Pop Culture in Art - Essay Example

Popular culture comes into being as a result of the interplay of a variety of factors and sources. The primary source of the birth and spread of popular culture is mass media in general and popular music, television shows, movies, video games, books, and radio in particular. Nothing has been as big a contributor to the spread of popular culture as the Internet. Cell phones, online chatting, videoconferencing, and video calling using Skype and other software have helped popular culture spread with the word of mouth.
Popular culture has influenced the arts in several ways. Ever since the 20th century, artists started to use and integrate the elements of pop culture, its items, and images in their art.

The word used to refer to this practice is appropriation which is defined as “the process of taking symbols or systems out of their original context and putting them in new ones” (Contemporary Art Start, n.d.). The influence of popular culture on arts reached its peak in the pop art movement during the 1960s and several postmodern artists have continued to have this influence to date. Pop artists have challenged the separation traditionally placed between popular and high culture, suggesting that images from comic books, billboards, and grocery store shelves are capable of providing wonderful subjects for sculpture and painting. Pop artists increasingly replaced traditional raw materials used in art including stone, paint, and clay with mass-produced objects.

The influence of arts on popular culture is overarching. Popular culture has fundamentally come into being as a result of the artistic inspirations and desires of people. Performing arts’ impact on popular culture is just as evident, if not more, as the traditional arts’ impact on it. For example, programs like the Last Comic Standing and American Idol broadcast over a majority of channels encourage the audience to participate in the shows and leave their mark on the destiny of the contestants by voting for their favorite contestants. This trend has not only provided media with a way to earn a lot of money, but has also introduced new trends, values, and culture in society. “This combining of pop culture sources represents a novel way of increasing public interest, and further fuels the mass production of commodities” (Delaney, 2007). Arts have provided popular culture with a mold, a frame, and guidelines so that it is shaped as per the standards appreciated by society. Read More