Ice Cream in Pop Art Design exhibition in London.

Pop Art Design exhibition at Barbican Art Gallery.

Over fifty years after it exploded onto the art scene, Pop Art Design is the first comprehensive exhibition to explore the exciting exchange of ideas between artists and designers in the Pop age.Pop artists commented on the cult of celebrity, commodity fetishism and the proliferation of media that permeated everyday life in America and the United Kingdom after the Second World War. Radically departing from all that had gone before, artists delighted in adopting the design language of advertising, television and commerce to create work that was playful but often also intentionally irreverent and provocative. In turn, designers routinely looked to Pop Art as a constant source of inspiration. Pop Art Design paints a new picture of Pop – one that recognises the central role played by design.

Bringing together more than 200 works by over 70 artists and designers, the exhibition includes iconic and lesser known works by such artists as Evelyne Axell, Peter Blake, Pauline Boty, Judy Chicago, Richard Hamilton, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, Joe Tilson and Andy Warhol, shown alongside objects by Achille Castiglioni, Charles and Ray Eames, Peter Murdoch, George Nelson, Gaetano Pesce and Ettore Sottsass. Pop Art Design also presents a wealth of graphic material from posters and magazines to album sleeves, as well as film, photography and documentation of Pop interiors and architecture.