic Games Welcomes Them". Decrypt. Retrieved 18 October 2021. Clark, Matthew (15 October 2021). "Epic says it's 'open' to blockchain games after Steam bans them". The Verge. Retrieved 18 October 2021. "I Joined a Penguin NFT Club Because Apparently That's What We Do Now". New York Times. 12 August 2021. "Why Bored Ape Avatars Are Taking Over Twitter". The New Yorker. 30 July 2021. "Virtual real estate plot sells for close to $1 mln". Reuters. 18 June 2021. "Musicians will lose two-thirds of their income in 2020". BBC News. 2020-11-18. Retrieved 2021-05-07. "Music-related NFT sales have topped $25m in the past month". Music Business Worldwide. 2021-03-12. Retrieved 2021-05-07. Brown, Abram. "Largest NFT Sale Ever Came From A Business School Dropout Turned Star DJ". Forbes. Retrieved 2021-05-20. "Las Vegas DJ-producer makes millions selling NFTs". Las Vegas Review-Journal. 2021-05-01. Retrieved 2021-10-13. Steele, Anne (2021-03-23). "Musicians Turn to NFTs to Make Up for Lost Revenue". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2021-05-07. "CEO of Sweet Talks NFT Partnership with Rapper Lil Pump". Cheddar. 2021-03-23. Retrieved 2021-03-29. "Musician NFT Projects, Ranked by How Many F's I Can Give". Vulture. 2021-03-18. Retrieved 2021-03-29. "Rappers and NFTs – How Hip-Hop Is Cashing In on Non-Fungible Tokens". XXL Mag. 2021-03-23. Retrieved 2021-03-29. Halperin, Shirley (2021-04-21). "Mike Dean and Shepard Fairey Team for NFT Offering 'OBEY 4:22' (EXCLUSIVE)". Variety. Retrieved 2021-05-07. "Eminem's First NFT Drop, 'Shady Con,' Includes One-of-a-Kind Slim Shady-Produced Beats". Billboard. Retrieved 2021-05-19. "Deadpool posters can now be bought as NFTs". www.yahoo.com. Retrieved 2021-05-19. Chmielewski, Dawn C. (2018-08-03). "'Deadpool 2' Jumps On The Digital Collectibles Bandwagon". Deadline. Retrieved 2021-05-19. Ravindran, Manori (2021-03-15). "NFT Craze Enters Film World: 'Claude Lanzmann' Documentary is First Oscar Nominee to Be Released as Digital Token (EXCLUSIVE)". Variety. Retrieved 2021-04-14. "NFTs are Confusing Everyone, But the Newest Internet Token is Raking in the Memes". www.news18.com. 2021-03-22. Retrieved 2021-04-14. "Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah (Exclusive NFT 1st Ed.)". rarible.com. Retrieved 2021-04-14. "World's First Movie Score & Soundtrack For Sale As An NFT [EXCLUSIVE]". ScreenRant. 2021-04-30. Retrieved 2021-09-08. Bosselman, Haley (2021-03-31). "'Godzilla vs. Kong' to Have First Major Motion Picture NFT Art Release". Variety. Retrieved 2021-04-14. D'Alessandro, Anthony (2021-04-13). "Kevin Smith To Sell Horror Movie 'Killroy Was Here' As NFT, Launches Jay And Silent Bob's Crypto Studio". Deadline. Retrieved 2021-04-14. Goldsmith, Jill (September 8, 2021). "Enderby Entertainment's Pandemic Film 'Zero Contact' To Premiere On New NFT Platform Vuele; Watch The Trailer – Update". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved September 15, 2021. Beatrice Verhoeven (July 7, 2021). "Anthony Hopkins Film 'Zero Contact' to Premiere as NFT on New Platform Vuele". TheWrap. Retrieved September 15, 2021. "NFTs and me: meet the people trying to sell their memes for millions". the Guardian. 2021-06-23. Retrieved 2021-07-17. "Iconic 'Doge' meme NFT breaks record, selling for $4 million". NBC News. Retrieved 2021-07-17. "Charlie Bit Me NFT sale: Brothers to pay for university with auction money". BBC News. 2021-06-03. Retrieved 2021-07-17. Griffith, Erin (2021-02-22). "Why an Animated Flying Cat With a Pop-Tart Body Sold for Almost $600,000". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-07-17. "Zoë Roth sells 'Disaster Girl' meme as NFT for $500,000". BBC News. 2021-04-30. Retrieved 2021-07-17. Arnovitz, Kevin (October 21, 2019). "How investing $150K in Spencer Dinwiddie would actually work". ESPN. Retrieved April 1, 2021. "Sources: Spencer Dinwiddie to convert his NBA contract into a secured digital investment. Here's what that means". The Athletic. 2019-09-12. Retrieved 2021-04-01. Beedham, Matthew (2019-12-10). "Nike now holds patent for blockchain-based sneakers called 'CryptoKicks'". TNW | Hardfork. Retrieved 2021-04-14. Clark, Mitchell (2021-03-03). "People are spending millions on NFTs. What? Why?". The Verge. Retrieved 2021-04-14. Dickson, EJ (16 March 2021). "Porn Creators Are Getting In on the NFT Craze". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 30 March 2021. Cole, Samantha (19 March 2021). "'Building the Cockchain:' How NSFW Artists Are Shaping the Future of NFTs". Vice. Retrieved 30 March 2021. "UC Berkeley Will Auction NFTs for 2 Nobel Prize Patents | Inside Higher Ed". www.insidehighered.com. Retrieved 2021-05-29. "The Fourth Pillar (UC Berkeley, 2021) | Foundation". "Activist turns anti-Nazi act into commodified digital art". The Jerusalem Post | JPost.com. Retrieved 2021-10-13. "Stanislovas Tomas im Interview: "NFTs können unsere Gesellschaft verändern"". BeInCrypto (in German). 2021-04-18. Retrieved 2021-10-13. "Banksy art burned, destroyed and sold as token in 'money-making stunt'". BBC News. 2021-03-09. Retrieved 2021-10-13. Nast, Condé (2021-05-08). "Burnt Banksy's Inflammatory N.F.T. Not-Art". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2021-10-13. Gallagher, Jacob (2021-03-15). "NFTs Are the Biggest Internet Craze. Do They Work for Sneakers?". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2021-06-26. Thaddeus-Johns, Josie (2021-03-11). "What Are NFTs, Anyway? One Just Sold for $69 Million". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-06-26. Salmon, Felix (March 12, 2021). "How to exhibit your very own $69 million Beeple". Axios. Retrieved March 13, 2021. Clark, Mitchell (March 11, 2021). "NFTs, explained". The Verge. Retrieved March 11, 2021. "NFT blockchain drives surge in digital art auctions". BBC. March 3, 2021. Retrieved March 12, 2021. "Memes for Sale? Making sense of NFTs". Harvard Law Today. Retrieved 26 June 2021. Burton, Amber (2021-03-13). "Want to Buy an NFT? Here's What to Know". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2021-06-26. Volpicelli, Gian (24 February 2021). "The bitcoin elite are spending millions on collectable memes". Wired UK. "NFTs are both priceless and worthless". Engadget. 2021-03-11. Retrieved 2021-04-09. "Uniswap UNI Token was "Shining Star" of DeFi this Past Week, while Ethereum based NFTs Rising in Popularity, OKEx Reports". Crowdfund Insider. 2021-03-07. Retrieved 2021-04-09. "EIP-721: ERC-721 Non-Fungible Token Standard". Ethereum Improvement Proposals. Retrieved 2021-04-05. "EIP-1155: ERC-1155 Multi Token Standard". Ethereum Improvement Proposals. Retrieved 2021-04-05. Sparkes, Matthew (March 30, 2021). "NFT developers say cryptocurrencies must tackle their carbon emissions". NewScientist. Retrieved March 31, 2021. Ponciano, Jonathan. "Solana Skyrockets To New High—Amassing Nearly $40 Billion In Market Value As Competition With Ethereum Heats Up". Forbes. Retrieved 2021-09-01. Liscia, Valentina Di (2021-06-10). ""First Ever NFT" Sells for $1.4 Million". Hyperallergic. Retrieved 2021-10-18. Dash, Anil (2021-04-02). "NFTs Weren't Supposed to End Like This". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2021-05-05. "The Cult of CryptoPunks". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2021-05-05. "Should You Buy a Bitcoin-Inspired Image of Lindsay Lohan?". Bloomberg.com. 2021-03-08. Retrieved 2021-04-07. Abbruzzese, Jason (16 June 2017). "This ethereum-based project could change how we think about digital art". Mashable. Retrieved 2021-04-06. Chevet, Sylve (2018-05-10). "Blockchain Technology and Non-Fungible Tokens: Reshaping Value Chains in Creative Industries". Rochester, NY. SSRN 3212662. "CryptoKitties Mania Overwhelms Ethereum Network's Processing". Bloomberg.com. 2017-12-04. Retrieved 2021-04-07. "CryptoKitties raises $12M from Andreessen Horowitz and Union Square Ventures". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2021-04-07. Cheng, Evelyn (2017-12-06). "Meet CryptoKitties, the $100,000 digital beanie babies epitomizing the cryptocurrency mania". CNBC. Retrieved 2021-04-07. Hankin, Aaron. "People are making more than 500% buying property that doesn't actually exist". MarketWatch. Retrieved 2021-04-07. "How to Make a Killing in Virtual Real Estate". Bloomberg.com. 2018-06-12. Retrieved 2021-04-07. Gallagher, Jacob (2021-03-15). "NFTs Are the Biggest Internet Craze. Do They Work for Sneakers?". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2021-04-07. "CryptoKitties developer launches NBA TopShot, a new blockchain-based collectible collab with the NBA". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2021-04-09. Young, Jabari (2021-02-28). "People have spent more than $230 million buying and trading digital collectibles of NBA highlights". CNBC. Retrieved 2021-04-09. "The NFT Market Tripled Last Year, and It's Gaining Even More Momentum in 2021". Morning Brew. Retrieved 2021-04-08. "NFTs Are Shaking Up the Art World—But They Could Change So Much More". Time. Retrieved 2021-04-06. Clark, Mitchell (2021-03-03). "People are spending millions on NFTs. What? Why?". The Verge. Retrieved 2021-04-15. Howcroft, Elizabeth (2021-03-17). "Explainer: NFTs are hot. So what are they?". Reuters. Retrieved 2021-04-06. Kastrenakes, Jacob (2021-03-01). "Grimes sold $6 million worth of digital art as NFTs". The Verge. Retrieved 2021-04-07. Griffith, Erin (2021-02-22). "Why an Animated Flying Cat With a Pop-Tart Body Sold for Almost $600,000". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-04-07. Hissong, Samantha (2021-03-03). "Kings of Leon Will Be the First Band to Release an Album as an NFT". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 2021-05-19. Hissong, Samantha (2021-03-09). "Music NFTs Have Gone Mainstream. Who's In?". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 2021-05-20. "Beeple's masterwork: the first purely digital artwork offered at Christie's | Christie's". www.christies.com. Retrieved 2021-04-07. Thaddeus-Johns, Josie (February 24, 2021). "Beeple Brings Crypto to Christie's". The New York Times. Retrieved March 12, 2021. "The Next Frontier of the NFT Gold Rush: Your Tweets". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved 2021-04-07. Reyburn, Scott (2021-03-30). "Art's NFT Question: Next Frontier in Trading, or a New Form of Tulip?". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-05-03. Small, Zachary (2021-04-28). "As Auctioneers and Artists Rush Into NFTs, Many Collectors Stay Away". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-05-03. Tarmy, James; Kharif, Olga (April 15, 2021). "These Crypto Bros Want to Be the Guggenheims of NFT Art". Bloomberg Businessweek. Retrieved April 29, 2021. Shaw, Anny. "NFT prices are plummeting. What could this mean for the art world?". CNN. Retrieved 2021-05-03. "NFT representing Tim Berners-Lee's source code for the web to go on sale". theguardian.com. theguardian.com. 15 June 2021. Retrieved 30 June 2021. "This Changed Everything: Source Code for WWW x Tim Berners-Lee, an NFT". sothebys.com. sothebys.com. Retrieved 15 June 2021. "The web's source code is being auctioned as an NFT by inventor Tim Berners-Lee". cnbc.com. cnbc.com. 15 June 2021. Retrieved 15 June 2021. Lawler, Richard (30 June 2021). "Sir Tim Berners-Lee's web source code NFT sells for $5.4 million". The Verge. VOX Media. Retrieved 30 June 2021. "CryptoKitties craze slows down transactions on Ethereum". BBC News. 2017-12-05. Retrieved 2021-04-06. CryptoKitties. "CryptoKitties | Collect and breed digital cats!". CryptoKitties. Retrieved 2021-04-06. Rapp, Timothy. "LeBron James Lakers Highlight Sells for Record $208K on NBA Top Shot". Bleacher Report. Retrieved 2021-04-06. Reyburn, Scott (2021-03-11). "JPG File Sells for $69 Million, as 'NFT Mania' Gathers Pace". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-04-06. Piven, Ben. "NFT craze: Why are non-fungible tokens all the rage?". www.aljazeera.com. Retrieved 2021-04-06. "What are NFTs and why are they so popular?". MoneyWeek. Retrieved 2021-04-06. MacColl, Margaux. "These Gen Z VCs are getting in on the NFT frenzy — here are the 4 NFTs they've collected so far". Business Insider. Retrieved 2021-04-06. Jazmin Goodwin. "Still not sure what NFTs are? 'SNL' explains with Eminem parody". CNN. Retrieved 2021-04-06. "If you haven't followed NFTs, here's why you should start". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2021-04-06. "What are NFTs and why are they suddenly so popular?". euronews. 2021-04-02. Retrieved 2021-04-06. "Why every major entertainment company will get into NFTs, according to the VC behind NBA Top Shot". news.yahoo.com. Retrieved 2021-04-06. Locke, Taylor (2021-03-26). "Mark Cuban: The Dallas Mavericks are thinking about 'turning our tickets into NFTs'". CNBC. Retrieved 2021-04-06. Calma, Justine (2021-03-15). "The climate controversy swirling around NFTs". The Verge. Retrieved 2021-04-15. Krause, Max; Tolaymat, Thabet (2018). "Quantification of energy and carbon costs for mining cryptocurrencies". Nature Sustainability. 1: 814. doi:10.1038/s41893-018-0188-8. Gallersdorfer, Ulrich; Klassen, Lena; Stoll, Christian (2020). "Energy Consumption of Cryptocurrencies Beyond Bitcoin". Joule. 4 (9): 1843–1846. doi:10.1016/j.joule.2020.07.013. PMC 7402366. PMID 32838201. deVries, Alex (2018-05-16). "Bitcoin's Growing Energy Problem". Joule. Cuen, Leigh (2021-03-21). "The debate about cryptocurrency and energy consumption". TechCrunch. De-Mattei, Shanti Escalante (2021-04-14). "Should You Worry About the Environmental Impact of Your NFTs?". Art News. Retrieved 2021-06-02. Matney, Lucas (2021-03-30). "ConsenSys launches a more energy-efficient NFT ecosystem with a project from artist Damien Hirst as its first drop". Techcrunch. Retrieved 2021-04-21. Di Liscia, Valentina (2021-04-05). "Does Carbon Offsetting Really Address the NFT Ecological Dilemma?". Hypoallergic. Retrieved 2021-04-21. Howson, Peter. "NFTs: why digital art has such a massive carbon footprint". The Conversation. Retrieved 2021-04-06. Williams, Rhiannon (2 April 2021). "NFT digital art: Would you pay millions of pounds for art you can't touch?". inews Technology. Retrieved 28 August 2021. Kwan, Jacklin (28 July 2021). "An artist died. Then thieves made NFTs of her work". Wired. Retrieved 28 August 2021. "Fake Banksy NFT sold through artist's website for £244k". BBC News. 31 August 2021. Schneider, Tim (21 April 2021). "The Gray Market: How a Brazen Hack of That $69 Million Beeple Revealed the True Vulnerability of the NFT Market (and Other Insights)". artnet news. Retrieved 28 August 2021. Contemporary art is the art of today, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic combination of materials, methods, concepts, and subjects that continue the challenging of boundaries that was already well underway in the 20th century. Diverse and eclectic, contemporary art as a whole is distinguished by the very lack of a uniform, organising principle, ideology, or "-ism". Contemporary art is part of a cultural dialogue that concerns larger contextual frameworks such as personal and cultural identity, family, community, and nationality.

In vernacular English, modern and contemporary are synonyms, resulting in some conflation and confusion of the terms modern art and contemporary art by non-specialists.[1]

Contents 1 Scope 2 Themes 3 Institutions 4 Public attitudes 5 Concerns 6 Prizes 7 History 7.1 1950s 7.2 1960s 7.3 1970s 7.4 1980s 7.5 1990s 7.6 2000s 7.7 2010s 8 See also 9 Notes 10 References 11 Further reading 12 External links Scope Some define contemporary art as art produced within "our lifetime," recognising that lifetimes and life spans vary. However, there is a recognition that this generic definition is subject to specialized limitations.[2]

The classification of "contemporary art" as a special type of art, rather than a general adjectival phrase, goes back to the beginnings of Modernism in the English-speaking world. In London, the Contemporary Art Society was founded in 1910 by the critic Roger Fry and others, as a private society for buying works of art to place in public museums.[3] A number of other institutions using the term were founded in the 1930s, such as in 1938 the Contemporary Art Society of Adelaide, Australia,[4] and an increasing number after 1945.[5] Many, like the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston changed their names from ones using "Modern art" in this period, as Modernism became defined as a historical art movement, and much "modern" art ceased to be "contemporary". The definition of what is contemporary is naturally always on the move, anchored in the present with a start date that moves forward, and the works the Contemporary Art Society bought in 1910 could no longer be described as contemporary.

Charles Thomson. Sir Nicholas Serota Makes an Acquisitions Decision, 2000, Stuckism Particular points that have been seen as marking a change in art styles include the end of World War II and the 1960s. There has perhaps been a lack of natural break points since the 1960s, and definitions of what constitutes "contemporary art" in the 2010s vary, and are mostly imprecise. Art from the past 20 years is very likely to be included, and definitions often include art going back to about 1970;[6] "the art of the late 20th and early 21st century";[7] "both an outgrowth and a rejection of modern art";[8] "Strictly speaking, the term "contemporary art" refers to art made and produced by artists living today";[9] "Art from the 1960s or [19]70s up until this very minute";[10] and sometimes further, especially in museum contexts, as museums which form a permanent collection of contemporary art inevitably find this aging. Many use the formulation "Modern and Contemporary Art", which avoids this problem.[11] Smaller commercial galleries, magazines and other sources may use stricter definitions, perhaps restricting the "contemporary" to work from 2000 onwards. Artists who are still productive after a long career, and ongoing art movements, may present a particular issue; galleries and critics are often reluctant to divide their work between the contemporary and non-contemporary.[citation needed]

Sociologist Nathalie Heinich draws a distinction between modern and contemporary art, describing them as two different paradigms which partially overlap historically. She found that while "modern art" challenges the conventions of representation, "contemporary art" challenges the very notion of an artwork.[12] She regards Duchamp's Fountain (which was made in the 1910s in the midst of the triumph of modern art) as the starting point of contemporary art, which gained momentum after World War II with Gutai's performances, Yves Klein's monochromes and Rauschenberg's Erased de Kooning Drawing.[13]

Themes Irbid, Jordan, "We are Arabs. We are Humans" Irbid, Jordan, "We are Arabs. We are Humans". Inside Out is a global participatory art project, initiated by the French photographer JR, an example of Street art Contemporary artwork is characterised by diversity: diversity of material, of form, of subject matter, and even time periods. It is "distinguished by the very lack of a uniform organizing principle, ideology, or - ism"[14] that is seen in many other art periods and movements. The focus of Modernism is self-referential. Impressionism looks at our perception of a moment through light and color, as opposed to the attempt to reflect stark reality in Realism. Contemporary art, on the other hand, does not have one, single objective or point of view, so it can be contradictory and open-ended. There are nonetheless several common themes that have appeared in contemporary works, such as identity politics, the body, globalization and migration, technology, contemporary society and culture, time and memory, and institutional and political critique.[15]

Institutions

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2018) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

The Château de Montsoreau-Museum of Contemporary Art (France), is a private institution based in a Renaissance castle.

The Museum of Contemporary Art in Miami, Florida.

Kiasma, a contemporary art museum in Helsinki, Finland The functioning of the art world is dependent on art institutions, ranging from major museums to private galleries, non-profit spaces, art schools and publishers, and the practices of individual artists, curators, writers, collectors, and philanthropists. A major division in the art world is between the for-profit and non-profit sectors, although in recent years the boundaries between for-profit private and non-profit public institutions have become increasingly blurred.[citation needed] Most well-known contemporary art is exhibited by professional artists at commercial contemporary art galleries, by private collectors, art auctions, corporations, publicly funded arts organizations, contemporary art museums or by artists themselves in artist-run spaces.[16] Contemporary artists are supported by grants, awards, and prizes as well as by direct sales of their work. Career artists train at art school or emerge from other fields.[citation needed]

There are close relationships between publicly funded contemporary art organizations and the commercial sector. For instance, in 2005 the book Understanding International Art Markets and Management reported that in Britain a handful of dealers represented the artists featured in leading publicly funded contemporary art museums.[17] Commercial organizations include galleries and art fairs.[18]

Corporations have also integrated themselves into the contemporary art world, exhibiting contemporary art within their premises, organizing and sponsoring contemporary art awards, and building up extensive corporate collections.[19] Corporate advertisers frequently use the prestige associated with contemporary art and coolhunting to draw the attention of consumers to luxury goods.[20]

The institutions of art have been criticized for regulating what is designated as contemporary art. Outsider art, for instance, is literally contemporary art, in that it is produced in the present day. However, one critic has argued it is not considered so because the artists are self-taught and are thus assumed to be working outside of an art historical context.[21] Craft activities, such as textile design, are also excluded from the realm of contemporary art, despite large audiences for exhibitions.[22] Art critic Peter Timms has said that attention is drawn to the way that craft objects must subscribe to particular values in order to be admitted to the realm of contemporary art. "A ceramic object that is intended as a subversive comment on the nature of beauty is more likely to fit the definition of contemporary art than one that is simply beautiful."[23]

At any one time a particular place or group of artists can have a strong influence on subsequent contemporary art. For instance, The Ferus Gallery was a commercial gallery in Los Angeles and re-invigorated the Californian contemporary art scene in the late fifties and the sixties.

Public attitudes Contemporary art can sometimes seem at odds with a public that does not feel that art and its institutions share its values.[24] In Britain, in the 1990s, contemporary art became a part of popular culture, with artists becoming stars, but this did not lead to a hoped-for "cultural utopia".[25] Some critics like Julian Spalding and Donald Kuspit have suggested that skepticism, even rejection, is a legitimate and reasonable response to much contemporary art.[26] Brian Ashbee in an essay called "Art Bollocks" criticizes "much installation art, photography, conceptual art, video and other practices generally called post-modern" as being too dependent on verbal explanations in the form of theoretical discourse.[27] However, the acceptance of non traditional art in museums has increased due to changing perspectives on what constitutes an art piece.[28]

Concerns Main article: Classificatory disputes about art A common concern since the early part of the 20th century has been the question of what constitutes art. In the contemporary period (1950 to now), the concept of avant-garde[29] may come into play in determining what art is noticed by galleries, museums, and collectors.

The concerns of contemporary art come in for criticism too. Andrea Rosen has said that some contemporary painters "have absolutely no idea of what it means to be a contemporary artist" and that they "are in it for all the wrong reasons."[30]

Prizes Some competitions, awards, and prizes in contemporary art are:

Emerging Artist Award awarded by The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum Factor Prize in Southern Art Hugo Boss Prize awarded by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum John Moore's Painting Prize Kandinsky Prize for Russian artists under 30 Marcel Duchamp Prize awarded by ADIAF and Centre Pompidou Ricard Prize for a French artist under 40 Turner Prize for British artists Participation in the Whitney Biennial Vincent Award, The Vincent van Gogh Biennial Award for Contemporary Art in Europe The Winifred Shantz Award for Ceramists, awarded by the Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery Asia Pacific Breweries Foundation Signature Art Prize[31] Jindřich Chalupecký Award for Czech artists under 35[32] History This table lists art movements and styles by decade. It should not be assumed to be conclusive.

1950s Abstract Expressionism American Figurative Expressionism American scene painting Antipodeans Bay Area Figurative Movement Brutalism COBRA (avant-garde movement) Color Field Generación de la Ruptura Gutai group Lenticular prints Les Plasticiens Lyrical Abstraction (Abstract lyrique) Modern traditional Balinese painting New York Figurative Expressionism New York School Serial art Situationist International Soviet Nonconformist Art Red Shirt School of Photography Tachisme Vienna School of Fantastic Realism Washington Color School 1960s Abstract expressionism Abstract Imagists American Figurative Expressionism Art & Language Bay Area Figurative Movement BMPT Chicago Imagists Chicano art movement Color field Computer art Conceptual art Fluxus Happenings Hard-edge painting Lenticular prints Kinetic art Light and Space Lyrical Abstraction (American version) Minimalism Mono-ha Neo-Dada New York School Nouveau Réalisme Op Art Performance art Plop Art Pop Art Postminimalism Post-painterly Abstraction Psychedelic art Retro art Soft sculpture Street art Sustainable art Systems art Video art Zero 1970s Arte Povera Ascii Art Bad Painting Body art Artist's book COUM Transmissions Environmental art Feminist art Froissage Holography Installation art Land Art Lowbrow (art movement) Mail art Papunya Tula Photorealism Postminimalism Process Art Robotic art Saint Soleil School Video art Funk art Pattern and Decoration Warli painting revival Wildstyle 1980s NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt Appropriation art Culture jamming Demoscene Electronic art Figuration Libre Fractal art Graffiti Art Late Modernism Live art Neue Slowenische Kunst Postmodern art Neo-conceptual art Neo-expressionism Neo-pop Sound art Transavantgarde Transgressive art Vancouver School Video installation Institutional Critique Western and Central Desert art 1990s Art intervention Bio art Cyberarts Cynical Realism Digital Art Hyperrealism Indigenouism Information art Internet art Massurrealism Maximalism New Leipzig School New media art New European Painting Relational art Software art Toyism Tactical media Taring Padi Verdadism Western and Central Desert art Young British Artists 2000s Altermodern Classical Realism Excessivism idea art Kitsch movement Post-contemporary Metamodernism Pseudorealism Remodernism Renewable energy sculpture Stuckism Superflat Superstroke Urban art Videogame art VJ art Virtual art 2010s Postinternet Vaporwave Art Résilience See also Acculturation Anti-art and Anti-anti-art Art:21 - Art in the 21st Century (2001-2016), a PBS series Criticism of postmodernism Classificatory disputes about art List of contemporary art museums List of contemporary artists Medium specificity Reductive art Value theory Modern art From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigationJump to search For other uses, see Modern art (disambiguation). Not to be confused with contemporary art, nor art moderne. Modern art

Vincent van Gogh, Country Road in Provence by Night, 1889, May 1890, Kröller-Müller Museum

Paul Cézanne, The Large Bathers, 1898–1905 History of art Periods Regions Religions Techniques Types vte Modern art includes artistic work produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the styles and philosophies of the art produced during that era.[1] The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of experimentation.[2] Modern artists experimented with new ways of seeing and with fresh ideas about the nature of materials and functions of art. A tendency away from the narrative, which was characteristic for the traditional arts, toward abstraction is characteristic of much modern art. More recent artistic production is often called contemporary art or postmodern art.

Modern art begins with the heritage of painters like Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Georges Seurat and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec all of whom were essential for the development of modern art. At the beginning of the 20th century Henri Matisse and several other young artists including the pre-cubists Georges Braque, André Derain, Raoul Dufy, Jean Metzinger and Maurice de Vlaminck revolutionized the Paris art world with "wild", multi-colored, expressive landscapes and figure paintings that the critics called Fauvism. Matisse's two versions of The Dance signified a key point in his career and in the development of modern painting.[3] It reflected Matisse's incipient fascination with primitive art: the intense warm color of the figures against the cool blue-green background and the rhythmical succession of the dancing nudes convey the feelings of emotional liberation and hedonism.

At the start of 20th-century Western painting, and initially influenced by Toulouse-Lautrec, Gauguin and other late-19th-century innovators, Pablo Picasso made his first cubist paintings based on Cézanne's idea that all depiction of nature can be reduced to three solids: cube, sphere and cone. With the painting Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907), Picasso dramatically created a new and radical picture depicting a raw and primitive brothel scene with five prostitutes, violently painted women, reminiscent of African tribal masks and his own new Cubist inventions. Analytic cubism was jointly developed by Picasso and Georges Braque, exemplified by Violin and Candlestick, Paris, from about 1908 through 1912. Analytic cubism, the first clear manifestation of cubism, was followed by Synthetic cubism, practiced by Braque, Picasso, Fernand Léger, Juan Gris, Albert Gleizes, Marcel Duchamp and several other artists into the 1920s. Synthetic cubism is characterized by the introduction of different textures, surfaces, collage elements, papier collé and a large variety of merged subject matter.[4][5]

The notion of modern art is closely related to modernism.[a]

Contents 1 History 1.1 Roots in the 19th century 1.2 Early 20th century 1.3 After World War II 2 Art movements and artist groups 2.1 19th century 2.2 Early 20th century (before World War I) 2.3 World War I to World War II 2.4 After World War II 3 Important modern art exhibitions and museums 3.1 Austria 3.2 Belgium 3.3 Brazil 3.4 Colombia 3.5 Croatia 3.6 Ecuador 3.7 Finland 3.8 France 3.9 Germany 3.10 India 3.11 Iran 3.12 Ireland 3.13 Israel 3.14 Italy 3.15 Mexico 3.16 Netherlands 3.17 Norway 3.18 Poland 3.19 Qatar 3.20 Romania 3.21 Russia 3.22 Serbia 3.23 Spain 3.24 Sweden 3.25 Taiwan 3.26 United Kingdom 3.27 United States 4 See also 5 Notes 6 References 7 Sources 8 Further reading 9 External links History

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, At the Moulin Rouge: Two Women Waltzing, 1892

Paul Gauguin, Spirit of the Dead Watching 1892, Albright-Knox Art Gallery

Georges Seurat, Models (Les Poseuses) 1886–88, Barnes Foundation

The Scream by Edvard Munch, 1893

Pablo Picasso, Family of Saltimbanques, 1905, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

Jean Metzinger, 1907, Paysage coloré aux oiseaux aquatiques, oil on canvas, 74 x 99 cm, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris

Klimt in a light Blue Smock by Egon Schiele, 1913

I and the Village by Marc Chagall, 1911

Black Square by Kasimir Malevich, 1915

Marcel Duchamp, Fountain, 1917. Photograph by Alfred Stieglitz

Wassily Kandinsky, On White II, 1923

Édouard Manet, The Luncheon on the Grass (Le déjeuner sur l'herbe), 1863, Musée d'Orsay, Paris Roots in the 19th century Multi-colored portrait of a far eastern cortesan with elaborate hair ornamentation, colorful robelike garment, and a border depicting marshland waters and reeds. Vincent van Gogh, Courtesan (after Eisen) (1887), Van Gogh Museum Portrait of a tree with blossoms and with far eastern alphabet letters both in the portrait and along the left and right borders. Vincent van Gogh, The Blooming Plumtree (after Hiroshige) (1887), Van Gogh Museum Portrait of a man of a bearded man facing forward, holding his own hands in his lap; wearing a hat, blue coat, beige collared shirt and brown pants; sitting in front of a background with various tiles of far eastern and nature themed art. Vincent van Gogh, Portrait of Père Tanguy (1887), Musée Rodin Although modern sculpture and architecture are reckoned to have emerged at the end of the 19th century, the beginnings of modern painting can be located earlier.[7] The date perhaps most commonly identified as marking the birth of modern art is 1863,[7] the year that Édouard Manet showed his painting Le déjeuner sur l'herbe in the Salon des Refusés in Paris. Earlier dates have also been proposed, among them 1855 (the year Gustave Courbet exhibited The Artist's Studio) and 1784 (the year Jacques-Louis David completed his painting The Oath of the Horatii).[7] In the words of art historian H. Harvard Arnason: "Each of these dates has significance for the development of modern art, but none categorically marks a completely new beginning .... A gradual metamorphosis took place in the course of a hundred years."[7]

The strands of thought that eventually led to modern art can be traced back to the Enlightenment.[b] The important modern art critic Clement Greenberg, for instance, called Immanuel Kant "the first real Modernist" but also drew a distinction: "The Enlightenment criticized from the outside ... . Modernism criticizes from the inside."[9] The French Revolution of 1789 uprooted assumptions and institutions that had for centuries been accepted with little question and accustomed the public to vigorous political and social debate. This gave rise to what art historian Ernst Gombrich called a "self-consciousness that made people select the style of their building as one selects the pattern of a wallpaper."[10]

The pioneers of modern art were Romantics, Realists and Impressionists.[11][failed verification] By the late 19th century, additional movements which were to be influential in modern art had begun to emerge: post-Impressionism and Symbolism.

Influences upon these movements were varied: from exposure to Eastern decorative arts, particularly Japanese printmaking, to the coloristic innovations of Turner and Delacroix, to a search for more realism in the depiction of common life, as found in the work of painters such as Jean-François Millet. The advocates of realism stood against the idealism of the tradition-bound academic art that enjoyed public and official favor.[12] The most successful painters of the day worked either through commissions or through large public exhibitions of their own work. There were official, government-sponsored painters' unions, while governments regularly held public exhibitions of new fine and decorative arts.

The Impressionists argued that people do not see objects but only the light which they reflect, and therefore painters should paint in natural light (en plein air) rather than in studios and should capture the effects of light in their work.[13] Impressionist artists formed a group, Société Anonyme Coopérative des Artistes Peintres, Sculpteurs, Graveurs ("Association of Painters, Sculptors, and Engravers") which, despite internal tensions, mounted a series of independent exhibitions.[14] The style was adopted by artists in different nations, in preference to a "national" style. These factors established the view that it was a "movement". These traits—establishment of a working method integral to the art, establishment of a movement or visible active core of support, and international adoption—would be repeated by artistic movements in the Modern period in art.

Early 20th century

Pablo Picasso Les Demoiselles d'Avignon 1907, Museum of Modern Art, New York

Henri Matisse, The Dance I, 1909, Museum of Modern Art, New York Among the movements which flowered in the first decade of the 20th century were Fauvism, Cubism, Expressionism, and Futurism.

During the years between 1910 and the end of World War I and after the heyday of cubism, several movements emerged in Paris. Giorgio de Chirico moved to Paris in July 1911, where he joined his brother Andrea (the poet and painter known as Alberto Savinio). Through his brother he met Pierre Laprade, a member of the jury at the Salon d'Automne where he exhibited three of his dreamlike works: Enigma of the Oracle, Enigma of an Afternoon and Self-Portrait. During 1913 he exhibited his work at the Salon des Indépendants and Salon d’Automne, and his work was noticed by Pablo Picasso, Guillaume Apollinaire, and several others. His compelling and mysterious paintings are considered instrumental to the early beginnings of Surrealism. Song of Love (1914) is one of the most famous works by de Chirico and is an early example of the surrealist style, though it was painted ten years before the movement was "founded" by André Breton in 1924.

World War I brought an end to this phase but indicated the beginning of a number of anti-art movements, such as Dada, including the work of Marcel Duchamp, and of Surrealism. Artist groups like de Stijl and Bauhaus developed new ideas about the interrelation of the arts, architecture, design, and art education.

Modern art was introduced to the United States with the Armory Show in 1913 and through European artists who moved to the U.S. during World War I.

After World War II It was only after World War II, however, that the U.S. became the focal point of new artistic movements.[15] The 1950s and 1960s saw the emergence of Abstract Expressionism, Color field painting, Conceptual artists of Art & Language, Pop art, Op art, Hard-edge painting, Minimal art, Lyrical Abstraction, Fluxus, Happening, Video art, Postminimalism, Photorealism and various other movements. In the late 1960s and the 1970s, Land art, Performance art, Conceptual art, and other new art forms had attracted the attention of curators and critics, at the expense of more traditional media.[16] Larger installations and performances became widespread.

By the end of the 1970s, when cultural critics began speaking of "the end of painting" (the title of a provocative essay written in 1981 by Douglas Crimp), new media art had become a category in itself, with a growing number of artists experimenting with technological means such as video art.[17] Painting assumed renewed importance in the 1980s and 1990s, as evidenced by the rise of neo-expressionism and the revival of figurative painting.[18]

Towards the end of the 20th century, a number of artists and architects started questioning the idea of "the modern" and created typically Postmodern works.[19]

Art movements and artist groups (Roughly chronological with representative artists listed.)

19th century Romanticism and the Romantic movement – Francisco de Goya, J. M. W. Turner, Eugène Delacroix Realism – Gustave Courbet, Camille Corot, Jean-François Millet, Rosa Bonheur Pre-Raphaelites – William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti Macchiaioli – Giovanni Fattori, Silvestro Lega, Telemaco Signorini Impressionism – Frédéric Bazille, Gustave Caillebotte, Mary Cassatt, Edgar Degas, Armand Guillaumin, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sisley Post-impressionism – Georges Seurat, Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri Rousseau, Henri-Jean Guillaume Martin, Albert Lebourg, Robert Antoine Pinchon Pointillism – Georges Seurat, Paul Signac, Maximilien Luce, Henri-Edmond Cross Divisionism – Gaetano Previati, Giovanni Segantini, Pellizza da Volpedo Symbolism – Gustave Moreau, Odilon Redon, Edvard Munch, James Whistler, James Ensor Les Nabis – Pierre Bonnard, Édouard Vuillard, Félix Vallotton, Maurice Denis, Paul Sérusier Art Nouveau and variants – Jugendstil, Secession, Modern Style, Modernisme – Aubrey Beardsley, Alphonse Mucha, Gustav Klimt, Art Nouveau architecture and design – Antoni Gaudí, Otto Wagner, Wiener Werkstätte, Josef Hoffmann, Adolf Loos, Koloman Moser Early Modernist sculptors – Aristide Maillol, Auguste Rodin Early 20th century (before World War I) Abstract art – Francis Picabia, Wassily Kandinsky, František Kupka, Robert Delaunay, Sonia Delaunay, Léopold Survage, Piet Mondrian, Kazimir Malevich, Fauvism – André Derain, Henri Matisse, Maurice de Vlaminck, Georges Braque, Kees van Dongen Expressionism and related – Die Brücke, Der Blaue Reiter – Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Wassily Kandinsky, Franz Marc, Egon Schiele, Oskar Kokoschka, Emil Nolde, Axel Törneman, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Max Pechstein Cubism – Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes, Fernand Léger, Robert Delaunay, Henri Le Fauconnier, Marcel Duchamp, Jacques Villon, Francis Picabia, Juan Gris Futurism – Giacomo Balla, Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà, Gino Severini, Natalia Goncharova, Mikhail Larionov Orphism – Robert Delaunay, Sonia Delaunay, František Kupka Suprematism – Kazimir Malevich, Alexander Rodchenko, El Lissitzky Synchromism – Stanton Macdonald-Wright, Morgan Russell Vorticism – Wyndham Lewis Sculpture – Constantin Brâncuși, Joseph Csaky, Alexander Archipenko, Raymond Duchamp-Villon, Jacques Lipchitz, Ossip Zadkine, Henri Laurens, Elie Nadelman, Chaim Gross, Chana Orloff, Jacob Epstein, Gustave Miklos Photography – Pictorialism, Straight photography World War I to World War II Dada – Jean Arp, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Francis Picabia, Kurt Schwitters Surrealism – Marc Chagall, René Magritte, Jean Arp, Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst, Giorgio de Chirico, André Masson, Joan Miró Pittura Metafisica – Giorgio de Chirico, Carlo Carrà, Giorgio Morandi De Stijl – Theo van Doesburg, Piet Mondrian New Objectivity – Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, George Grosz Figurative painting – Henri Matisse, Pierre Bonnard American Modernism – Stuart Davis, Arthur G. Dove, Marsden Hartley, Georgia O'Keeffe Constructivism – Naum Gabo, Gustav Klutsis, László Moholy-Nagy, El Lissitzky, Kasimir Malevich, Vadim Meller, Alexander Rodchenko, Vladimir Tatlin Bauhaus – Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Josef Albers Scottish Colourists – Francis Cadell, Samuel Peploe, Leslie Hunter, John Duncan Fergusson Social realism – Grant Wood, Walker Evans, Diego Rivera Precisionism – Charles Sheeler, Charles Demuth Sculpture – Alexander Calder, Alberto Giacometti, Gaston Lachaise, Henry Moore, Pablo Picasso, Julio Gonzalez After World War II Figuratifs – Bernard Buffet, Jean Carzou, Maurice Boitel, Daniel du Janerand, Claude-Max Lochu Sculpture – Henry Moore, David Smith, Tony Smith, Alexander Calder, Isamu Noguchi,[20] Alberto Giacometti, Sir Anthony Caro, Jean Dubuffet, Isaac Witkin, René Iché, Marino Marini, Louise Nevelson, Albert Vrana Abstract expressionism – Joan Mitchell, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Arshile Gorky, Hans Hofmann, Franz Kline, Robert Motherwell, Clyfford Still, Lee Krasner, American Abstract Artists – Ilya Bolotowsky, Ibram Lassaw, Ad Reinhardt, Josef Albers, Burgoyne Diller Art Brut – Adolf Wölfli, August Natterer, Ferdinand Cheval, Madge Gill Arte Povera – Jannis Kounellis, Luciano Fabro, Mario Merz, Piero Manzoni, Alighiero Boetti Color field painting – Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko, Adolph Gottlieb, Sam Francis, Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, Jules Olitski, Helen Frankenthaler Tachisme – Jean Dubuffet, Pierre Soulages, Hans Hartung, Ludwig Merwart COBRA – Pierre Alechinsky, Karel Appel, Asger Jorn Conceptual art – Art & Language, Dan Graham, Lawrence Weiner, Bruce Nauman, Daniel Buren, Victor Burgin, Sol LeWitt De-collage – Wolf Vostell, Mimmo Rotella Neo-Dada – Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, John Chamberlain, Joseph Beuys, Lee Bontecou, Edward Kienholz Figurative Expressionism – Larry Rivers, Grace Hartigan, Elaine de Kooning, Robert De Niro, Sr., Lester Johnson, George McNeil, Earle M. Pilgrim, Jan Müller, Robert Beauchamp, Bob Thompson Feminist Art — Eva Hesse, Judy Chicago, Barbara Kruger, Mary Beth Edelson, Ewa Partum, Valie Export, Yoko Ono, Louise Bourgeois, Cindy Sherman, Kiki Smith, Guerrilla Girls, Hannah Wilke Fluxus – George Maciunas, Joseph Beuys, Wolf Vostell, Nam June Paik, Daniel Spoerri, Dieter Roth, Carolee Schneeman, Alison Knowles, Charlotte Moorman, Dick Higgins Happening – Allan Kaprow, Joseph Beuys, Wolf Vostell, Claes Oldenburg, Jim Dine, Red Grooms, Nam June Paik, Charlotte Moorman, Robert Whitman, Yoko Ono Dau-al-Set – founded in Barcelona by poet/artist Joan Brossa, – Antoni Tàpies Grupo El Paso [es; ca; pl] – founded in Madrid by artists Antonio Saura, Pablo Serrano Geometric abstraction – Wassily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich, Nadir Afonso, Manlio Rho, Mario Radice, Mino Argento, Adam Szentpétery Hard-edge painting – John McLaughlin, Ellsworth Kelly, Frank Stella, Al Held, Ronald Davis Kinetic art – George Rickey, Getulio Alviani Land art – Ana Mendieta, Christo, Richard Long, Robert Smithson, Michael Heizer Les Automatistes – Claude Gauvreau, Jean-Paul Riopelle, Pierre Gauvreau, Fernand Leduc, Jean-Paul Mousseau, Marcelle Ferron Minimal art – Sol LeWitt, Donald Judd, Dan Flavin, Richard Serra, Agnes Martin Postminimalism – Eva Hesse, Bruce Nauman, Lynda Benglis Lyrical abstraction – Ronnie Landfield, Sam Gilliam, Larry Zox, Dan Christensen, Natvar Bhavsar, Larry Poons Neo-figurative art – Fernando Botero, Antonio Berni Neo-expressionism – Georg Baselitz, Anselm Kiefer, Jörg Immendorff, Jean-Michel Basquiat Transavanguardia – Francesco Clemente, Mimmo Paladino, Sandro Chia, Enzo Cucchi Figuration libre – Hervé Di Rosa, François Boisrond, Robert Combas New realism – Yves Klein, Pierre Restany, Arman Op art – Victor Vasarely, Bridget Riley, Richard Anuszkiewicz, Jeffrey Steele Outsider art – Howard Finster, Grandma Moses, Bob Justin Photorealism – Audrey Flack, Chuck Close, Duane Hanson, Richard Estes, Malcolm Morley Pop art – Richard Hamilton, Robert Indiana, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, Ed Ruscha, David Hockney Postwar European figurative painting – Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon, Frank Auerbach, Gerhard Richter New European Painting – Luc Tuymans, Marlene Dumas, Neo Rauch, Bracha Ettinger, Michaël Borremans, Chris Ofili Shaped canvas – Frank Stella, Kenneth Noland, Ron Davis, Robert Mangold. Soviet art – Aleksandr Deyneka, Aleksandr Gerasimov, Ilya Kabakov, Komar & Melamid, Alexandr Zhdanov, Leonid Sokov Spatialism – Lucio Fontana Video art – Nam June Paik, Wolf Vostell, Joseph Beuys, Bill Viola, Hans Breder Visionary art – Ernst Fuchs, Paul Laffoley, Michael Bowen Pop art is an art movement that emerged in the United Kingdom and the United States during the mid- to late-1950s.[1][2] The movement presented a challenge to traditions of fine art by including imagery from popular and mass culture, such as advertising, comic books and mundane mass-produced objects. One of its aims is to use images of popular (as opposed to elitist) culture in art, emphasizing the banal or kitschy elements of any culture, most often through the use of irony.[3] It is also associated with the artists' use of mechanical means of reproduction or rendering techniques. In pop art, material is sometimes visually removed from its known context, isolated, or combined with unrelated material.[2][3]

Amongst the early artists that shaped the pop art movement were Eduardo Paolozzi and Richard Hamilton in Britain, and Larry Rivers, Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns among others in the United States. Pop art is widely interpreted as a reaction to the then-dominant ideas of abstract expressionism, as well as an expansion of those ideas.[4] Due to its utilization of found objects and images, it is similar to Dada. Pop art and minimalism are considered to be art movements that precede postmodern art, or are some of the earliest examples of postmodern art themselves.[5]

Pop art often takes imagery that is currently in use in advertising. Product labeling and logos figure prominently in the imagery chosen by pop artists, seen in the labels of Campbell's Soup Cans, by Andy Warhol. Even the labeling on the outside of a shipping box containing food items for retail has been used as subject matter in pop art, as demonstrated by Warhol's Campbell's Tomato Juice Box, 1964 (pictured).

Contents 1 Origins 1.1 Proto-pop 2 United Kingdom: the Independent Group 3 United States 3.1 Early U.S. exhibitions 4 France 5 Spain 6 New Zealand 7 Japan 8 Italy 9 Belgium 10 Netherlands 11 Russia 12 Notable artists 13 See also 14 References 15 Further reading 16 External links Origins The origins of pop art in North America developed differently from Great Britain.[3] In the United States, pop art was a response by artists; it marked a return to hard-edged composition and representational art. They used impersonal, mundane reality, irony, and parody to "defuse" the personal symbolism and "painterly looseness" of abstract expressionism.[4][6] In the U.S., some artwork by Larry Rivers, Alex Katz and Man Ray anticipated pop art.[7]

By contrast, the origins of pop art in post-War Britain, while employing irony and parody, were more academic. Britain focused on the dynamic and paradoxical imagery of American pop culture as powerful, manipulative symbolic devices that were affecting whole patterns of life, while simultaneously improving the prosperity of a society.[6] Early pop art in Britain was a matter of ideas fueled by American popular culture when viewed from afar.[4] Similarly, pop art was both an extension and a repudiation of Dadaism.[4] While pop art and Dadaism explored some of the same subjects, pop art replaced the destructive, satirical, and anarchic impulses of the Dada movement with a detached affirmation of the artifacts of mass culture.[4] Among those artists in Europe seen as producing work leading up to pop art are: Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, and Kurt Schwitters.

Proto-pop

Charles Demuth, I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold 1928, collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City Although both British and American pop art began during the 1950s, Marcel Duchamp and others in Europe like Francis Picabia and Man Ray predate the movement; in addition there were some earlier American proto-pop origins which utilized "as found" cultural objects.[4] During the 1920s, American artists Patrick Henry Bruce, Gerald Murphy, Charles Demuth and Stuart Davis created paintings that contained pop culture imagery (mundane objects culled from American commercial products and advertising design), almost "prefiguring" the pop art movement.[8][9]

United Kingdom: the Independent Group A collage of many different styles shows a mostly naked man and woman in a house. Richard Hamilton's collage Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing? (1956) is one of the earliest works to be considered "pop art". The Independent Group (IG), founded in London in 1952, is regarded as the precursor to the pop art movement.[2][10] They were a gathering of young painters, sculptors, architects, writers and critics who were challenging prevailing modernist approaches to culture as well as traditional views of fine art. Their group discussions centered on pop culture implications from elements such as mass advertising, movies, product design, comic strips, science fiction and technology. At the first Independent Group meeting in 1952, co-founding member, artist and sculptor Eduardo Paolozzi presented a lecture using a series of collages titled Bunk! that he had assembled during his time in Paris between 1947 and 1949.[2][10] This material of "found objects" such as advertising, comic book characters, magazine covers and various mass-produced graphics mostly represented American popular culture. One of the collages in that presentation was Paolozzi's I was a Rich Man's Plaything (1947), which includes the first use of the word "pop", appearing in a cloud of smoke emerging from a revolver.[2][11] Following Paolozzi's seminal presentation in 1952, the IG focused primarily on the imagery of American popular culture, particularly mass advertising.[6]

According to the son of John McHale, the term "pop art" was first coined by his father in 1954 in conversation with Frank Cordell,[12] although other sources credit its origin to British critic Lawrence Alloway.[13][14] (Both versions agree that the term was used in Independent Group discussions by mid-1955.)

"Pop art" as a moniker was then used in discussions by IG members in the Second Session of the IG in 1955, and the specific term "pop art" first appeared in published print in the article "But Today We Collect Ads" by IG members Alison and Peter Smithson in Ark magazine in 1956.[15] However, the term is often credited to British art critic/curator Lawrence Alloway for his 1958 essay titled The Arts and the Mass Media, even though the precise language he uses is "popular mass culture".[16] "Furthermore, what I meant by it then is not what it means now. I used the term, and also 'Pop Culture' to refer to the products of the mass media, not to works of art that draw upon popular culture. In any case, sometime between the winter of 1954–55 and 1957 the phrase acquired currency in conversation..."[17] Nevertheless, Alloway was one of the leading critics to defend the inclusion of the imagery of mass culture in the fine arts. Alloway clarified these terms in 1966, at which time Pop Art had already transited from art schools and small galleries to a major force in the artworld. But its success had not been in England. Practically simultaneously, and independently, New York City had become the hotbed for Pop Art.[17]

In London, the annual Royal Society of British Artists (RBA) exhibition of young talent in 1960 first showed American pop influences. In January 1961, the most famous RBA-Young Contemporaries of all put David Hockney, the American R B Kitaj, New Zealander Billy Apple, Allen Jones, Derek Boshier, Joe Tilson, Patrick Caulfield, Peter Phillips, Pauline Boty and Peter Blake on the map; Apple designed the posters and invitations for both the 1961 and 1962 Young Contemporaries exhibitions.[18] Hockney, Kitaj and Blake went on to win prizes at the John-Moores-Exhibition in Liverpool in the same year. Apple and Hockney traveled together to New York during the Royal College's 1961 summer break, which is when Apple first made contact with Andy Warhol – both later moved to the United States and Apple became involved with the New York pop art scene.[18]

United States Although pop art began in the early 1950s, in America it was given its greatest impetus during the 1960s. The term "pop art" was officially introduced in December 1962; the occasion was a "Symposium on Pop Art" organized by the Museum of Modern Art.[19] By this time, American advertising had adopted many elements of modern art and functioned at a very sophisticated level. Consequently, American artists had to search deeper for dramatic styles that would distance art from the well-designed and clever commercial materials.[6] As the British viewed American popular culture imagery from a somewhat removed perspective, their views were often instilled with romantic, sentimental and humorous overtones. By contrast, American artists, bombarded every day with the diversity of mass-produced imagery, produced work that was generally more bold and aggressive.[10]

A woman's crying face is overwhelmed by waves as she thinks, "I don't care! I'd rather sink than call Brad for help!" Roy Lichtenstein, Drowning Girl, 1963, on display at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Two important painters in the establishment of America's pop art vocabulary were Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg.[10] Rauschenberg was influenced by the earlier work of Kurt Schwitters and other Dada artists, and his belief that "painting relates to both art and life" challenged the dominant modernist perspective of his time.[20] His use of discarded readymade objects (in his Combines) and pop culture imagery (in his silkscreen paintings) connected his works to topical events in everyday America.[10][21][22] The silkscreen paintings of 1962–64 combined expressive brushwork with silkscreened magazine clippings from Life, Newsweek, and National Geographic. Johns' and Rauschenberg's work of the 1950s is frequently referred to as Neo-Dada, and is visually distinct from the prototypical American pop art which exploded in the early 1960s.[23][24]

The Cheddar Cheese canvas from Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans, 1962. Roy Lichtenstein is of equal importance to American pop art. His work, and its use of parody, probably defines the basic premise of pop art better than any other.[10] Selecting the old-fashioned comic strip as subject matter, Lichtenstein produces a hard-edged, precise composition that documents while also parodying in a soft manner. Lichtenstein used oil and Magna paint in his best known works, such as Drowning Girl (1963), which was appropriated from the lead story in DC Comics' Secret Hearts #83. (Drowning Girl is part of the collection of the Museum of Modern Art.)[25] His work features thick outlines, bold colors and Ben-Day dots to represent certain colors, as if created by photographic reproduction. Lichtenstein said, "[abstract expressionists] put things down on the canvas and responded to what they had done, to the color positions and sizes. My style looks completely different, but the nature of putting down lines pretty much is the same; mine just don't come out looking calligraphic, like Pollock's or Kline's."[26] Pop art merges popular and mass culture with fine art while injecting humor, irony, and recognizable imagery/content into the mix.

The paintings of Lichtenstein, like those of Andy Warhol, Tom Wesselmann and others, share a direct attachment to the commonplace image of American popular culture, but also treat the subject in an impersonal manner clearly illustrating the idealization of mass production.[10]

Andy Warhol is probably the most famous figure in pop art. In fact, art critic Arthur Danto once called Warhol "the nearest thing to a philosophical genius the history of art has produced".[19] Warhol attempted to take pop beyond an artistic style to a life style, and his work often displays a lack of human affectation that dispenses with the irony and parody of many of his peers.[27][28]

Early U.S. exhibitions Claes Oldenburg, Jim Dine and Tom Wesselmann had their first shows in the Judson Gallery in 1959 and 1960 and later in 1960 through 1964 along with James Rosenquist, George Segal and others at the Green Gallery on 57th Street in Manhattan. In 1960, Martha Jackson showed installations and assemblages, New Media – New Forms featured Hans Arp, Kurt Schwitters, Jasper Johns, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg, Jim Dine and May Wilson. 1961 was the year of Martha Jackson's spring show, Environments, Situations, Spaces.[29][30] Andy Warhol held his first solo exhibition in Los Angeles in July 1962 at Irving Blum's Ferus Gallery, where he showed 32 paintings of Campell's soup cans, one for every flavor. Warhol sold the set of paintings to Blum for $1,000; in 1996, when the Museum of Modern Art acquired it, the set was valued at $15 million.[19]

Donald Factor, the son of Max Factor Jr., and an art collector and co-editor of avant-garde literary magazine Nomad, wrote an essay in the magazine's last issue, Nomad/New York. The essay was one of the first on what would become known as pop art, though Factor did not use the term. The essay, "Four Artists", focused on Roy Lichtenstein, James Rosenquist, Jim Dine, and Claes Oldenburg.[31]

In the 1960s, Oldenburg, who became associated with the pop art movement, created many happenings, which were performance art-related productions of that time. The name he gave to his own productions was "Ray Gun Theater". The cast of colleagues in his performances included: artists Lucas Samaras, Tom Wesselmann, Carolee Schneemann, Öyvind Fahlström and Richard Artschwager; dealer Annina Nosei; art critic Barbara Rose; and screenwriter Rudy Wurlitzer.[32] His first wife, Patty Mucha, who sewed many of his early soft sculptures, was a constant performer in his happenings. This brash, often humorous, approach to art was at great odds with the prevailing sensibility that, by its nature, art dealt with "profound" expressions or ideas. In December 1961, he rented a store on Manhattan's Lower East Side to house The Store, a month-long installation he had first presented at the Martha Jackson Gallery in New York, stocked with sculptures roughly in the form of consumer goods.[32]

Opening in 1962, Willem de Kooning's New York art dealer, the Sidney Janis Gallery, organized the groundbreaking International Exhibition of the New Realists, a survey of new-to-the-scene American, French, Swiss, Italian New Realism, and British pop art. The fifty-four artists shown included Richard Lindner, Wayne Thiebaud, Roy Lichtenstein (and his painting Blam), Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, James Rosenquist, Jim Dine, Robert Indiana, Tom Wesselmann, George Segal, Peter Phillips, Peter Blake (The Love Wall from 1961), Öyvind Fahlström, Yves Klein, Arman, Daniel Spoerri, Christo and Mimmo Rotella. The show was seen by Europeans Martial Raysse, Niki de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely in New York, who were stunned by the size and look of the American artwork. Also shown were Marisol, Mario Schifano, Enrico Baj and Öyvind Fahlström. Janis lost some of his abstract expressionist artists when Mark Rothko, Robert Motherwell, Adolph Gottlieb and Philip Guston quit the gallery, but gained Dine, Oldenburg, Segal and Wesselmann.[33] At an opening-night soiree thrown by collector Burton Tremaine, Willem de Kooning appeared and was turned away by Tremaine, who ironically owned a number of de Kooning's works. Rosenquist recalled: "at that moment I thought, something in the art world has definitely changed".[19] Turning away a respected abstract artist proved that, as early as 1962, the pop art movement had begun to dominate art culture in New York.

A bit earlier, on the West Coast, Roy Lichtenstein, Jim Dine and Andy Warhol from New York City; Phillip Hefferton and Robert Dowd from Detroit; Edward Ruscha and Joe Goode from Oklahoma City; and Wayne Thiebaud from California were included in the New Painting of Common Objects show. This first pop art museum exhibition in America was curated by Walter Hopps at the Pasadena Art Museum.[34] Pop art was ready to change the art world. New York followed Pasadena in 1963, when the Guggenheim Museum exhibited Six Painters and the Object, curated by Lawrence Alloway. The artists were Jim Dine, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist, and Andy Warhol.[35] Another pivotal early exhibition was The American Supermarket organised by the Bianchini Gallery in 1964. The show was presented as a typical small supermarket environment, except that everything in it—the produce, canned goods, meat, posters on the wall, etc.—was created by prominent pop artists of the time, including Apple, Warhol, Lichtenstein, Wesselmann, Oldenburg, and Johns. This project was recreated in 2002 as part of the Tate Gallery's Shopping: A Century of Art and Consumer Culture.[36]

By 1962, pop artists started exhibiting in commercial galleries in New York and Los Angeles; for some, it was their first commercial one-man show. The Ferus Gallery presented Andy Warhol in Los Angeles (and Ed Ruscha in 1963). In New York, the Green Gallery showed Rosenquist, Segal, Oldenburg, and Wesselmann. The Stable Gallery showed R. Indiana and Warhol (in his first New York show). The Leo Castelli Gallery presented Rauschenberg, Johns, and Lichtenstein. Martha Jackson showed Jim Dine and Allen Stone showed Wayne Thiebaud. By 1966, after the Green Gallery and the Ferus Gallery closed, the Leo Castelli Gallery represented Rosenquist, Warhol, Rauschenberg, Johns, Lichtenstein and Ruscha. The Sidney Janis Gallery represented Oldenburg, Segal, Dine, Wesselmann and Marisol, while Allen Stone continued to represent Thiebaud, and Martha Jackson continued representing Robert Indiana.[37]

In 1968, the São Paulo 9 Exhibition – Environment U.S.A.: 1957–1967 featured the "Who's Who" of pop art. Considered as a summation of the classical phase of the American pop art period, the exhibit was curated by William Seitz. The artists were Edward Hopper, James Gill, Robert Indiana, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol and Tom Wesselmann.[38]

France Nouveau réalisme refers to an artistic movement founded in 1960 by the art critic Pierre Restany[39] and the artist Yves Klein during the first collective exposition in the Apollinaire gallery in Milan. Pierre Restany wrote the original manifesto for the group, titled the "Constitutive Declaration of New Realism," in April 1960, proclaiming, "Nouveau Réalisme—new ways of perceiving the real."[40] This joint declaration was signed on 27 October 1960, in Yves Klein's workshop, by nine people: Yves Klein, Arman, Martial Raysse, Pierre Restany, Daniel Spoerri, Jean Tinguely and the Ultra-Lettrists, Francois Dufrêne, Raymond Hains, Jacques de la Villeglé; in 1961 these were joined by César, Mimmo Rotella, then Niki de Saint Phalle and Gérard Deschamps. The artist Christo showed with the group. It was dissolved in 1970.[40]

Contemporary of American Pop Art—often conceived as its transposition in France—new realism was along with Fluxus and other groups one of the numerous tendencies of the avant-garde in the 1960s. The group initially chose Nice, on the French Riviera, as its home base since Klein and Arman both originated there; new realism is thus often retrospectively considered by historians to be an early representative of the École de Nice [fr] movement.[41] In spite of the diversity of their plastic language, they perceived a common basis for their work; this being a method of direct appropriation of reality, equivalent, in the terms used by Restany; to a "poetic recycling of urban, industrial and advertising reality".[42]

Spain In Spain, the study of pop art is associated with the "new figurative", which arose from the roots of the crisis of informalism. Eduardo Arroyo could be said to fit within the pop art trend, on account of his interest in the environment, his critique of our media culture which incorporates icons of both mass media communication and the history of painting, and his scorn for nearly all established artistic styles. However, the Spanish artist who could be considered most authentically part of "pop" art is Alfredo Alcaín, because of the use he makes of popular images and empty spaces in his compositions.

Also in the category of Spanish pop art is the "Chronicle Team" (El Equipo Crónica), which existed in Valencia between 1964 and 1981, formed by the artists Manolo Valdés and Rafael Solbes. Their movement can be characterized as "pop" because of its use of comics and publicity images and its simplification of images and photographic compositions. Filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar emerged from Madrid's "La Movida" subculture of the 1970s making low budget super 8 pop art movies, and he was subsequently called the Andy Warhol of Spain by the media at the time. In the book Almodovar on Almodovar, he is quoted as saying that the 1950s film "Funny Face" was a central inspiration for his work. One pop trademark in Almodovar's films is that he always produces a fake commercial to be inserted into a scene.

New Zealand In New Zealand, pop art has predominately flourished since the 1990s, and is often connected to Kiwiana. Kiwiana is a pop-centered, idealised representation of classically Kiwi icons, such as meat pies, kiwifruit, tractors, jandals, Four Square supermarkets; the inherent campness of this is often subverted to signify cultural messages.[43] Dick Frizzell is a famous New Zealand pop artist, known for using older Kiwiana symbols in ways that parody modern culture. For example, Frizzell enjoys imitating the work of foreign artists, giving their works a unique New Zealand view or influence. This is done to show New Zealand's historically subdued impact on the world; naive art is connected to Aotearoan pop art this way.[44]

This can be also done in an abrasive and deadpan way, as with Michel Tuffrey's famous work Pisupo Lua Afe (Corned Beef 2000). Of Samoan ancestry, Tuffery constructed the work, which represents a bull, out of processed food cans known as pisupo. It is a unique work of western pop art because Tuffrey includes themes of neocolonialism and racism against non-western cultures (signified by the food cans the work is made of, which represent economic dependence brought on Samoans by the west). The undeniable indigenous viewpoint makes it stand out against more common non-indigenous works of pop art.[45][46]

One of New Zealand's earliest and famous pop artists is Billy Apple, one of the few non-British members of the Royal Society of British Artists. Featured among the likes of David Hockney, American R.B. Kitaj and Peter Blake in the January 1961 RBA exhibition Young Contemporaries, Apple quickly became an iconic international artist of the 1960s. This was before he conceived his moniker of 'Billy Apple", and his work was displayed under his birth name of Barrie Bates. He sought to distinguish himself by appearance as well as name, so bleached his hair and eyebrows with Lady Clairol Instant Creme Whip. Later, Apple was associated with the 1970s Conceptual Art movement. [47]

Japan In Japan, pop art evolved from the nation's prominent avant-garde scene. The use of images of the modern world, copied from magazines in the photomontage-style paintings produced by Harue Koga in the late 1920s and early 1930s, foreshadowed elements of pop art.[48] The work of Yayoi Kusama contributed to the development of pop art and influenced many other artists, including Andy Warhol.[49][50] In the mid-1960s, graphic designer Tadanori Yokoo became one of the most successful pop artists and an international symbol for Japanese pop art. He is well known for his advertisements and creating artwork for pop culture icons such as commissions from The Beatles, Marilyn Monroe, and Elizabeth Taylor, among others.[51] Another leading pop artist at that time was Keiichi Tanaami. Iconic characters from Japanese manga and anime have also become symbols for pop art, such as Speed Racer and Astro Boy. Japanese manga and anime also influenced later pop artists such as Takashi Murakami and his superflat movement.

Italy In Italy, by 1964, pop art was known and took different forms, such as the "Scuola di Piazza del Popolo" in Rome, with pop artists such as Mario Schifano, Franco Angeli, Giosetta Fioroni, Tano Festa, Claudio Cintoli, and some artworks by Piero Manzoni, Lucio Del Pezzo, Mimmo Rotella and Valerio Adami.

Italian pop art originated in 1950s culture – the works of the artists Enrico Baj and Mimmo Rotella to be precise, rightly considered the forerunners of this scene. In fact, it was around 1958–1959 that Baj and Rotella abandoned their previous careers (which might be generically defined as belonging to a non-representational genre, despite being thoroughly post-Dadaist), to catapult themselves into a new world of images, and the reflections on them, which was springing up all around them. Rotella's torn posters showed an ever more figurative taste, often explicitly and deliberately referring to the great icons of the times. Baj's compositions were steeped in contemporary kitsch, which turned out to be a "gold mine" of images and the stimulus for an entire generation of artists.

The novelty came from the new visual panorama, both inside "domestic walls" and out-of-doors. Cars, road signs, television, all the "new world", everything can belong to the world of art, which itself is new. In this respect, Italian pop art takes the same ideological path as that of the international scene. The only thing that changes is the iconography and, in some cases, the presence of a more critical attitude toward it. Even in this case, the prototypes can be traced back to the works of Rotella and Baj, both far from neutral in their relationship with society. Yet this is not an exclusive element; there is a long line of artists, including Gianni Ruffi, Roberto Barni, Silvio Pasotti, Umberto Bignardi, and Claudio Cintoli, who take on reality as a toy, as a great pool of imagery from which to draw material with disenchantment and frivolity, questioning the traditional linguistic role models with a renewed spirit of "let me have fun" à la Aldo Palazzeschi.[52]

Belgium In Belgium, pop art was represented to some extent by Paul Van Hoeydonck, whose sculpture Fallen Astronaut was left on the Moon during one of the Apollo missions, as well as by other notable pop artists. Internationally recognized artists such as Marcel Broodthaers ( 'vous êtes doll? "), Evelyne Axell and Panamarenko are indebted to the pop art movement; Broodthaers's great influence was George Segal. Another well-known artist, Roger Raveel, mounted a birdcage with a real live pigeon in one of his paintings. By the end of the 1960s and early 1970s, pop art references disappeared from the work of some of these artists when they started to adopt a more critical attitude towards America because of the Vietnam War's increasingly gruesome character. Panamarenko, however, has retained the irony inherent in the pop art movement up to the present day. Evelyne Axell from Namur was a prolific pop-artist in the 1964–1972 period. Axell was one of the first female pop artists, had been mentored by Magritte and her best-known painting is 'Ice Cream'.[53] Other notable works by Axell can be found in key galleries internationally.

Netherlands While there was no formal pop art movement in the Netherlands, there were a group of artists that spent time in New York during the early years of pop art, and drew inspiration from the international pop art movement. Representatives of Dutch pop art include Daan van Golden, Gustave Asselbergs, Jacques Frenken, Jan Cremer, Wim T. Schippers, and Woody van Amen. They opposed the Dutch petit bourgeois mentality by creating humorous works with a serious undertone. Examples of this nature include Sex O'Clock, by Woody van Amen, and Crucifix / Target, by Jacques Frenken.[54]

Russia Russia was a little late to become part of the pop art movement, and some of the artwork that resembles pop art only surfaced around the early 1970s, when Russia was a communist country and bold artistic statements were closely monitored. Russia's own version of pop art was Soviet-themed and was referred to as Sots Art. After 1991, the Communist Party lost its power, and with it came a freedom to express. Pop art in Russia took on another form, epitomised by Dmitri Vrubel with his painting titled My God, Help Me to Survive This Deadly Love in 1990. It might be argued that the Soviet posters made in the 1950s to promote the wealth of the nation were in itself a form of pop art.[55]

Notable artists Billy Apple (born 1935) Evelyne Axell (1935–1972) Sir Peter Blake (born 1932) Derek Boshier (born 1937) Pauline Boty (1938–1966) Patrick Caulfield (1936–2005) Allan D'Arcangelo (1930–1998) Jim Dine (born 1935) Burhan Dogancay (1929–2013) Rosalyn Drexler (born 1926) Robert Dowd (1936–1996) Ken Elias (born 1944) Erró (born 1932) Marisol Escobar (1930–2016) James Gill (born 1934) Dorothy Grebenak (1913-1990) Red Grooms (born 1937) Richard Hamilton (1922–2011) Keith Haring (1958–1990) Jann Haworth (born 1942) David Hockney (born 1937) Dorothy Iannone (born 1933) Robert Indiana (1928–2018) Jasper Johns (born 1930) Allen Jones (born 1937) Alex Katz (born 1927) Corita Kent (1918–1986) Konrad Klapheck (born 1935) Kiki Kogelnik (1935–1997) Nicholas Krushenick (1929–1999) Yayoi Kusama (born 1929) Gerald Laing (1936–2011) Roy Lichtenstein (1923–1997) Richard Lindner (1901–1978) John McHale (1922–1978) Peter Max (born 1937) Marta Minujin (born 1943) Claes Oldenburg (born 1929) Julian Opie (born 1958) Eduardo Paolozzi (1924–2005) Peter Phillips (born 1939) Sigmar Polke (1941–2010) Hariton Pushwagner (1940–2018) Mel Ramos (1935–2018) Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008) Larry Rivers (1923–2002) James Rizzi (1950–2011) James Rosenquist (1933–2017) Niki de Saint Phalle (1930–2002) Peter Saul (born 1934) George Segal (1924–2000) Colin Self (born 1941) Marjorie Strider (1931–2014) Elaine Sturtevant (1924-2014) Wayne Thiebaud (born 1920) Joe Tilson (born 1928) Andy Warhol (1928–1987) Idelle Weber (1932–2020) John Wesley (born 1928) Tom Wesselmann (1931–2004)