"OP and the commodiciation of the future"

After reading over the weekend from the book "Embodied Visions:Bridget Riley, OP art and the sixties" I took some notes, picking out sections which link her art work and prints with the media and fashion industry.

• At the beginning when OP art first started to become popular it was frequently described as "uncomfortable physical efftect" by the media.


• After "The Responsive Eye" exhibition in May 1965 OP art became more popular among the people. A month after the exhibition had closed art critic Mario Amaya from the finacial Times on the wide varitey of consumer goods were currently being done with OP designs.


• Soon OP pieces of Art and Prints were copied and used for mass-production goods where the imagery was used for decoration, fashionalbe commodities (body and clothes) as well as for within the home.


• They art work and prints first became most popular in New York USA however by June 1954 it already reached Britain with a huge craze for the prints.


• Evening gowns, Wall paper and even some bibles were made based on OP art.


• Such commercialisation of this type of fine art became a phenomenom and changed the future within every public exhibition shop, as where every public art exhibition everyone would be able to buy its own T-shirt or souvenir with its picutres or prints.


• The craze attracted international attension and controversy .


• For Bridget Riley the widespread appropriation of her paintings by designers of consumer goods was strongly resisted by her as she felt it was trivializing her work. Concern with grew amongt those art critics whom first supported OP art.