Hi Leena, I’m glad I gave you a topic for this week’s blog post 🙂 For me, I wasn’t trying to say that pop culture and high culture are the same thing, but that the “distinction” between them isn’t really relevant for any purpose, other than categorising things for the sake of categorising them. As Stacey points out though, sometimes it’s helpful to have labels! I think Lady Gaga and Marina Abramovic are great examples of where popular culture and high art can meet and create a whole “other” and it’s great to have women distinguishing themselves in what was a pretty male dominated art form initially.
There are important differences between the two kinds of culture and you rightly point out that pop culture invites diversity and difference, for example. The feature of pop art that appeals to me most though is the way it subverts ideas about “high” culture, particularly subverting the idea of originality by referring back to pop culture icons (like Marilyn Monroe in Andy Warhol’s art). Something about subversiveness just draws me every time. During the week Ruth referred to a quote from Michael Moore that fits here “They (librarians) are subversive. You think they’re just sitting there at the desk, all quiet and everything. They’re like plotting the revolution, man. I wouldn’t mess with them.” I loved this! That’s who I want to be. Not the person swallowing whole what I’m told is art or how a library should be 🙂