I thought it might be fun to discuss the Queen of pop culture's relationship with pop art.
Just have a quick search on Tumblr for fan-made artwork, and all you will see is Warholian fan-made artwork.
Is that what they think Pop Art is all about? - That is not what pop art is all about.
Take her celebration album for example, Madonna has used the work of a real Pop Artist (Mr. Brainwash), who was inspired by her personal friend Andy Warhol, for the cover of her greatest hits compilation Celebration, very few people realise that album cover contains parts of different pictures, and not only one picture brightly coloured.
Mr Brainwash combined these three pictures
To make this:
The Celebration artwork is a piece of real Pop Art, created by a real Pop artist.
But that's not the only relationship with POPART Madonna has had.
Madonna, was Andy Warhol's
MUSE
Here is some of the Madonna Inspired Artwork Andy Warhol created.
Madonna: friend and muse of two of the most prominent names in American Pop Art.
Madonna's Album TRUE BLUE was also all about Pop Art
According to author and journalist Lucy O’Brien, True Blue's artwork was “on-par with Andy Warhol’s concept of pop art.”She felt that the image was “a mixture of innocence, idealism, while incorporating 50s-style Technicolor and hand tinted colour, characteristic of Warhol’s silkscreen printed design, prevalent in the 60s.”
Madonna made explicit the connection between Warhol and herself, the vivid nexus between pop art and commerce. The late 1980s marked a new era of the pop artist as a brand, and Madonna became the first one to exploit this.
And that is the essence of Pop Art: taking a popular imagery, or a popular concept, intervening/changing it into something else - if not the purpose, the execution, if not the execution, the meaning.
Madonna
IS the Andy Warhol of music - always has, and always will be.