Roy Lichtenstein, Lasting influences, MOCO Museum, Amsterdam, 3/11/2017 – 31/05/2018

On November 2017 Moco Museum presented an exhibition of Roy Lichtenstein, one of the greatest contemporary art interpreters and a master of Pop Art.

The exhibition at Moco was curated by the Italian Gianni Mercurio (curator of shows about Keith Haring, Jean Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein) and Mirta d’Argenzio (curator of a retrospective of Damien Hirst and Robert Rauschenberg) with active participation of Kim and Lionel Logchies, founders of Moco Museum.

The exhibition, organized by Moco on Madeinart project presented, through a large selection of editions like the famous Brushstrokes, Imperfects and Still lifes from European and American collections, the conspicuous themes treated by the great American artist.

The Lichtenstein exhibition at Moco Museum included a 3D interior room installation based on Lichtenstein’s painting “Bedroom at Arles”, which he made in 1992 after a postcard of Van Gogh’s famous “The Artist’s Room at Arles” (1888-89). A 3D installation of VAN GOGH ‘s painting was last presented at the Van Gogh museum in 2000.

Roy Lichtenstein said about his version of the Arles Room:

“I’ve cleaned his room up a little bit for him, and he’ll be very happy when he gets home from the hospital to see that l’ve straightened his shirts and bought some new furniture. Mine is a rather large painting and his is rather small. His is much better, but mine is much bigger.”

The influence of Roy Lichtenstein’s art is still evident in many forms of artistic expression: from painting to advertising, from photography to design and fashion.

Lichtenstein’s art seems apparently “easy” to understand. But beyond the surface it is an intellectual, rationalistic art, premeditated and realized through a complex process of a deconstruction and reconstruction of the image: bold lines associated with flat colors, thousands of regular dots, a magnified halftone screen, that suggests the idea of chiaroscuro and impression of reflections of ligh.

From the beginning Roy Lichtenstein’s sophisticated art has had an uninterrupted power of seduction on visual culture and communication, whose end is still far off. You recognize his works at first glance: he has become part of the unconscious cultural heritage to all of us.