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Here you will find older scratches, musings and other detritus that once were located on the front pages, but have now faded.

Filed away here to collect dust and cobwwwebs in perpetuity, links may break, facts may change and data may corrupt.

On occasion I may come down here to tidy, but for the most, I prefer to leave the past where it lies.

 

Wham!

After work on Friday, I visited the Roy Lichtenstein exhibition at the Hayward Gallery.

This is the first major London exhibition by Roy Lichtenstein since 1968. Familiar subjects like comic strips, bank notes or advertising themes, makes the art of Roy Lichtenstein easily accessible and he is perhaps the defining artist of the Pop-Art movement surpassing even Warhol. The exhibition shows many of his famous comic strip paintings on display alongside lesser known drawings.

Everywhere you look today, you see Lichtenstein in adverts, graphics, postcards and commercial art, feeding back into the medium from which he drew inspiration. His work is characterized by his wry sense of humour, careful precision and use of stencils. A simple palette of red, yellow and blue, sharp black outlines, ben day dots and simple speech bubbles. Brad's 'Masterpiece' painted in 1962 foretells of Lichtenstein's impending fame. Its interesting to note that even though he was a relative unknown at this point on the eve of his fortieth birthday, that forty years later his art would achieve such longevity and be so pervasive, with broken hearts, cancelled dates, all shown in various works.

The exhibition is, IMHO, a refreshing one, and whilst it is a shame that not more Brads or Blams are on show, we do get a casual glance back to a world where television and pop where in their infancy, where abstract expressionism still ruled. That and five foot cartoon panels depicting the harshness of life in such a unique and reflective way...

7 Mar 2004 11:16 | (0) comments | Art/Theatre

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