Don`t miss your last chance to see “Post Pop: East Meets West” exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery in London, which is on display until the 3rd of March 2015. The show brings together 250 artworks by 110 masters from three important world regions: Far East (China and Taiwan), former Soviet Union and the West represented by British and US artists. Post Pop: East Meets West is dedicated to the profound art movement that is Pop Art and its influences on modern art across the world. Although the exhibition features artworks from parts of the world that seem to be so different in their social and ethical behaviour, ideology, belief and views on life, it unveils familiar subjects of consumerism, mass productions and media and how they intersect with contemporary art. Art objects from different zones and time frames - pop art from 1970s and up to date - are displayed hand in hand in no particular order.
The works are rather split and presented in six main topics: Habitat; Advertising and Consumerism; Celebrity and Mass Media, Religion and Ideology, Sex and the Body. Mass produced objects and goods that are used in everyday life have always fascinated the artists and contributed to pop and contemporary art movements. The exhibition starts with the Habitat section, in the first room is Ai Weiwei`s marble sculpture of an armchair along the Vladimir Kozin` s (Ukrainian born artist) installations “Lock” and “The Toilet”. While the works are very different in its textures and aesthetics - a white and glamorous armchair opposed to the rough and grounded sculpture of toilet made of rubber and wire - they are both examples of commodities that serve human`s everyday needs that are not always so attractive.
As you move to another room you will find installations by a couple of ethnic Ukrainian artists, Iliya & Emilia Kabakov, a husband and wife who work together. Floating saucepans and bowls look like a still shot from a movie scene in an “Incident in the Corridor near the Kitchen” composition, whilst “Unfinished Installation” leaves us wondering what was planned to be built with all these chaotically scattered tools, crates, jars, ropes and paint. The artist makes us think about the timeline of events, what preceded the incident and where will it lead us from the point we are at now.
From Habitat the exhibition progresses towards Advertising & Consumerism and Ideology & Religion sections. The show touches on the subjects of mass media influences on the nature of the modern world, our taste and fashion choice being guided by the advertisement. While pop art in the western world has been affected by the mass production, consumerism and cult of celebrity; Political-Pop and iconography of Social Realism prevails in China and artists from the Soviet Union draw attention to the state control, similarity and pomp ceremony.
There are works of a few other Ukrainian artists or those of Ukrainian ethnicity on display. Mosaic sculptures by Ukrainian artist Zhanna Kadyrova from her collection of “Diamonds” fall within the Advertising and Consumerism category. Controversial artist Oleg Kulik, famous for his performances as a dog, presents his works from hise series “Museum of Nature”, photography “Horses of Bretagne”, video installation “Deep into Russia” and “I bite America and America bites me” c-print. Inspection Medical Hermeneutics group (the members are Sergei Anufriev, Yuri Leiderman, Vladimir Fedorov who come from Ukraine and Pavel Pepperstein from Russia) exhibits carved Matryoshkas and prints from the series “Empty Icons”. Post Pop: East Meets West is a retrospective of pop art legacy, one may find its scale tiring and over the top, however if you are a frequent visitor of the Saatchi Gallery this will not catch you off-guard.
