Pop Art & Beyond

THEY'RE TRYING TO KILL ME! I swear to God, they're trying to kill me!
Those presumptuous, counter-jumping, arriviste SONS-OF-BITCHES!
... all that superficial, meaningless sewage right up there on the wall!

 Of course they like them. That's the goddamn point. You know what people like? Happy, bright colors.

-  Rothko, RED sc.iv: John Logan

Guilty, then - as charged. There certainly is something attractive about the Pop Artists in terms of colour though. It's such a leap forward from Abstract Expressionism - much more vibrant & made equally appealing through the often playful social commentary embedded within.

Ken:  These young artists are out to murder you?
Rothko: Yes. (beat)
[...]
K: Roy Liechtenstein.
R: Which one is he?
K: Comic books.
R: Yes! (Beat then the coup de grace.)
K: Andy Warhol.
Rothko doesn't even answer.

Not that Wesselmann actually believed himself to be a Pop Artist but nonetheless, the critics had him cornered & the VMFA's retrospective allows him a nod before applying the label.

Art Museum Day = Awesome. 

I'd been wanting to see this exhibition but had yet to make plans to do so. Seeing it advertised then on a half-free Saturday, going to see it for free along with friends was an altogether added bonus. 

So here's a walk-through of the best bits: 

The retrospective started with Wesselmann's first output after graduation in the 1960s. A room full of collages, utilising everyday imagery taken from magazines & adverts with reference to consumer culture. Faces of past presidents, a range of textures & decor for the domestic settings on display. His early work was heavily influenced by de Kooning as he had yet to truly develop his own style.

Still Life #35, 1963. Oil and collage on canvas, 120 x 192 in.
© Estate of Tom Wesselmann/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

In addition to the art on display, there was also an array of accompanying sketches and maquettes as well as correspondence between Wesselmann around the time of his Great American Nudes series in the late '60s. Conversations with Coca-Cola over the best type of glue to use or a written request for a certain section of a billboard to be incorporated into his work; depictions of post-war consumer culture.

From VMFA's regular Pop Art collection:

Great American Nude #35, 1962.
Enamel, polymer, found materials on board,. Gift of Sydney and Frances Lewis.
Photo: Travis Fullerton © Virginia Museum of Fine Arts/Estate of Tom Wesselmann/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

From Nudes to Smokers &, I've got to say, an interesting juxtaposition nowadays
between the erotic and the toxic really. Lethally sexy.

My favourite part came in the room dedicated to his "steel-cut drawings" of the 70s & 80s. The accompanying letters here gave a fascinating insight into Wesselmann's understanding of his own art: what seemed to be sculpture in the eye of the beholder could only be a drawing to him, even after he rendered it into 3D & cut away all the unnecessary excess. 
   Correspondence dating back between Wesselmann & the Lewises - old friends as well as the very same people funding the retrospective; the same Rep. patrons & key sponsors of Red. Letters detailing audience responses:
                                                         "4. They were most unhappy" by the definitions at work.

This, I loved.
Quick Sketch from the Train (Italy) No. 2, 1987
Enamel on cut-out steel, 114.30 x 254 cm, The Estate of Tom Wesselmann, New York,
© Estate of Tom Wesselmann/SODRAC, Montreal/VAGA, New York (2012),
Photo: Jeffrey Sturges.   http://arttattler.com/archivetomwesselmann.html

Maybe it was a personal crush from having rendered similar landscapes into fabric previously; it just totally worked for me.

Fast Sketch Still Life with Fruit and Goldfish (3-D) (1988-89)
www.pbaparchive.com

Coming full-circle:

 “Since 1993 I’ve basically been an abstract painter. This is what happened:
in 1984 I started making steel and aluminum cut-out figures... One day I got muddled up with the remnants and I was struck by the infinite variety of abstract possibilities. That was when I understood I was going back to what
I had desperately been aiming for in 1959, and I started making abstract three-dimensional images in cut metal. I was happy and free to go back to what
I wanted: but this time not on De Kooning’s terms but on mine".

- Interview with E. Giustacchini, Stile Arte, 2003, p. 29

I liked the return also in later life, in the early 2000s as he began to playfully allude back again to his predecessors and peers - work by Matisse & Man Ray & that "comic books" guy.

Still life with Lichtenstein and two oranges

www.christies.com: Lot Finder images

SALE 2593 — PRINTS AND MULTIPLES - 31 October 2012  - New York, Rockefeller Plaza

The same time as working Red & visiting the retrospective, I'd also been reading An Object of Beauty, a funny & fascinating novel,

Lacey Yeager is young, captivating, and ambitious enough to take the NYC art world by storm. Groomed at Sotheby's and hungry to keep climbing the social and career ladders put before her, Lacey charms men and women, old and young, rich and even richer with her magnetic charisma and liveliness. Her ascension to the highest tiers of the city parallel the soaring heights--and, at times, the dark lows--of the art world and the country from the late 1990s through today.

          which helps puts another spin on the artwork above:
                                       Price Realized $11, 785. 

 

Ken:  Well, exit stage left, Rothko.
          Because Pop Art has banished Abstract Expressionism....