Two exhibits featuring Pop art, which has presented a challenge to traditions of fine art by including imagery from popular culture, are running separately in Hanoi, with one of them showcasing works by an Italian artist.

An art exhibit, “Transcendent”, launched by Italian artist Giuseppe Strano Spitu and his two Vietnamese counterparts, Bang Si Truc and Vu Pham Truong Minh, kicked off yesterday at 18 Le Phung Hieu, Hoan Kiem district.

Their exhibited artworks tend to land spectators in a carefree state and lead them to triumph over their turbulent psychological crises.

“The special lighting effects of my works create a special feeling of co-existence of elegance and materials,” Spitu shared.

Meanwhile, Minh, the youngest of the threesome, chooses to share his ideas and feelings with viewers most directly and quickly through Pop art, in which material is sometimes visually removed from its known context, isolated, and/or combined with unrelated material.

The exhibit is part of the “2014 Italy – Vietnam” program, which is launched by the Italian Embassy to Vietnam and runs until May 2.

In the same vein, 21 Pop-art works by local artist Nguyen Trong Minh are also being exhibited at the Vietnam Fine Arts Museum, 66 Nguyen Thai Hoc, Ba Dinh district.

The artist adopts realism, combined with the mechanical means of reproduction or rendering techniques, which is typical of Pop art, to create his contemplative works.

The exhibit, “At the end of the queue”, runs until Apr 23.

Pop art is an art movement which emerged in Britain in the mid-1950s and in the US in the late 1950s.

Pop art employs aspects of mass culture, including advertising, comic books and mundane cultural objects as opposed to the elitist culture in art, most often through the use of irony.