Emerging as a phenomenon in England and the United States in the 1950s and 1960s, Pop Art was born as a reaction to the popularity of Abstract Expressionism at that time. With its use of recognizable imagery derived from advertising, mass media and popular culture, Pop Art laid the foundations for a new way of thinking about the conceptual nature of art, its form, and its capacity to communicate in a way that was different from the past.

This display presents works from iconic figures of Pop Art including Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist, and Roy Lichtenstein, alongside works by contemporary artists from around the globe created in the 1990s and 2000s. All of these works are linked by their tendencies to adopt aspects from popular culture and everyday media to comment and critique social and political issues of the day.