ABSTRACT
Twentieth-century mass media routinely employ the fine arts in various ways: as subject-matter; as a source of styles and formal innovations; and as a pool of skilled labour. To some degree, therefore, modern fine art has functioned as a 'research and development' department of the mass media; a department in which formal and technical experimentation has been actively encouraged. The paradoxes and contradictions that can occur when the different value systems of fine art and industrial production are combined is demonstrated in the BMW advert showing German cars that have been decorated by three leading American artists. The use of fine art is twofold: the setting is an art gallery and the iconography derives from the modern art movements surrealism and pop. Pop art was a movement that achieved rapid success in Europe and North America during the 1960s because it was brash and colourful, and because its imagery was already familiar to the public.
