JOSEPH RYKWERT POPS TO THE BARBICAN

摘要

'Brash, colourful and playful,' the Barbican calls the 'movement': an exhibition about Pop art and design - yes, design - should therefore provide unadulterated pleasure. Not just pleasure, but fun. That, after all, is what the movement - if movement it is - was supposed to be about. Or at least it was to be, 'Popular (designed for a mass audience); Transient (short-term solution); Expendable (easily forgotten); Low Cost; Mass Produced; Young (aimed at youth); Witty; Sexy; Gimmicky; Glamorous; Big Business.' So wrote Richard Hamilton (who should have known, since he is now considered its founding father) when he tried to define it in a letter to Alison and Peter Smithson in January 1957.