IT’S A HARD POP LIFE
by Laura K. Jones


Andy Warhol, bad or good? This is the dilemma facing the poor old Tate Modern in its current blockbuster, "Pop Life: Art in a Material World." It’s a show that restages Keith Haring’s "Pop Shop," his SoHo store that opened in 1986 and lasted till 2005; Tracey Emin and Sarah Lucas’ Bethnal Green "Shop," which did business during the early 1990s; Jeff Koons’ notorious and rarely reunited "Made in Heaven" series of photos of himself and then-porn-star wife in marital congress; and Richard Prince’s provocative "Spiritual America" (1986), his appropriated image of a ten-year-old Brooke Shields from the Hollywood movie Pretty Baby (which proved its continuing vitality by being promptly removed from the show by local authorities).

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