Review of Popular Pleasures: An Introduction to Aesthetics of Popular Visual Culture

Abstract

P aul Duncum’s groundbreaking research in everyday aesthetics and visual culture at the turn of the 21st century has contributed to an important paradigmatic shift in the field of art education and the establishment of the visual culture art education (VCAE) approach, which is now widely used in K–12 and higher education art classrooms (Acuff & Kraehe, 2020; Bode, 2022; Etherington, 2018; Kwon, 2020). VCAE calls for the expansion of the art curriculum to include visual sites and popular artifacts outside of the fine arts and museums, such as consumer products, advertisements, shopping malls, theme parks, and, most recently, social media platforms and the internet (Darts, 2008; Duncum, 1997, 2001, 2002, 2006, 2015, 2020; Freedman, 2003; Tavin, 2003, 2005). Not only does Duncum argue that these everyday objects and sites are important to include in the curriculum because they profoundly influence the identities of children and youth, but also, he argues that their aesthetic appeal and ideologies share significant similarities with the fine arts, including fetishism, conservative values, and commercial interest (Duncum, 2002). Furthermore, the boundaries between popular culture and fine art can be rather blurry—especially in the postmodern age of electronic media, where art images are reappropriated via memes and animated GIF files or printed on totes, and when many artists derive their inspiration from popular images (Duncum, 2020). Throughout his scholarly career, Duncum argued that the high–low culture divide and the modernist