Minimalism - Pop

 

Reflections on Girl 
Roy Lichtenstein

1. POP -  In the film, you are essentially given a tour of Lichtenstein's artistic thought process from his own mouth. Discuss his approach to making art in terms of where and how he is inspired and what he chooses for his subject matter.

    Lichtenstein has an interesting way of making art. Lichtenstein is an artist who loves to rework art that he already loves as is. His most famous paintings are his comic book paintings. To make these paintings, he would start by flipping through a comic book to find a panel that looked interesting to him. He then would create a colored pencil drawing of the panel in his own style, and then would project this colored pencil drawing onto a canvas. The canvases he used were large scale and would allow the comic panel to come to life at a much larger scale than before. He is influenced a lot by pop culture when it comes to his subject, and he also uses artists that inspire him as his fuel. 

2. What do you feel drove Lichtenstein as an art maker? How did he reference pop culture?

    I think that Lichtenstein was driven by the art and things around. He was inspired by publications, comics, art, books, as well as parts of pop culture like idealized love imagery. His art is a "modern or mechanical way of working" because it is not done in a way like abstract expressionism. There is no thick brush stroke, or sign of pretension. Lichtenstein is really into the idea of "reworking" and I think it is very interesting that this is his motive. His work is pop culture. He is using everything around him to make his art, and it references pop culture in every aspect because at the time those were the publications that were being read/seen. 

3. Some of Lichtenstein's critics have said he was a plagiarist, not an artist. What are your thoughts on the matter?

    I do not think that Lichtenstein was a plagiarist. Yes, it is definitely an interesting choice to be so close to replicating images, but I do not think he is "copying" or "stealing" in the way that he makes art. I think the way he makes art is a commentary on the world around him, and he is "reworking" work that he finds interesting. he is showing the work through his eyes, which is often at a much larger scale and is altered in some way from his reference photo. In an article I found, it says that "some [of his paintings] are pretty much traces of the original, while some make more significant changes". I thought this was interesting because when you listen to Lichtenstein talk about how he "rework[s] Picasso", he talks about how his paintings will have totally different mark making, as well as an entirely different feeling. I kind of see where he is coming from because his paintings do give you a different experience than the ones he has reworked. 

Outside Sources:

Bailey, Jonathan. “The Case against Roy Lichtenstein.” Plagiarism Today, 1 Sept. 2023, www.plagiarismtoday.com/2023/04/12/the-case-against-roy-lichtenstein/.

Tate. “Roy Lichtenstein 1923–1997.” Tate, 1 Jan. 1990, www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/roy-lichtenstein-1508.