ABSTRACT
This chapter offers some conceptual tools for analyzing and appreciating the meaning of Japanese pop art. In premodern times, the production and consumption of art was associated with the political and religious elite. Therefore, it was relatively restricted and required resources, wealth, and education to appreciate. Popular art was associated with cheapness, uncultured taste, and the lowest common denominator. However, many commentators and critics note that, in postmodern times, the boundaries between high and popular art have more or less dissolved, and it is not necessarily very fruitful to draw sharp lines between elitist and more general expressions of art. The great diversity and richness of Japan's popular art is divided by Sugimoto into three categories: mass culture, which is spread via mass consumerism and mass communication; folk culture, which is based on indigenous traditions and heritage; and alternative culture, or a counterculture challenge to the status quo.
