Hyperrealism and Abstract = Two sides of the same fraudulent coin

Hyperrealism and photorealism are names for an art movement that has come into being as an evolution from pop art. Pop art itself was started in the US and in the UK in the late 1940s as a reactionary movement to minimalism and abstract expressionism. 

(Andy Warhol, Campbell's Soup, 1968)

What the so-called “pop artists” did was to take normal ordinary objects that represented industrialism, capitalism, or “modern-life” and either just copy like Andy Warhol (1928-1987) did throughout his career or use these objects and turn them into a “Collage” in the case of two-dimensional format or an “Assemblage” in a three-dimensional format. 

(An example for an “Assemblage” by John Chamberlain)

According to the pop artists, the artist’s role is to pick a scene or an object that already exists in the world and then simply repeat it (as in Warhol’s case). Alternatively, the “artist” could compartmentalise an existing object or many objects and then stick all the different parts together in an “avant-garde” ugly, non-sensical fashion (as shown by Chamberlain in the example above). The artist does not have to create anything; he doesn’t need any skill. He could potentially do very well with only a printer. 

Beauty is now divorced from art. All we now have is the mundane, the boring, the daily, the usual, the ugly. Nothing is exceptional. Everything is the same. No values are portrayed, no feelings, no emotions, nothing. So what is the difference between a canned soup that one might have in his house and the one that Andy Warhol could sell for millions? The only difference is: It’s Andy Warhol’s canned soup. 

Pop Art against Abstract Expressionism

(Jackson Pollock, 1912-1956)

It is not only that there is no value being concretised in pop art, and not only that it has no beauty. These same characteristics are also held by the abstract expressionists (the ones which the pop artists went out against). The works of the pop artists are a spit in the face of western society. They are a mockery of modern industrial life, of all the great advances that were made possible in the western world thanks to capitalism. 

I cannot find this critique of Western society in one of Pollock’s. Actually, I cannot find anything in Pollock’s work because it doesn’t feature anything intelligible to human beings. It is only colour; there is absolutely no selectivity; it’s all random. One quality that Pollock has over the pop artists is that he at least has created his works himself. 

In both cases, I would argue that this is not art. Pollock’s works represent a spit in the face of painting as a profession. Warhol’s works represent a spit in the face of art and values underlying our own western culture. Which is worse? I will leave it for you to decide. 

Hyperrealism

The Hyperrealists are viewed as an evolution of pop art as pop artists tried to imitate industrialisation, automatisation and commercialism. The hyperrealists attempted to replicate the camera. They aimed to recreate to an amazingly detailed degree with a brush what a camera can do with a single push of a button. 

(Richard Estes, Holland Hotel, 1984)

The hyperrealists were also interested in modern themes such as city life and so-called western materialism. One theme from the works of Richard Estes (1932-Present) is the loneliness of the city, specifically NYC, which he depicts in unbelievable detail. It is hard to say whether actually, Estes views the city positively or negatively because he is simply showing reality as it is. Is he trying to show that city life is lonely? I find it very hard to say. After seeing some of his works, It does indeed seem that Estes thinks that city life is lonely. But a successful art can deliver its message conclusively in a single work. (Not that I am arguing that all works of art must be like that for them to be considered art.) It might as well be a contingent brute fact that this picture happened to be without people or cars. There is no attempt to show the city in any particular light; It’s just a random angle that he happened to catch, very much like a photograph which was indeed the creator’s intention. 

DIfference between Hyperrealism and Pop art

(Ralph Goings, Double Ketchup, 2006) 

In Hyperrealism, there is skill involved; It takes time to create one painting, wherein in Warhol’s case, he actually built a streamline that produced pictures as fast as possible. Some beauty could be found in a hyperrealist picture but was not created by the artist himself; It just happened to be like so in the scene. 

In the image above, Goings did place the objects in a particular way, but if he had put the ketchup on the left or right, would it have made a meaningful difference? The selectivity performed by the artist is at the bare minimum.

The motif of the ordinary everyday objects known to everyone in their daily lives is a common denominator between hyperrealism and pop art. In some cases, I can also find the same disregard for commercialism and capitalism in hyperrealism as in pop art, but it is not nearly as grotesque and obvious. 

In an attempt to define hyperrealism or photo-realism, which also included something very revealing about what was psychologically motivating him, Ralph Goings (1928-2016) said:

"In 1963, I wanted to start painting again, but I decided I wasn't going to do abstract pictures". It occurred to me that I should go as far to the opposite as I could. ... It occurred to me that projecting and tracing the photograph instead of copying it freehand would be even more shocking. To copy a photograph literally was considered a bad thing to do. It went against all of my art school training... some people were upset by what I was doing and said 'it's not art, it can't possibly be art'. That gave me encouragement in a perverse way, because I was delighted to be doing something that was really upsetting people... I was having a hell of a lot of fun..." [1]

The Coin

(Piet Mondrian, Composition No.10, 1942)

On the one hand, an art movement consisted of pictures that didn’t have anything to do with representing reality. 

On the other hand, an art movement consisting of pictures had everything to do with representing reality. 

Both are missing the point. Both are wrong about art. One school argues that art has nothing to do with technical skill, the other argues that it has everything to do with skill, one school says that art doesn’t have to represent anything and the other states that it has to represent every little detail.

Art is about the artist recreating reality to concertise metaphysical value judgments; The artist has to show us a version of reality created according to his vision, a reality shaped by his values, thoughts, and feelings. Once an artist is showing us in a painting reality as it is, he is not showing us anything related to art's function. (It might be of decorative value.) Art is of tremendous epistemological and psychological value. As Casper David Fredrich (1774-1840) aptly put it: “The painter should paint not only what he has in front of him and what he sees inside himself. If he sees nothing within, then he should stop painting what is in front of him.” 

Both schools of art are not recreating reality. On the contrary: Hyperrealism and Abstract are two manifestations of the same fallacy. 

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[1] - Realists at Work by John Arthur. Watson-Guptill Publications Inc., U.S. (1983)