Roy Lichtenstein: Pop Remix
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Through 27 January 2014
NGA, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, ACT
www.nga.gov.au
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Through 27 January 2014
Roy Lichtenstein: Pop remix is the first travelling exhibition from the National Gallery of Australia to focus on the work of this seminal and influential artist. His works stand today as icons of 60s and 70s America with his characteristic comic strip and Benday dot imagery continuing to inspire our visual culture.
“Roy Lichtenstein’s work is instantly recognisable. His bright, brash paintings and prints have entered our cultural consciousness as icons of the Pop Art movement,” said Ron Radford AM, Director, National Gallery of Australia.
Roy Lichtenstein
Untitled head I 1970
brass
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Purchased 1973
© Estate of Roy Lichtenstein.
Roy Lichtenstein’s name is synonymous with Pop Art. As a master of appropriation, he applied a refined strategic approach to his creative energies and constructed his entire body of work following a sophisticated process of image selection, reinterpretation and reissue. Lichtenstein developed a central creative principle that became a potent formula: an ability to identify cultural clichés and to repackage them as monumental remixes.
Roy Lichtenstein
A Cherokee brave 1952
woodcut
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Gift of Kenneth and Marabeth Cohen-Tyler 2010
© Estate of Roy Lichtenstein.
“Roy Lichtenstein: Pop remix traces the artist’s print projects from the 1950s to the 1990s, exploring how the artist appropriated, transformed and ‘remixed’ numerous art historical sources including Claude Monet’s Impressionism, Max Ernst’s Surrealism and de Kooning’s Abstract Expressionism. Lichtenstein reinterpreted the work of these artistic giants and significant art movements using an instantly recognisable graphic aesthetic, effectively ‘branding’ himself with a signature Lichtenstein ‘look’ to secure his place alongside those masters he so admired. Slick, intelligent and humorous, Lichtenstein’s ‘remixes’ of romance and war comics, brushstrokes and nude girls are amongst the best known Pop prints,” said Jaklyn Babington, exhibition curator.
Roy Lichtenstein
Ten dollar bill 1956
lithograph
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Gift of Kenneth and Marabeth Cohen-Tyler 2010
© Estate of Roy Lichtenstein.
This exhibition of 88 multiples and works on paper is drawn from the extensive holdings of Roy Lichtenstein at the National Gallery of Australia, and were produced by the artist over a fifty year period. For more information on the prints in this exhibition go to the NGA’s Kenneth Tyler collection website – a virtual institute for fine art printmaking which provides background context for the prints Lichtenstein created with Tyler at his various print workshops:
Roy Lichtenstein: Pop remix was previously on view in Australia at the Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, Mornington, VIC, 19 April - 11 June 2012, the QUT Art Museum, Brisbane QLD, 25 June - 26 August 2012, the Araluen Arts Centre, Alice Springs, NT, 16 November 2012 - 20 January 2013.
NGA, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, ACT
www.nga.gov.au
