The IG or Independent Group is known for having launched Pop Art. This rather informal group of architects, young artists, sculptors, and critics were looking for more than traditional art within high and low cultures. They were determined to embrace Hollywood with new ideas and a new culture.

The group started around 1952 included was Lawrence Alloway an English critic who used the term "Pop Art" in somewhat a different context, architects Alison and Peter Smithson, Richard Hamilton, Eduardo Paolozzi, Reyner Banham , and others. They held many discussions in London at the Institute of Contemporary Arts. They focused on popular culture such as Western movies, science fiction, billboards, and machines. Their group held the values of American and British cultures. Their discussions were centered around contemporary mass culture and the manifestations within the United States. In having such discussions they drew upon Futurist, Surrealist, and even Dadaist. The Independent Group was also being recognized for declaring an alternative version of modernism - a version that today can be said to have had a great influence within the terms of postmodernism.