SOCIAL REALISM CONSUMED. THE DISCOURSE OF SOCIAL REALSIM IN POP-ART AND MODERN POP CULTURE The article is an attempt to analyse how the code of social realism was used in two areas not necessarily but rather intertwined: in the artistic area, in the iconography of pop-art in its strategy of transforming pop-culture and industrial signs as well as in the commercial area, in the advertisement, mass entertainment and activity of places uniting consumption with play. In her analysis the author reminds J. Baudrillard theory of cultural consumption “as a practise of manipulating signs” and Ch. Pierce “unlimited semiosis” and U. Eco as well as various different concepts of memory (including that of J. Baudrillard). The text explains the essence and features of Social realism reigning in the arbitrary way in Poland in the period 1949-1955 often wrongly associated with the full period of Polish Peoples Republic existence (1949-1989). The use of social realistic elements in pop-culture can be seen as a final defeat of communist doctrine that included contempt for commercial- ism and banal entertainment identified as bourgeois Western culture features. The con- tradiction results from the idea that social realistic works were supposed to appeal to the masses yet should also have easily readable form and also very high artistic quality. In the text there are examples of social realistic slogans and motives from the paintings, sculptures and posters in the modern promotional campaigns of cosmetics, in computer games, in advertisement as well as in the gadgets, restaurants and entertainment venues etc. From the earlier artistic inspirations and transformations (consumptions) of social realism the text includes several examples of pop-art artists’ works: A. Warhol, T. Wesselmann or R. Lichtenstein, and also examples of the works of the artist from the German movement called capitalistic realism like K. Lueg, G. Richter, S. Polke and others. Modern popular culture and commercial mass entertainment exploit art on its own terms and both social realism and pop-art nurture popular and mass culture.

ARS INTER CULTURAS, Nr 5 (2016): Ars Inter Culturas