IU Art Museum displays pop art by Tilson

Some consider Andy Warhol the greatest and most recognizable popular artist.

But while Warhol was busy making portraits of the rich and famous, British pop artist Joe Tilson created art from images of political activists and revolutionaries generated by the mass media.

“Joe Tilson and the News of the World” includes four works by the man who once declared he was “famous before the Beatles and David Hockney.”

It will be displayed until the end of the semester at the IU Art Museum.

Nan Brewer, curator of works on paper at the museum, said Tilson’s work was influenced by politics and the media.

“He was definitely an artist of his time,” Brewer said. “He was certainly responding to political changes that were going on and the cross-cultural atmosphere of the ’60s into the ’70s.”

The works were acquired by a grant from the Indianapolis-based Ackerman Foundation.

Photos of Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara, one while he was living and another after his execution in Bolivia, are on display in coordination with CUBAmistad: A Celebration of Art and Film.

“The images of Che Guevara were media-generated,” Brewer said. “He was certainly a revolutionary who become iconic through some very famous images of him. He had the reputation, for some people, of being both this martyr, this important Communist leader. Others saw him as a terrorist.”

IU Cinema will screen “Kordavision,” on Sept. 17. The film is about Alberto Korda’s picture of Guevara and how it transformed him into a revolutionary icon.

“Kordavision” director Hector Cruz Sandoval will present a special lecture called “Picturing ‘Che’” from 12:15 to 1 p.m. Sept. 18 at the museum.

The two other photos in the installation, “Bela Lugosi Journal A” and “Ho Chi Minh,” each represent an aspect of Tilson’s work.

“The Bela Lugosi Journal,” derived from the actor who played Dracula in the classic 1931 film, is printed across the top of “Bela Lugosi Journal A.”

The silkscreen includes a classic tabloid “pulp” photo of a sexy woman mixed with photos of violence.

“There’s that play with fictional horror and some of the real horrors he was seeing in the paper, as well,” Brewer said. “Those things were being reported in the press.”

A brightly-colored collage titled “Ho Chi Minh” hangs to the right of “Bela.” It features a pop-art version of the Vietnamese Communist leader in orange and yellow with historical black and white photos printed beneath.

“Here is this poor farmer, or the myth of him, in a modern world,” Brewer said. “This was the iconic image of him that was promoted through the government.”

Brewer said Tilson not only reproduced revolutionary images but was also a revolutionary himself in the way he presented art.

Tilson often printed on nontraditional materials like plastic to achieve his desired effect.

In the case of the Guevara images, which are backlit in a special case, Brewer said they look similar to transparencies once used for design in newsrooms.

“He was really interested in looking at anti-authoritarian figures that were prominent in the political and cultural landscape internationally,” Brewer said. “Ho Chi Minh and Che Guevara are just a couple of examples of that.”

— Kate Thacker