Gloria Arboleda "When Art is Something Personal"
First Published, July 2008: Natcreole Magazine
http://www.natcreole.com/art.gloriaarboleda.htm
Monday, January 7, 2008
Sunday, January 8, 2006
Roy Lichtenstein-Animated Life
Animated Life
http://www.lichtensteinfoundation.org/
August, 2006
Buenos Aires feels proud to present Roy Lichtenstein’s Animated Life. About 80 works on paper made between the 50`s and the 90`s in the 20th century, by one of the leading voices of the American Pop Art. Some of the artist’s most famous series, comics and pieces inspired by famous painters of art history are gathered together at the MALBA (Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires) in a “once in a life time opportunity” for South America.What can we say about Roy Lichtenstein? Pop means so many things and still we can summaries its influence in a few words. Who can denied that Roy Lichtenstein, as Andy Warhol, was one of the most important artists that analyzed the interaction between art and its production of images, and the contemporary way of life?. We all know he was (and I guess his spirit still carries that honor), the mentor of banality translated into art: cartoons, advertising, mass media, serial reproduction, technology. He lived in a world where the slogan “American way of life”, became some role model to follow all over the world. But let’s face it: the vivid desire for consumption, for a comfortable everyday life, wasn’t just American; what this artist expressed in his works was a world wide phenomenon. It was and it is now more than ever.Lichtenstein showed us how mass media could created social needs; he criticized the impact of massive production in people’s life, sometimes so subtle that we can’t even noticed it: an impact that functions as the engine that rules our motivations and tastes. The soap opera pretty ladies that leaded some of the Roy Lichtenstein’s stories, were standards that people related to. Actually, we are surrounded by superheroes that seems to me, they never go away (just to mention Batman or Superman would give you an idea) or the brand new ones as Harry Potter or The Incredibles who focus their message to the young minds creating ideals such as the ones that Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck created for their generation. The artist denounced this “faceless” manipulation many decades ago and if we look around we’ll find out that the actors changed by the script is just the same: the enormous contradiction between desperately trying to fit in (following what everybody follows) and on the other hand the constant seek for an identity of our own…quite a difficult task in the 21st century. He puts a mirror in front of our faces so we can find that we all look the same, dress in the same way, eat the same food, watch the same programs, say the same lines, buy the same things, and the most dramatic of all, feel the same feelings. Lichtenstein’s work is so alive that pushes the audience to take part because we feel touched and related to a culture that emphasizes “the predictable”. As I said: the actors changed but not the theme. As long as we keep following the massive desires just because the mass knows better, Pop Culture will still have a leading part in the social scenario, encouraging people to question if our emotions and thoughts are also puppets of the “reproductive era” or they can still be considered as unique as each one of us.The exhibition was promoted by Nessia Leonzini (curator of photography), produced by the Tomie Ohtake Institute of São Paulo, Brazil in collaboration with the Roy Lichtenstein’s Foundation, New York. Lisa Phillips, director of the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York is the curator. It runs until August 7th, 2006.
http://www.lichtensteinfoundation.org/
August, 2006
Buenos Aires feels proud to present Roy Lichtenstein’s Animated Life. About 80 works on paper made between the 50`s and the 90`s in the 20th century, by one of the leading voices of the American Pop Art. Some of the artist’s most famous series, comics and pieces inspired by famous painters of art history are gathered together at the MALBA (Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires) in a “once in a life time opportunity” for South America.What can we say about Roy Lichtenstein? Pop means so many things and still we can summaries its influence in a few words. Who can denied that Roy Lichtenstein, as Andy Warhol, was one of the most important artists that analyzed the interaction between art and its production of images, and the contemporary way of life?. We all know he was (and I guess his spirit still carries that honor), the mentor of banality translated into art: cartoons, advertising, mass media, serial reproduction, technology. He lived in a world where the slogan “American way of life”, became some role model to follow all over the world. But let’s face it: the vivid desire for consumption, for a comfortable everyday life, wasn’t just American; what this artist expressed in his works was a world wide phenomenon. It was and it is now more than ever.Lichtenstein showed us how mass media could created social needs; he criticized the impact of massive production in people’s life, sometimes so subtle that we can’t even noticed it: an impact that functions as the engine that rules our motivations and tastes. The soap opera pretty ladies that leaded some of the Roy Lichtenstein’s stories, were standards that people related to. Actually, we are surrounded by superheroes that seems to me, they never go away (just to mention Batman or Superman would give you an idea) or the brand new ones as Harry Potter or The Incredibles who focus their message to the young minds creating ideals such as the ones that Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck created for their generation. The artist denounced this “faceless” manipulation many decades ago and if we look around we’ll find out that the actors changed by the script is just the same: the enormous contradiction between desperately trying to fit in (following what everybody follows) and on the other hand the constant seek for an identity of our own…quite a difficult task in the 21st century. He puts a mirror in front of our faces so we can find that we all look the same, dress in the same way, eat the same food, watch the same programs, say the same lines, buy the same things, and the most dramatic of all, feel the same feelings. Lichtenstein’s work is so alive that pushes the audience to take part because we feel touched and related to a culture that emphasizes “the predictable”. As I said: the actors changed but not the theme. As long as we keep following the massive desires just because the mass knows better, Pop Culture will still have a leading part in the social scenario, encouraging people to question if our emotions and thoughts are also puppets of the “reproductive era” or they can still be considered as unique as each one of us.The exhibition was promoted by Nessia Leonzini (curator of photography), produced by the Tomie Ohtake Institute of São Paulo, Brazil in collaboration with the Roy Lichtenstein’s Foundation, New York. Lisa Phillips, director of the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York is the curator. It runs until August 7th, 2006.
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