“This June, the Guggenheim New York will unveil Guggenheim Pop: 1960 to Now, a focused exhibition exploring the museum’s holdings of Pop art and the movement’s enduring influence on artists working around the world today. Drawing on the institution’s history, Guggenheim Pop: 1960 to Now will illuminate a lesser-known chapter in the museum’s past while foregrounding the significant contributions of both historical and contemporary practices. This exhibition will reflect the spirit and complexities of Pop art and trace how the movement renders the familiar strange, elevates the commercial to the sacred, and transforms the banal into the spectacular, redefining what art could be from the 1960s to the present. 

The Guggenheim’s relationship with Pop art dates to the tenure of British curator and critic Lawrence Alloway, curator at the Guggenheim from 1962 to 1966, who was instrumental in introducing the movement to American audiences. Alloway organized several groundbreaking exhibitions at the museum, including Six Painters and the Object (1963), the first museum exhibition of Pop art in New York. Guggenheim Pop: 1960 to Now will feature an eclectic selection of defining works from the collection by more than 20 artists, including John Chamberlain, Chryssa, Jim Dine, Richard Hamilton, Yayoi Kusama, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, Lucas Samaras, and Andy Warhol. These works will be presented alongside recent acquisitions and gifts by contemporary artists such as Maurizio Cattelan, Alex Da Corte, Martine Gutierrez, Lauren Halsey, Lucia Hierro, Mohammed Ahmed Ibrahim, Yee I-Lann, Liu Shiyuan, and Cara Romero, whose practices both interrogate and build upon the legacies of Pop.”— Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum 

“Many visitors will recognize the iconic imagery and artists associated with Pop, but this exhibition invites them to look again,” said Lauren Hinkson, Curator, Collections. “By placing historic works from the collection alongside recent acquisitions by artists working today, Guggenheim Pop: 1960 to Now will demonstrate how Pop art, as a strategy, continues to inspire, challenge, and evolve.”

This exhibition is organized by Lauren Hinkson, Curator, Collections, with support from Faith Hunter, Curatorial Assistant, and Victoria Horrocks, Curatorial Fellow, Photography

Title image: Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, Soft Shuttlecock, 1995. Canvas, latex paint, expanded polyurethane foam, polyethylene foam, steel, aluminum, rope, wood, duct tape, fiberglass, and reinforced plastic; nine feathers, approximately 26 ft. (7.9 m) long, 6–7 ft. (1.8–2.1 m) wide each; nosepiece, approximately 6 x 6 x 3 ft. (1.8 x 1.8 x 0.9 m); overall dimensions variable. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Partial gift, Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, New York 95.4488. © Estate of Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen. Photo: Erika Ede, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.