Does Popularization necessarily entail simplification? I automatically think about Pop Art and minimalism. Pop art is instantly recognizable because of its simplification of the image as well as the innovations and adaptations. Bright colors like pink, red and yellow contrasted with darker colors. The images became increasingly standardized and process of drawings are simplifying. We see an enormous range of decorative styles, shapes, and sizes in the images. Simple iconic representation visual images have been created in Pop Art. I don’t think the standardization has been diminished the creative impulse but it did establish a whole different language/communication in the visual world.
To address the question, I don’t think that popularization necessarily entails simplifications. It makes sense that it could because of our mass production culture. However, in the eastern Asian traditional paintings or calligraphy is characterized/composes of just a number of strokes. Meaning the complexity is on the progress of setting the paintbrush under the emotional control but the results are very simple. On the other hand, western artist would firstly focus on the structure of the matter and re-work the image a lot. The eastern painters are neither concerned about the appearance of a matter nor express their desire of matter ideally. Of course I am referring to the traditional method.
My understanding of the simplifications is obviously the visual aspect of the image. We as in Western culture applies that if the image is simple, maybe graphic, it becomes very attractive and easy to recognize and therefore very popular. I believe that there are a lot of images that are simple but the ideas are be very complex and it not really related to the popular.
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I agree that pop art is super simplified and graphic, but I also think that there are art movements that are highly decorative that are pop movements (like art nouveau). Maybe the concept behind it is simple, but the look is busy. I also think there is something popular about the aesthetic of Space1026. And there stuff is pattern on top of pattern and about unconventional color combinations.
But I think your point about something appearing simple, but being actually very complicated is a good one. Simplification is a confusing term for this reason.
Good observations. I would like to return to the context of the question, though, which is about "lossiness" to an extent - to what extent is important information (aesthetic, social, etc.) shaved away by simplification - be it the kind of distillation to aesthetic essentials (gesture in calligraphy; contrast in Pop art) or about the transmission of important cultural information (like, in the case of Eric Avery's art, public health messages)?
This trajectory - about what compromises one makes when one simplifies and broadens - is a common arc of debate in recent art. Artists (and designers) tear their hair out about the compromises that reaching a large audience entails (a great example is in Christopher Guest's movie "For your consideration" where every difficult subject is smoothed over in an attempt to make a movie 'accessible'). A useful way for Myungwon to consider this might be turn the question around and focus on what is _gained_ by refining and focusing in relation to elite (as opposed to mass) audiences.
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