For a long time now, I've held the opinion that Lady Gaga is far more than a musician and a performer. While the uneducated masses dismiss Gaga as a "crazy" who wears "crazy" outfits and puts on "crazy" performances, Gaga herself is an NYU educated artist, and I myself, a Duke educated art historian. Her latest feat, the "Telephone" video (which has gone complete and utterly viral since its release yesterday), is nothing short of spectacular, and spurned quite the discussion today over whether Gaga can be considered an actual artist (specifically one of the greatest pop artists of this decade) or just a really savvy businesswoman. Being the art historian I am, I argue that everything the woman stands for channels Warhol, arguably the greatest of the great in his school of pop art, and I want to explain why.
Pop Art. Of course, it conjures up images of Warhol, first and foremost, but let's look at artists like Waybe Thiebaud and Claes Oldenburg. Known primarily for their "food pornography," Thiebaud is responsible for a slew of paintings depicting sweets and hot dogs and anything one could ever want to eat. Oldenburg, while known for larger than life sculptures in cities around the USA also created a slew of larger than life "food sculptures." Think giant hamburgers, giant pie slices, and giant cakes. I used to think these sculptures were all about our overindulging society, but then I saw an Oldenburg piece in person. What was odd to me was how nostalgic those pieces felt. I saw 'Pie a la Mode' and I didn't think about calories or fat people...I though about the lifestyle my great grand-parents had where everything was homecooked, as opposed to the commercialization of things today. We just go to Harris Teeter and grab a pie off the top of the stack of 200. Even Thiebaud's work have that sort of "old-fashioned" quality with their muted colors.
Then, of course, no discussion of Pop Art could be complete without mentioning Richard Hamilton. His piece, 'Just What Is It That Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing," in my opinion, is the beginning of branding in art. The lollipop, the appliances, etc etc. What's so incredibly clear about this work though, is that Hamilton isn't advertising anything. The makers of that lollipop paid Hamilton exactly $0 for that image to appear in his work, rather he used it as his own social commentary on the growing commercialization and materialism in his society (mid-20th century England). Whereas artists like Thiebaud and Oldenburg show some sort of longing for the past through images of the past, Hamilton gives a more bitter commentary through images of the future.This brings me to Warhol. He shocked everyone by completely embracing everything modern. As an artist, what Warhol stood for was fame, fortune, materialism and consumer culture...essentially everything that was distinctly modern to the society of the 1960s, when he was reaching his peak. He wasn't even critical of it...he was completely vapid and superficial, but he LOVED IT. Warhol did something extraordinary in that he sort of blurred the lines between advertising and art, by asking if images we see in everyday life, such as Campbells Soup Can or a Brillo Box could be images evoked for artistic purpose. Of course the answer is yes, and once he found out how lucrative this could be, he continually evoked these images in his works. Sure, Campbells never approached Warhol and said "we'll give you this commission to paint these works," (although plenty of gallery owners realized they were moneymakers and did) but they were used by Warhol to make a living, and he completely embraced that. Warhol functioned on the idea that our society is a consumer society and used images of these mass-produced products to create his own sort of school of pop art, and while his attitude was essentially "consumerism is beautiful" as opposed to the more severely critical attitudes of previously mentioned artists, he blurred the line between art and advertising, and essentially art and life. WIth him, it became all about intention. A commercial isn't art, but when he uses the images in his screens they were.
What's interesting is that if I, in my mind, bring Warhol into the 21st century, I see an even further blurring between all of these things. Product placement and branding was relatively new when he was working as an artist, but let's think about an artist working for commission. Liz Taylor comes to Warhol and says "screen me." Warhol does, Warhol makes money, and the Liz Taylor screen becomes more iconic than Liz Taylor herself. Bringing Warhol into today, I see something very similar happening. Apple approaches Warhol and says "screen the Apple." Apple pays Warhol tons of money, Warhol makes screens the Apple, and it functions as advertising for both the artist and Apple. And, as someone who's lived and breathed Andy Warhol and Pop Art for the past two years and feels like she personally knows the artist, I don't imagine Warhol sitting at home saying "gosh, I made so much money off this business deal...let's make more for the sake of making tons more!" I imagine Warhol saying "this is the beauty of today and the beauty of a consumer society." To Warhol, the business deal is the art, and the product placement is the art, in the same way it is life. It's so awesomely modern to him. Of course, it is also the kind of art that reflects the same things artists like Hamilton, Thiebaud, and Oldenburg were trying to critique. Yet instead of critiquing, Warhol embraces, and imbues it with his own artistic intent.
So. One can undeniably look at Gaga's "Telephone" video and comment on the avant-garde fashion as art. It's a complete given that the Viktor&Rolf chain slash jumpsuit contraption/Thierry Mugler dress and hat/all the Haus of Gaga pieces are art. Sure, not the kind of art you see at the National Gallery, but the kind you see at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute, and value for the sheer fact that they're so cutting edge. But then there's the product placement, which I'd venture to argue is what makes this music video more pop art than something you'd see on MTV between the hours of 2am and 6am. Let's look at a few of the instances:
1. The Virgin Mobile Phone: This makes its appearance twice in the video, but the first instance is what I really remember. Gaga is sitting outside, making out with dark and brooding he-she, when the screen abruptly shifts to the phone. The shot is longer than you'd think it would be, and the phone is at the very center of the action. Not like typical product placement where an actress would pick up the phone, flash the screen at the camera, then have her conversation. It's blatant and premeditated.
2. The Mayonnaise: Again, when Gaga is cooking, the screen cuts away to an image of Miracle Whip (?). The shot is, again, abrupt and the mayonnaise takes up the whole damn screen. Sure, it's on the table the whole time Gaga is cooking, but for most people using product placement in their TV shows/movies, that's enough. Instead, Gaga cuts away and makes the jar the center of the action for approximately 2 seconds. What's even more obvious to me is that this scene is the most "Pop Art" out of everything. Between the "cheesy" recipe for poison sandwiches on the top of side of the screen to the plastic costume, it's almost an homage to Pop Art and everything those artists embraced. She's like the fake, plastic woman in the kitchen, making sandwiches with her store-bought goods in newly-materialistic and commercial 1950s America...except a little bit more avant-garde and, well, they're poison sandwiches.
3. The Dating Website: I struggled with this one at first. For awhile, I didn't realize it was a dating website, but once I figured it out saw it as a sort of homage to the fact that modernity has taken hold of us so much that we can even go online and find a husband. It's a concept someone like Warhol couldn't fathom, but I could imagine him saying "this is so vapid and wonderful." He'd love it. Again, this is on the screen for a pretty long time as well, and isn't merely in the background.
4. The Polaroid: Of course, Gaga is Polaroid's "creative director" so we knew this would make an appearance, and it does as she snaps pictures of Beyonce driving the "Pussy Wagon." Personally, I look at this and think "If I were driving the "Pussy Wagon" with Honey Bee Lady Gaga on my way to commit a mass murder, someone better be snapping damn photos of me too. But this is so random and weirdly placed that I have to think, again, it was blatant and intentional. She could have snapped polaroids of all the dead people, or the hot ladies in the prison, but she randomly decides to take polaroids of Our Lady B driving. My analysis of this one certainly isn't deep, but on the same level of my analysis of the Virgin Mobile cell. It's so blatant and obvious product placement that she did it for more than the money. She did it to make it an essential and inherent part of her video. She's singing a song, looking awesome, and showing off labels and products. It's all weighted the same.
So here's what I want to argue. I want to argue that perhaps Lady Gaga is the best pop artist of them all, and we don't even know it yet. First and foremost, she's a musician, which means she's reaching a far larger number of people with everything she does. There's no question that the masses would choose Warhol and Lichtenstein over de Kooning and Poisson any day. Second, it's no question that she approaches her work as more of an artistic venture as opposed to a money-making venture. Third, she's the same public actor that Warhol was. In the same way his actual pieces of art were art, artist was also art. He made money for every appearance, and those images of him out at parties with Edie and the like are almost as iconic (and to me, more interesting and worthy of critical analysis) as his silkscreens. Warhol preached fame and glamour and materialism and at a time when art was becoming life, everything about him becomes art...which is essentially them same thing Gaga does. "I used to walk down the street like I was a fucking star... I want people to walk around delusional about how great they can be - and then to fight so hard for it every day that the lie becomes the truth," says Gaga, and I think this is exactly what the root of pop artists were getting at. Beyond any notion of product placement, is the fact that Gaga herself is never seen in anything other than crazy apparel, posing like a star. She has become her art, in the same way materialism and consumerism became us in the late 20th century. She's everything Warhol was and more than he could have ever imagined. She lives her work, and everything she does is her art.
In that sense, the idea of product placement in her work because a sort of given. Gaga didn't place those images there to make money. Sure, she did make some bank. But everything about it has to be intentional through the way it was done (as described above). The overt use of all of these images, in conjunction with her experimental-esque music videos, to me, is more of an homage to what Pop Artists were doing above anything. She has the fame and the glamour and the materialism...that is clear through her clothes and her public image. What she needs now...to be the greatest of them all...is to embrace the consumerism that is one of the most inherent characteristics of our society. Warhol's soup can becomes Gaga's mayonnaise, and Gaga's telephone becomes 2010's Warhol silkscreen. Like Warhol, I don't even see any criticism in it either. It's vapid, obvious, and perfectly executed advertising in the middle of something avant-garde. The artist embraces it as a part of her own. The business deal itself even becomes part of the work, as it culminates in a physical image that we see, which reflects a 21st century consumer society.
Lastly, someone commented to me today that the masses just look at the video and say "Oh, mayonnaise, look at that advertising." The masses also look at Monet or a Caravaggio or a Verrocchio and say "Oh, that's pretty." No one realizes the entire other layer that exists.
I'll end my artistic rant with another Gaga quote:
"When you are lonely,
I will be lonely too.
And this is the fame."
Ironic how similar this is to a very well-known quote by an artist I've mentioned quite a bit...
