Tate pops around the world to find an alternative to Warhol

Sculptures, paintings and prints have been gathered from around the world for a major new exhibition presenting an alternative view of pop art.

Curators have spent five years searching for relatively unknown work, often neglected by mainstream art history.

About 160 pieces, from as far afield as Austria, Argentina and Japan, will go on show at Tate Modern’s The World Goes Pop exhibition in a bid to show another side to a genre often associated with Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein.

Among the work to be shown are sculptures of digestive organs, decorated car parts and remade 19th century Japanese prints. Curator Flavia Frigeri said: “People think of pop and think of bright colours and bold imagery which these works have but also think it’s just Lichtenstein and Warhol which it is not. That’s the really interesting thing you could have an artist in Slovakia and another in Brazil and their work is very similar but they had no idea each other existed. These artists were like a preliminary to the society we live in now and were among the first people to understand the importance of images and image culture and its effects on us.”

Ushio Shinohara’s Doll Festival uses fluorescent paint on plastic and aluminium boards to transform traditional Japanese images. Ms Frigeri said the show was helping to rediscover work.

She said: “One of the works we are showing is The Red Men by Cueco which I think was shown in Paris in the Sixties then never really seen again.” Other pieces include Cubes by Teresa Burga and Bez Buntu (Without Rebellion) by Jerzy Ryszard “Jurry” Zielinski.

The EY Exhibition: The World Goes Pop runs at Tate Modern from September 17 to January 24.

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