Soft-edge Pop

Soft-Edge Pop is a term that looks at art from the mid twentieth century through the lens of both hard-edge painting and pop art. Rather than forming boundaries or separations through tightly masked edges, soft-edge pop uses the stylistic device of stark juxtapositions to establish relationships and connections. In the vein of pop art soft-edge pop draws relationships between preexisting social conditions. It thrives within the context of everyday life and established cultural mores not outside of them. Robert Rauschenberg outlines the attitude of soft-edge pop art when referring to both art and life, "I try to act in that gap between the two.".
Soft-edge pop describes artwork that addresses culturally established dichotomies. Usually to speak critically about these established modes of thinking. As mentioned Robert Rauschenberg addresses the tendency to perceive art as separate from life. Rauschenberg’s work makes visible the delusion of art as an autonomous act separate from the activities of everyday life through his humorous juxtapositions of everyday materials.
Soft-edge Pop and Hard-edge Painting
Soft-edge pop attempts to falsify established structures of thought in the spirit of hard-edge painting. By placing multiple color fields side-by-side and not allowing for any one color to bleed into the other, hard-edge painters formed purely perceptual relationships between these isolated color fields. The work of Josef Albers illustrates this best when a single hue is perceived differently depending on the contrasting color it sits adjacent to. For soft-edge pop artist, this apparent color shift that exists only within the mind lays bare the delusion of authoritative and established structures of thinking. That they rest on nothing empirical and entirely within the context from which they are established. Soft-edge pop artists felt that they could debunk these established structures by shifting the context in which they exist.
Methods
Soft-edge pop artist used various types of juxtapositions to scrutinize constructed social modes of thought. For instance one of the structures of thought soft-edge pop art attacked was the perception of the autonomous nature of the fine arts - as an entity outside the lower-end commercial practices that were taking place at the time. Another mode of thought that soft-edge pop strived to debunk was the perception of art as the place reserved for the “genius” artist to express his/her inner subjectivity.
The intention of these juxtapositions was to shift the context within which these modes of thought existed so as to lay bare their arbitrary nature.
Materials and Subject Matter
This method of soft-edge pop derives meaning from the juxtaposition of materials with subject matter. Established high-end fine art materials are used to convey low-end commercial subject matter. For instance, Roy Lichtenstein uses the elevated status of painting on canvas to illustrate the low-end commercial subject matter of early comic book strips. Ed Ruscha uses this same method with his paintings of the Southern California landscape. Wayne Thiebaud with his luscious paintings of desserts. Other artist who use this method are:
Claes Oldenburg
John Wesley,
Jasper Johns,
David Hockney,
Sigmar Polke,
Richard Allen Morris,
Billy Al Bengston,
Philip Guston,
Peter Saul,
Yayoi Kusama, and
Patrick Caulfield
This method contains a subcategory where rather than using high-end art materials with low-end subject matter the reverse is true: low-end materials are used for high-end subject matter. Peter Voulkos takes the culturally devalued status of clay to make large monumental sculptures rather than something functional and mundane. Dan Flavin makes sculptural objects and installations from commercially available fluorescent tube lights.
Process and Product
This method of soft-edge pop uses established commercial processes to create high-end art products. Andy Warhol for instance uses the commercial process of silk-screening as a way to make large scale paintings instead of mass produced commercial products. Lichtenstein uses the printing process of ben-day dots. Donald Judd uses industrial processes to produce his slick and polished metal works. And H.C. Westermann uses traditional carpentry and marquetry techniques for his sculptures.
Passive and Active
This method of soft-edge pop engages the viewer through active participation with the art. Here the idea of the viewer as a passive onlooker is dispensed and distinctions are dissolved between the viewer and art object. Robert Rauschenberg’s White Painting uses the viewers shadows to fill the empty space of the painting. Allan Kaprow’s and Claes Oldenburg’s Happenings moved from context of the gallery and institution and into streets and parking lots. Here the audience was engaged in an act of play and there was no hierarchy between artist and viewer. Kaprow illustrates his motivations “The line between art and life should be kept as fluid, and perhaps indistinct, as possible.”
Object and Eye
This method is associated with Op art since it addresses the distinction between the object itself and how the object is perceived. Here the object itself, usually a flat two dimensional surface, contradicts the perceptual experience of the viewer. Flat static objects take on the qualities of movement, vibration, swelling and warping. Bridget Riley's undulating black and white paintings achieve perceptual trickery and get at the heart of soft-edge pop's awareness of perceptual delusions. The early optical work of Larry Poons also falls within this distinction. Poons suggests that paintings are the grounds for a physical reaction between the object and the eye. Other artists who worked in this method are: Victor Vasarely, Richard Anuszkiewicz, and Julian Stanczak.
Image and Sign
This method draws upon the relationship between images and symbols. The work in this category focuses on both the visual and symbolic nature of signs. Here the viewer is made aware that value in a work of art is derived not from the materials, but its symbolic value within a cultural context. The work of Jasper Johns addresses this directly with his use of highly circulated cultural symbols of targets and flags. John Baldessari's text paintings, and Ed Ruscha's word paintings allude to symbolic value through the use of text. There work suggests how meaning is derived from text, but with irony express how arbitrary this meaning is since it derives not from any relation to its actual form, but from its cultural context.

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