BerlinRocks
Active Member
- Joined
- Dec 19, 2005
- Messages
- 11,216
- Reaction score
- 13
first
some big names...
some big names...
from the I.G websiteLawrence Alloway
1926–1990
Lawrence Alloway brought an incisive, critical perspective to the Independent Group when he joined the meetings in early 1955 as convenor with John McHale. The second session concentrated on mass culture, industrial design, cybernetics and fine art. As an art critic, Alloway had admired the work of Paolozzi and William Turnbull since the early 1950s, writing a glowing review of their work for Art News in the summer of 1953. Alloway also curated exhibitions, including Collages and Objects at the ICA in late 1954, which included the first representation of a transistor in British art. Alloway shared the same type of humble background as Banham and Hamilton, as the son of a bookseller he was largely educated at home due to childhood illness. He relished the popular culture of his early years, notably science-fiction comics and films. Alloway continued to be an avid fan of Hollywood film throughout his lifetime, working as a groundbreaking film critic for the British Movie magazine, and publishing Violent America: the Movies 1946–64 in 1971, which accompanied a screening of 35 films at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Alloway contributed an introduction entitled ‘Design as a Human Activity’ to the This is Tomorrow catalogue, which encapsulated the Independent Group’s approach:
‘In This is Tomorrow the visitor is exposed to space effects, play with signs, a wide range of materials and structures, which, taken together, make of art and architecture a many-chanelled activity, as factual and far from ideal standards as the street outside.’ (1956:11)
He also contributed to Group 12’s environment with Toni del Renzio and John Holroyd, consisting of various tackboards which the visitor could alter. Alloway was employed by the ICA as Assistant Director in July 1955, making a contribution to the public series of lectures and the exhibition programme. In 1958 he travelled around America on a State Department Grant and in 1961 Alloway moved to New York, to teach at Bennington College before becoming a curator at the Guggenheim Museum. He then supported the development of American Pop Art and, in the 1970s and 1980s, feminist art, due to his wife Sylvia Sleigh’s involvement. His incisive, critical writing on architecture, art and film continued to reflect Independent Group concerns throughout his lifetime.
from wikipediaLawrence Alloway
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Lawrence Alloway (London, 1926 - New York, January 2, 1990) was an English art critic and curator who worked in the United States from the 1960s. In the 1950s he was a leading member of the Independent Group in the UK and in the 1960s was an influential writer and curator in the US. He first used the term "mass popular art" in the mid 1950's and used the term Pop Art in the 1960s to indicate that art has a basis in the popular culture of its day and takes from it a faith in the power of images.[1]
Contents
[hide]
[edit] In his own words
Concerning the origins of the term Pop Art in his own words Alloway said: "The term, originated in England by me, as a description of mass communications, especially, but not exclusively, visual ones."[2] In a footnote to his essay Pop Art the words, he goes on to say: "The first published appearance of the terms that I know is: Lawrence Alloway, "The Arts and the Mass Media," Architectural Design, February, 1958, London. Ideas on Pop Art were discussed by Reyner Banham, Theo Crosby, Frank Cordell, Toni del Renzio, Richard Hamilton, Nigel Henderson, John McHale, Eduardo Paolozzi, Alison and Peter Smithson, sculptor William Turnbull, and myself."
However there are contradictory recollections as to the origin of the term: according to John McHale's son his father first coined the term in 1954 in conversation with Frank Cordell, and the term was then used in Independent Group discussions by mid 1955.[3]. Alloway used the term 'mass popular art' in his oft quoted 1958 article but he did not use the specific term "Pop Art".[4]
[edit] Early career and the Independent Group
Alloway started writing art reviews for "Art News and Reviews" in 1943. In his 1954 book Nine Abstract Artists he promoted the Constructivist artists that emerged in Britain after the Second World War: Robert Adams, Terry Frost, Adrian Heath, Anthony Hill, Roger Hilton, Kenneth Martin, Mary Martin, Victor Pasmore and William Scott.
Alloway's theory of art reflecting the concrete materials of modern life gave way to an interest in mass-media and consumerism. Alloway was a member of the Independent Group and lectured on his theory of a circular link between popular cultural low art and high art. From 1955 to 1960 he was Assistant Director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, organising two landmark exhibitions of American Art. In 1956 Alloway contributed to organising the exhibition This is Tomorrow and reviewing that show, and other works he had seen on a trip to the U.S., in a 1958 article, first used the term "mass popular art".
[edit] Career in the U.S.
In 1961 Alloway moved to New York with his wife, realist painter Sylvia Sleigh. He was appointed senior curator at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum from 1961 until 1966. In 1963 he organized the pop art show, Six Painters and the Object. In 1966 he curated the influential Systemic Painting exhibition that showcased Geometric abstraction in the American art world via Minimal art, Shaped canvas, and Hard-edge painting. Alloway was an ardent supporter of Abstract expressionism and of American Pop artists such as Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenberg, and Andy Warhol. In 1967/68 he joined the Art department faculty as a lecturer at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, where McHale and Buckminster Fuller were also on staff at the SIU Design Department. In the 1970s he wrote for The Nation and Artforum and lectured at the State University of New York.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Topics in American Art since 1945, Pop Art the words, pp.119-122, by Lawrence Alloway, copyright 1975 by W.W.Norton and Company, NYC ISBN 0-393-04401-7
- ^ Topics in American Art since 1945, Pop Art the words, p.119 by Lawrence Alloway, copyright 1975 by W.W.Norton and Company, NYC ISBN 0-393-04401-7
- ^ Warholstars.org
- ^ The Arts and the Mass Media Lawrence Alloway, Warholstars.org