Join us for an opening-day program of discussions exploring some of the many facets of the new exhibition International Pop with artists and scholars from around the world. Tickets are available for individual talks, or join us for the entire day with a series package.

International Pop asserts that Pop was not a singular artistic style or brand, but a roving spirit and ethos moving with unprecedented force through culture at large, embracing figuration, mass-media production, and consumerist strategies and commodities with a new spirit of urgency and excitement. Featuring some 125 artworks by more than 100 artists from four continents, this is the first exhibition of its kind to explore such a vast and diverse array of Pop-related production.

Introduction to International Pop, 10:30 am

• Speaker: Darsie Alexander (lead curator, International Pop)

Curator Darsie Alexander welcomes the artists and scholars who will participate in the day’s discussions and introduces the audience to the complex and exciting concepts in Pop art that form the premise of the exhibition.

The Internationality of Pop

• Panelists: Erica Battle (associate curator, Philadelphia Museum of Art), Dávid Fehér (associate curator, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest), María José Herrera (director, Museum of Art, Tigre, Argentina), Hiroko Ikegami (associate professor, Graduate School of Intercultural Studies at Kobe University, Japan), and Christine Mehring (department chair and associate professor of art history, University of Chicago)

• Moderator: Darsie Alexander

This panel investigates the reformulation of Pop art history to encompass the diverse and often culturally specific manifestations of Pop within various international spheres. Specifically, it traces the international trajectories of Pop and its critical points of contact with developments in art, such as Nouveau Réalisme (France), Neo-Dada (US), Anti-Art (Japan), Surnaturalism (Hungary), and Capitalist Realism (Germany).

It will ask how the unique conditions of such trends shaped Pop’s translation and internalization; how did Pop resonate differently according to the social, political, and aesthetic point of its emergence? And how might US art be recast within a more expansive network? Jumping off from the key themes of the exhibition, participants will speak from various positions and histories, and the dialogue will open up to the public at the panel’s conclusion.

Argentine Pop and Its Dematerialization, 1:30 pm

• Panelists: Delia Cancela (artist, Buenos Aires), Eduardo Costa (artist, Buenos Aires), and María José Herrera (director, Museum of Art, Tigre, Argentina)

• Moderator: Bartholomew Ryan (co-curator, International Pop)

Featuring two artists who emerged during the first wave of Pop-related artistic production in Buenos Aires in the early to mid-1960s, the conversation explores the conditions that led to a singularly Argentine interpretation of Pop art and the quick movement to a more politically inspired conceptual approach. Paying particular attention to each artist’s now celebrated engagements with the international fashion industry, this discussion focuses on the rapidity with which Pop-related practices gave way to conceptual, dematerialized art approaches in Argentina. The talk also features scholar and curator María José Herrera, a contributor to the International Pop catalogue.

Tokyo Pop, 3:30 pm

• Panelists: Hiroko Ikegami (associate professor, Graduate School of Intercultural Studies, Kobe University, Japan), Ushio Shinohara (artist, New York), and Keiichi Tanaami (artist, Tokyo)

Hiroko Ikegami leads a discussion with the legendary artists about their encounters with US Pop in Tokyo in the 1960s, and their somewhat subversive, even sardonic response to it. She will ask if we can speak of a “Tokyo Pop,” and talk about the activities of the Sogetsu Art Center and its avant-garde activities during the decade.

Closing remarks

• Speaker: Olga Viso (executive director, Walker Art Center)