Pop Art pin-ups

Pop Art lovers would probably maintain that Andy Warhol was the artist best known for putting advertising on canvas, but Daniel Schreiber aims to set the record straight. Schreiber is the managing curator of the "50 Years of Pop Art" exhibition on show at the Kunsthalle Tuebingen museum in southern Germany. The show focuses on works by California artist Mel Ramos - particularly known for his suggestive paintings from the 1960s that combine nude women with commercial products or animals.

In 1967, an exhibition of his works in a small Cologne gallery prompted police to raid the site and cover his works with cloth sheets to "protect the innocent." Schreiber maintains that Ramos helped define 20th century art.

Deutsche Welle: Why did you choose to show Mel Ramos' works?

Daniel Schreiber: I want to show contemporary art, but I want to show better-known artists, mostly from classical modern art, but now I'm also trying to show more artists from the post-war period, which is interesting for a broader audience. I think Mel Ramos is a good choice for that.

What's provocative about his works in this day and age?

We've had some problems with worried parents who send their kids to a program here where they can make art. They didn't want them seeing the pictures, but other than that, we've had a lot of positive feedback.

But in terms of his art, what makes Ramos interesting - I wouldn't say provocative - is that he puts together images from advertising and pin-ups. That's usually something that doesn't go together. Cigarettes aren't really sexy, car parts aren't normally sexy, or cheese. But he put it all together and revealed a trend in modern advertising that was developing in the 1960s - of companies sexualizing their products by showing attractive women next to their products.

So what Ramos did was to exaggerate this by making the product bigger than it is and display it next to nude women. This, then, was very provocative at the time, and was also kind of Surrealistic. And it makes for very strong paintings showing tendencies in modern life.

That was provocative in the 1960s, but now, with the internet and all the technology available to us, is that really so new anymore?

It is Ramos's contribution to 20th-century art, and even that of the 21st century. He's never been interested in making provocative art, but his work has been a unique contribution. What he did was to adapt an age-old subject of art - the nude, which we know from classical times up until today. And he adapted this subject to modern times. So he didn't just create "pin-up" paintings; what he also did was work with art history.

Germany has had both a love and hate affair with Ramos - at least in the 1960s. Why?

Ramos has said that Germany is the country with the greatest number of collectors of his work. This is no country in the world with so many museums and art schools as Germany. So this is the "love" part.

Also, in the 1960s, the artist was presenting the American way of life, and this was appealing to the new post-war generation that was trying to rebuild Germany.

But there was also a counter-movement which was more conservative, in the restoration period with Konrad Adenauer [chancellor from 1949-1963] at the helm, when people tried to create a more "moral" society. There was a law for the protection of young people, and by law it was forbidden to show nude pictures in public spaces. So, there was an exhibition in a small gallery in Cologne in 1967, and the police went in and covered Ramos's paintings with sheets.

But there are plenty of paintings in museums that show nudes - that's a classic subject of art, as you said yourself. What's the difference?

What Ramos did is that he freshened it up, and this is exactly what he wanted to do. When Edouard Manet painted his "Luncheon on the Grass" in the 19th century, it was a scandal, but it's no longer a scandal today. Ramos has used the same tactic. What he once said was that he works like a restorer - he removes the layer of grime on the canvas of a painting, and freshens up the motifs, once again revealing their provocative content. In the 19th century, painters such as Manet, for example, could shock viewers, and Ramos did the same in the 20th century. Ramos hit a nerve back then. When art triggers such a response, it has obviously hit a nerve.

Has Ramos's work been considered high or low art?

There were exhibitions in small galleries in the 1960s, and the first one in a very small museum exhibition was in Aachen in 1969. There have been a few exhibitions in museums since then, but only minor ones. This one in Tuebingen is the first retrospective ever.

Ramos was always a collectors' artist, a bit outside the mainstream. Even today, art historians have trouble recognizing him as a great artist, and I think this has to do with his subject matter - because he cites advertising and he's worked with pin-ups, and he still has the image of making "dirty" art. But I think this is the right time to devote such a large exhibition to him in our museum - and it will go on tour, to Munich and Vienna and Paris.

In the end, Ramos is still showing women as objects in his paintings; that really hasn't changed, has it? Is that not still problematic?

Yes, it does still do that, and that is the point. He shows what people do with advertising. His point is not to show them as objects, but to show how women are shown or used as objects in advertising. He said once that he never paints women; he always paints pictures of women. That's the difference.

Does he really want to objectify women in his work, or does he merely reflect trends in advertising? That is the question. What he does is make these trends tangible through his works, and brings them into the art world and makes it possible to recognize them and offer them up for debate.

In your opinion, have Germans been more accepting of Ramos's works than Americans? After all, Germans are less prudish when it comes to nudity…

I think Mel Ramos is a central Pop Art artist and he's one of the last ones alive. His contribution to art is that he saved the nude as a subject in 20th-century painting.

In the United States, Los Angeles anyway, one can live a pretty hermit-like life as an artist. In Germany, people like him are revered as pop stars. As far as museums go, he's received recognition in the US. His work is in many more larger museum collections there than here in Germany, even though his fan base is in this country.

The exhibition in the Kunsthalle Tuebingen runs through April 25, 2010.

Interview: Louisa Schaefer
Editor: Kate Bowen