Page 54 - Studio International - November 1969

New York Roy Lichtenstein

commentary 4 panel modular 4 1969
Oil and magna on canvas
4 panels, each 54 x 54 in.
Private collection, New York
2
Roy Lichtenstein
Preparedness 1969
Oil and magna on canvas
3 panels, each 10 x 8 ft
3
Roy Lichtenstein
Man with folded arms 1962
Oil on canvas
70 x 48 in.
Coll: Count Panza di Biumo
4
Kenneth Price
Rock cup
Ceramic
5
Kenneth Price
Snail cup 1968
Ceramic
4½ x 3 x 2½ in.
I saw the Bauhaus exhibition twice, once in
Paris and once in Chicago, and both times I
was struck by the range of idioms explored in
the student works. I think that if a catalogue
of twentieth-century 'problems' in the visual
arts were carefully established, all of them
would have been broached at least once with-
in the Bauhaus spectrum of 'tasks' for the
incoming students. Since among the exhibits
there were many constructions that could
easily pass for contemporary works, and
experimental projects that, slightly enlarged,
would be eagerly consumed today, the
question as to why these 'tasks' fall short of
being works of art is of great importance. My
own conclusion is that an attitude which re-
gards art as problem-solving is evasive, and
finally too detached to sponsor the obsessive
energy germane to the work of art.
Reviewing the work of Roy Lichtenstein at
the GUGGENHEIM'S large exhibition, I found
myself asking the same question: why have he brought to bear, the essence of his work for him.) Lichtenstein's flirtation with popular
Lichtenstein's paintings from the very begin- was always the material he chose from the culture never quite moved over into criticism,
ning (not shown in the exhibition) always stream of popular culture. and on the other hand, never quite achieved
seemed to me to be something less than I In recognizing this, Lawrence Alloway has the power of parody. He has been called a
would have expected, given his facility and been correct all along. He has never tried to parodist, but his imitation of the comic strip
his humour. I remember his early cowboys obscure the 'pop' in pop art. His definition of style doesn't aim either for comic effect or
and Indians, painted with the delicacy of popular culture recently published in Studio ridicule. Rather, it is a cultivated redundancy.
Braque, and promising something else for the International as 'the sum of the arts designed If Alloway hints that most hostile critics
future. I felt then, as I still feel, that Lichten- for simultaneous consumption by a numeri- didn't appreciate Lichtenstein because they
stein was reserving something for later; that cally large audience' is the most accurate and didn't know what comic strips looked like,
he could not bring himself to commit all his succinct offered. And its corollary, that pop and thought his was blind imitation, he under-
creative energies to the particular 'problem' art can only subsist as a gloss on pop culture sells his cause. All American critics know what
he was playing with at the moment. This is also implicit in Alloway's thesis. As he comic strips look like. The reason they were
impression of the artist's hanging back, keep- rightly suggests, the industrialization of ima- cool to Lichtenstein's re-casting of strip
ing his distance, remaining uncommitted was gery in the nineteenth century made pop art imagery was rather that despite his artistic
later confirmed when Lichtenstein made all possible. It also made such commentaries as re-arrangements, the essential fact of each
these tendencies the basis for his works. Lichtenstein offers- ambiguous and non- painting was that it looked like comic strips,
Like those intelligent young analysts in the inflected-inevitable. and sounded like them, and, like them, depen-
Bauhaus, Lichtenstein approached his tasks It has long been chic among the cultured to ded a great deal on the narrative content.
- his self-assigned tasks- with enthusiasm based flirt with the popular arts. I suspect it has Doesn't Guggenheim Curator Diane Wald-
more on the challenge of solving a problem something to do with the secret feelings of man tell us that Lichtenstein forced a direct
than on exploring an open situation. In his inadequacy aristocrats have always suffered confrontation between the verbal and the
case, the problem resolved itself into artistic when confronted with the raw energies of the visual ? Even though she wishes to see a vastly
sociology, or sociological art if you prefer, peasantry. Why else did they cohabit with sensitive formal invention in Lichtenstein,
although his critics and consumers are eager the shepherdesses to produce heirs, as Picasso going so far as to compare his Golf ball with
to play down this aspect of his work. Never- once pointed out? (And speaking of Picasso: Mondrian's plus-and-minus paintings, she is
theless, no matter how much he modified the he was one of the first to coquette with pop constrained to revert again and again to
images he lifted from the comic strips of art, boasting of his readings in Nick Carter, Lichtenstein's own interest- in the subject
America, no matter how much skilful artistry and asking friends to save the Sunday comics matter. (His shifting from comic strips to old