Art movement that reached its peak of activity in U.S. in the 1960s, based on modern popular culture and the mass media, especially as a critical or ironic commentary on traditional fine art values. With Pop art commonplace objects, such as commercial products, comic strips, and celebrity images, became the subject of artworks.
Published in Chapter:
Art and Brand Contamination: How Brands Have Blurred the Distinction Between Low Culture and High Culture
Marta Massi (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Italy), Chiara Piancatelli (SDA Bocconi School of Management, Italy), and Sonia Pancheri (IULM University, Italy)
Copyright: © 2019
|Pages: 16
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-8491-9.ch020
Abstract
Albeit often perceived as two worlds apart, low culture and high culture are increasingly converging to collaborate in mutually advantageous ways. Brands—including the name, term, sign, symbol, or combination of them that identify the goods and services of a seller or group of sellers, and differentiate them from those of the competitors—are the new territory where high culture and low culture co-exist and collaborate, creating new possibilities of cross-fertilization and hybridization between the two. Through the analysis of successful examples coming from different industries, this chapter aims to highlight how brands have blurred the distinction between low culture and high culture. On the one hand, brands can use the heritage of the arts world to gain authenticity and legitimate themselves in the eyes of consumers and the society. On the other hand, artists and arts organizations, such as museums and other art institutions, can indulge in popular culture in order to become appealing to younger target markets and enhance their brand awareness and image.