Campbell Soup Can on a Shopping Bag

This shopping bag was made for an important exhibition of Pop art called “The American Supermarket.” In 1964 the Paul Bianchini Gallery in New York was transformed into a supermarket, thus making palpable the classic Pop theme of consumer culture. Visitors could shop the aisles for items like chrome cantaloupes ($125) and felt apples (3/$20), which they were allowed to pick up and inspect for themselves. In the same exhibition, Andy Warhol hung one of his Campbell’s Soup can paintings above a display of the actual soup cans (signed by the artist). Although the three kinds of objects portrayed an identical subject, they addressed the viewer in different ways. While the viewer looked at the painting from a distance (as usual in an art gallery), she grasped the bag and even casually carried it home. Each of the objects provided the viewer with different visual and physical components of the overall experience. Written in the Materialities of Modern Art seminar at the University of Chicago, winter 2011.