Peaking in the 1960s, Pop Art began as a revolt against mainstream approaches to art and culture and evolved into a wholesale interrogation of modern society, consumer culture, the role of the artist, and of what constituted an artwork.

Focusing on issues of materialism, celebrity, and media, Pop Art drew on mass-market sources, from advertising imagery to comic books, from Hollywood's most famous faces to the packaging of consumer products, the latter epitomized by Andy Warhol's Campbell's soup cans. As well as challenging the establishment with the elevation of such popular, banal, and kitschy images, Pop Art also deployed methods of mass-production, reducing the role of the individual artist with mechanized techniques such as screen printing.

With featured artists including Andy Warhol, Allen Jones, Ed Ruscha, Robert Indiana, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, and Roy Lichtenstein, this book introduces the full reach and influence of a defining modernist movement.

Andy Warhol (1928-1987) is hailed as the most important proponent of the Pop art movement. A critical and creative observer of American society, he explored key themes of consumerism, materialism, media, and celebrity.

Drawing on contemporary advertisements, comic strips, consumer products, and Hollywood's most famous faces, Warhol proposed a radical reevaluation of what constituted artistic subject matter. Through Warhol, a Campbell's soup can and Coca Cola bottle became as worthy of artistic status as any traditional still life. At the same time, Warhol reconfigured the role of the artist. Famously stating I want to be a machine, he systematically reduced the presence of his own authorship, working with mass-production methods and images, as well as dozens of assistants in a studio he dubbed the Factory.

This book introduces Warhol's multifaceted, prolific oeuvre, which revolutionized distinctions between high and low art and integrated ideas of living, producing, and consuming that remain central questions of modern experience.

An encounter with Gerhard Richter, the German artist who widened horizons in the relationship between painting and reality. From early photographic paintings, along with his famous RAF cycle, to late abstract paintings, experiencing Richter's work always offers us the unexpected and unseen. Where he once set out to liberate the medium from ideological ballast, today, faced with the overwhelming presence of digital images, he shows us the unsurpassed impact and intensity of painting. A definitive introduction to one of the greatest artists of our time spanning not only his entire career, but also 50 years of cultural, economic, and political events.

With their collection, Cologne-based couple Ute and Eberhard Garnatz impressively demonstrate just how inspiring and contemporary a private art collection can actually be. Over decades they have assembled a body of work that celebrates painting just as much as photography. Sculptural works also form part of the collection. The Garnatz Collection bears witness to their enthusiasm and keen sense of quality. The ­proximity to the artists has always been important to them. Rather than owning a singular work, they follow the artistic development, and in some cases remain in exchange for years. This publication ­focuses on the photographic aspect of the Garnatz Collection and juxtaposes selected posi­tions with those from the Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur. Particularly interesting in this respect is the documentary-conceptual ­direction, as represented by Bernd and Hilla ­Becher. The Cologne institution is entrusted with the Becher Archive, and the Garnatz Collection also contains distinctive photographs by the artist couple. Works related stylistically by Candida H fer, Thomas Ruff, and Thomas Struth have been included in this context.

Peaking in the 1960s, Pop Art began as a revolt against mainstream approaches to art and culture and evolved into a wholesale interrogation of modern society, consumer culture, the role of the artist, and of what constituted an artwork.

Focusing on issues of materialism, celebrity, and media, Pop Art drew on mass-market sources, from advertising imagery to comic books, from Hollywood's most famous faces to the packaging of consumer products, the latter epitomized by Andy Warhol's Campbell's soup cans. As well as challenging the establishment with the elevation of such popular, banal, and kitschy images, Pop Art also deployed methods of mass-production, reducing the role of the individual artist with mechanized techniques such as screen printing.

With featured artists including Andy Warhol, Allen Jones, Ed Ruscha, Robert Indiana, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, and Roy Lichtenstein, this book introduces the full reach and influence of a defining modernist movement.

Andy Warhol (1928-1987) is hailed as the most important proponent of the Pop art movement. A critical and creative observer of American society, he explored key themes of consumerism, materialism, media, and celebrity.

Drawing on contemporary advertisements, comic strips, consumer products, and Hollywood's most famous faces, Warhol proposed a radical reevaluation of what constituted artistic subject matter. Through Warhol, a Campbell's soup can and Coca Cola bottle became as worthy of artistic status as any traditional still life. At the same time, Warhol reconfigured the role of the artist. Famously stating I want to be a machine, he systematically reduced the presence of his own authorship, working with mass-production methods and images, as well as dozens of assistants in a studio he dubbed the Factory.

This book introduces Warhol's multifaceted, prolific oeuvre, which revolutionized distinctions between high and low art and integrated ideas of living, producing, and consuming that remain central questions of modern experience.

An encounter with Gerhard Richter, the German artist who widened horizons in the relationship between painting and reality. From early photographic paintings, along with his famous RAF cycle, to late abstract paintings, experiencing Richter's work always offers us the unexpected and unseen. Where he once set out to liberate the medium from ideological ballast, today, faced with the overwhelming presence of digital images, he shows us the unsurpassed impact and intensity of painting. A definitive introduction to one of the greatest artists of our time spanning not only his entire career, but also 50 years of cultural, economic, and political events.

Andy Warhol (1928-1987) is hailed as the most important proponent of the Pop art movement. A critical and creative observer of American society, he explored key themes of consumerism, materialism, media, and celebrity.

Drawing on contemporary advertisements, comic strips, consumer products, and Hollywood's most famous faces, Warhol proposed a radical reevaluation of what constituted artistic subject matter. Through Warhol, a Campbell's soup can and Coca Cola bottle became as worthy of artistic status as any traditional still life. At the same time, Warhol reconfigured the role of the artist. Famously stating I want to be a machine, he systematically reduced the presence of his own authorship, working with mass-production methods and images, as well as dozens of assistants in a studio he dubbed the Factory.

This book introduces Warhol's multifaceted, prolific oeuvre, which revolutionized distinctions between high and low art and integrated ideas of living, producing, and consuming that remain central questions of modern experience.

An encounter with Gerhard Richter, the German artist who widened horizons in the relationship between painting and reality. From early photographic paintings, along with his famous RAF cycle, to late abstract paintings, experiencing Richter's work always offers us the unexpected and unseen. Where he once set out to liberate the medium from ideological ballast, today, faced with the overwhelming presence of digital images, he shows us the unsurpassed impact and intensity of painting. A definitive introduction to one of the greatest artists of our time spanning not only his entire career, but also 50 years of cultural, economic, and political events.

Peaking in the 1960s, Pop Art began as a revolt against mainstream approaches to art and culture and evolved into a wholesale interrogation of modern society, consumer culture, the role of the artist, and of what constituted an artwork.

Focusing on issues of materialism, celebrity, and media, Pop Art drew on mass-market sources, from advertising imagery to comic books, from Hollywood's most famous faces to the packaging of consumer products, the latter epitomized by Andy Warhol's Campbell's soup cans. As well as challenging the establishment with the elevation of such popular, banal, and kitschy images, Pop Art also deployed methods of mass-production, reducing the role of the individual artist with mechanized techniques such as screen printing.

With featured artists including Andy Warhol, Allen Jones, Ed Ruscha, Robert Indiana, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, and Roy Lichtenstein, this book introduces the full reach and influence of a defining modernist movement.