techniques of commercial art and
popular illustration.
colors, images, slogans, and popular
products. Diego Rivera and Basquiat
weren’t just making high quality art
for the rich, but brought it to the
everyman. Warhol loved America
because the rich and the poor both
consumed the same products, and
it was his goal that his art would be
consumed the way a Coca-Cola is
consumed; ubiquitous, omnipresent,
a symbol of the times for all and none,
a cultural staple.
In essence, Pop-Art is among the
first forms of art to actively and
unabashedly sample images and
ideas from elsewhere, anywhere,
commonly utilizing and expropriating
popular aesthetics and ideas into
a new substance; borrowing the
popularity, or pop, of other ideas to
attract the masses, many of whom
may not be familiar with “high art” or
the avant-garde. Parallel to Pop-Art’s
ability to utilize pop-culture, hip-hop
signaled in music the same method
of borrowing, stealing, and using
samples of others to craft a new art
form, a new context, geared towards
the masses, or “the streets”. It’s no
coincidence that Warhol himself
was very interested in underground
music (having produced perhaps the
most popular cult album of the 20th
century Velvet Underground and
The lyrics of Yeezus are particularly
“Pop” oriented in parts