Salon.com > Anna-Claire Stinebring http://www.salon.com Sun, 19 May 2013 16:00:00 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Masters of surface http://www.salon.com/2012/07/26/masters_of_surface_salpart/ http://www.salon.com/2012/07/26/masters_of_surface_salpart/#comments Thu, 26 Jul 2012 20:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12964730 Viewing Roy Lichtenstein: A Retrospective now up at the Art Institute of Chicago through September 3, I had the distinct sense that Lichtenstein’s art has, in some sense, come full circle. The AIC has chosen to primarily advertise with the cartoon strip and ad-inspired paintings (distressed blondes, impossibly serene explosions) that make “Lichtenstein” and “Pop” seem synonymous, but which are only one subset of the artist’s prolific career, as a visit to the galleries reveals. This publicity choice is reasonable – these paintings, all from the 1960s, are iconic and captivating. But it raises this question: by being inundated with reproductions of Lichtenstein’s images until they resemble their slick source material, do we now see Lichtenstein’s paintings through that snazzy consumer lens? What lesson are we as viewers taking away from the retrospective if, drawn in by the AIC banners of stunned and stunning women, we take pictures of his comic strip beauties and make them the wallpaper on our iPhones?

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