Image Duplicator Roy Lichtenstein and the Emergence of Pop Art Michael Lobel
Image Duplicator: Roy Lichtenstein and the Emergence of Pop Art
Image Duplicator: Roy Lichtenstein and the Emergence of Pop Art, by Michael Lobel. New Haven: Yale University Press. 208 pages. $45. Margaret Sundell
Margaret Sundell / ARTFORUM
Jul 01, 2002
Image Duplicator: Roy Lichtenstein and the Emergence of Pop Art, by Michael Lobel. New Haven: Yale Academy Press. 208 pages. $45.
Margaret Sundell
If Andy Warhol was Pop fine art`due south enfant terrible, Roy Lichtenstein was its dutiful son. Warhol was outrageous, sexually ambiguous, and rude to the printing. Lichtenstein was an unfailingly polite father of two. Moreover, while Warhol broke artistic rules at every turn-from letting other people pigment his pictures to turning his workplace into a veritable nightclub-Lichtenstein toiled diligently, brush in mitt, maintaining a traditional studio practice. This difference was made palpable
to viewers of Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, a 1966 PBS documentary, which figures early on in Michael Lobel`southward monographic report, Paradigm Duplicator: Roy Lichtenstein and the Emergence of Pop Fine art. Warhol is shown blowing up a silvery Mylar balloon, dropping in on the Velvet Cloak-and-dagger, and cruelly mocking his interviewer by parroting his questions back at him verbatim. Lichtenstein, by dissimilarity, sits calmly in his studio, surrounded by half-finished canvases, eloquently explaining his method for turning comic-book heroes and commercial products into works of high art.
Similar much media coverage of the time, Lobel notes, "the movie articulates a dearest distinction between the two artists; not simply practice they correspond roughly to aesthetic and anti-artful positions, but on a more than popular level Warhol in his leather jacket
and sunglasses is the delinquent to Lichtenstein`s wholesome achiever." But as is frequently true of skilful sons, an obedient facade can hibernate troubled depths-ones that Lobel aims to exhume. What, his book asks, is gained by upholding the view that emerged in the early 1960s of Lichtenstein every bit Popular`s "safe" practitioner: equally an artist who refused to allow his work to be compromised past advertizement and mass entertainment even equally he fabricated them his exclusive subjects? And, perchance more important, what has this epitome of Lichtenstein caused united states of america to overlook? As evidenced by both his studio exercise and his public statements, Lichtenstein clearly rejected the Faustian bargain with popular culture that Warhol then brilliantly struck. Merely, co-ordinate to Lobel, his resistance was neither as seamless nor equally successful equally it might first appear. Rather, as Lobel convincingly argues throughout the course of his volume, Lichtenstein`due south paintings are structured by an ongoing attempt to negotiate a set of interrelated but ultimately irreconcilable terms: the singular object and the mass-produced copy; the creative person`southward signature and the corporate trademark; the human being body and the machine.
The method by which Lobel addresses these subjects could be described equally ecumenical. Defying ingrained divisions betwixt social and formalist approaches to art history, he embraces both. Lobel`due south consideration of the imbrication of torso and machine in Lichtenstein`southward art, for example, includes an iconographic assay of Lichtenstein`s delineation of fighter pilots peering into viewfinders. But Lobel pays equal attending to the implications of the method, which involved hand-copying mass-produced pictures, putting them on an opaque projector, and so tracing them onto sail-a laborious procedure that, every bit Lobel points out, forced him to physically mimic the rote gestures of a auto. Lobel`s chapter on trademarks begins with formal assay: Lichtenstein consistently removed or obscured the make names of commercial products-- a motion that allowed him to bring a modernist interest in the relation of figure to ground to bear on the representation of golf balls and rubber tires. From in that location, Lobel builds a complex argument on the fate of creative identity in the historic period of mechanical reproduction: By eliminating the preexisting "identities" of the commodities he appropriated, Lichtenstein was able to assert his own painterly concerns. But, in this process of "Lichtensteinization," the part of "signature style" veers uncomfortably close to the logic of the trademark: The brand proper name haunts Lichtenstein`s effort to wrest a unique artistic identity out of the representation of mass-produced objects, similar an uncanny return of the repressed.
If Image Duplicator presents Lichtenstein equally a figure whose work is driven past unresolved conflict, the same cannot exist said of Lobel, His book, which began as a dissertation, appears entirely comfortable with its identity as an academic text. At times an unquestioning adherence to art-historical discourse leads Lobel astray, as in
his treatment of Look Mickey, 1961. Lichtenstein`due south first holding Popular piece of work, the painting shows a fishing trip on which Donald Duck, staring intently at the water, mistakenly hooks himself on his ain line as Mickey Mouse snickers nearby. Lobel grounds his estimation in Freud`south give-and-take of the role of vision and upright posture in the civilizing process and his assay of jokes every bit an outlet for unconscious drives. "Taken in the context of Lichtenstein`s projection," Lobel argues, "those two figures-1 raised up and i lowered down-could be seen as standing in for the relation between then-called high and low forms of culture." Tying Look Mickey back to its status as the origin of Lichtenstein`due south Pop style he concludes, "the painting presents a scene in which a seemingly momentous discovery comes at the toll of an every bit profound degradation." The work thus serves every bit an allegory of Lichtenstein`s ambivalence toward the popular imagery and mechanized facture on which his success as a fine artist was paradoxically based.
While this is an interesting reading, Lobel`southward utterly earnest employ of theoretical language results in statements like "It is the verticalized continued on page rp effigy of Mickey who is ascribed the power of authoritative vision" and "We are refused access to the object of Donald`s gaze." His loftier-serious tone and PC refusal to sensationalize discussions of the body miss not only the subversive vulgarity but too the fundamental silliness of the image before us: a cartoon duck sticking its ass in the air. Lichtenstein`s ambivalence in Look Mickey is not just turned inward, as Lobel argues. Insofar equally Donald is a stand up-in for the viewer, the artist`s barb is aimed at the audience on whom his success was as based, at gallerygoers who blindly mistake hype for substance, collectors who care for art every bit a form of investment-- and perchance even art historians who are so enmeshed in the terms of their argument that they miss what is
right in front of their faces (or, in this case, backside their rears). A similarly excessive self-reflexivity marks affiliate 4 of Lobel`southward book, which compares Lichtenstein`s paintings to Leo Steinberg`southward and E.H. Gombrich`south attempts to map the increasingly fine line between mass civilization and loftier art in "Other Criteria" and Fine art and Illusion, respectively. It is not beloved why Lobel has chosen to brand art history the focus of a chapter of his art-historical study or what, beyond drawing attention to a synchronous field of concerns, this juxtaposition adds to our agreement of Lichtenstein`due south fine art.
For the most part, though, Lobel navigates the demands of academic inquiry with intelligence and grace, integrating critical speculation, extended formal analysis, and meticulous scholarly inquiry in a compelling new reading of ane of the most influential artists of the postwar era. But while Lichtenstein`due south importance may be beyond dispute, Warhol`s project still tends to exist treated as representative of Pop art as a whole even past fine art historians. By persuasively articulating Lichtenstein`s distinctive concerns, Paradigm Duplicator goes a long mode to ensuring that Pop`s 2d son will receive his rightful due.
AUTHOR Amalgamation
Margaret Sundell is a cofounder of Documents magazine.
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