this seemingly chaotic and uncontrollable world, these artists were seeking to reach away from life and towards the unconscious to control and to define, not destroy and massacre like the Cold War had. The abstract expressionists saw their representations of paintings as continuous organisms, not merely an object left to hang on the wall, but as a living entity that continues in motion . abstract expressionism dominated the art community for almost two decades and remained based in America. In some ways, abstract expressionism worked to reestablish art to its truest meaningthe existence of art in relation to the artists, and its eventual impact on society . On the other hand, the movements that began to coalesce on the tail end of abstract expressionism were focused at an opposite goal. Instead of using art to create popular culture, artists would, as early as the beginning of the 1950s, use popular culture to create art.The 1950s:The 1950s were a time of great discord in the United States. McCarthyism ran rampant throughout the nation and seriously crippled the every day lives of Americans. Civil rights began to appear as a major issue in all Americans lives as schools began to integrate black and white students and Rosa Parks sat on the bus where she was not permitted to in Montgomery, Alabama. While the other major mediums of popular culture involved themselves deeply in American politics, on the other hand, popular art stayed mostly as it was. Pollack, along with other abstract expressionists such as William DeKooning and Mark Rothko (see appendix B), continued to explore their field with action painting, abstractions and color-field painting, respectively. Abstract expressionism dominated the art world of the late 1940s and 50s. Yet as the 1950s peaked, a new style of art began to appear in the art community. For the first few years of its existence, and especially in New York, the new Pop Art movement went relatively unnoticed. Th...
