Tate Modern

by Christine Barnett. London, UK
Tate Modern is exhibiting Roy Lichtenstein, 21 February – 27 May 2013.

Roy Lichtenstein. Whaam! 1963

Roy Lichtenstein was born and worked in the USA. Like other pop artists of the 1950’s and 1960’s, he looked for inspiration from popular culture, and found it in the graphic art of the comic strip. Whaam! is based on an image from all American Men of War, published in DC Comics in 1962. The artist’s interest lay within the boundaries of violence and emotions and how both changed the subject. His panache was to convey both in a detached, almost mechanical painting technique. Critics complained he copied, but he simply altered to create a more stylish image.

Do Ho Suh. Staircase III 2009

The artist used polyester and stainless steel tubes. This is reminiscent of the staircase to heaven which is always open. If you look carefully, on one side there is a ledge to keep balance. The sculpture has it’s own room and occupies most of the ceiling. The lightness of it reminds of the delicacy of religion and ironically points towards heavy headiness, which in the end, will not matter, as our time is limited.

Andy Warhol. Self Portrait 1967

This is one of the series of self-portraits which Andy made in 1966-67 all based on the same photograph. Whilst his likeness remains recognisable, the image is painted in such a way as to minimise Warhol’s human qualities. Any expressive paint handling is suppressed by the silkscreened surface, reflecting Warhol’s self-proclaimed intention to ‘’complete remove all the hand gesture from art and become noncommittal, anonymous’’.

Bridget Riley. Fall 1963

‘’I try to organise a field of visual energy which accumulates until it reaches maximum tension’’ Riley said of her work. From 1961 to 1964 she worked with contrast of black and white, occasionally introducing tonal scales of grey. In Fall, a singular perpendicular curve is repeated to create a field of varying optical frequencies. Thought in the upper part is gentle relaxed swing prevails; the curve is rapidly compressed towards the bottom of the painting. The composition verges on the edge of disintegration without the structure ever breaking.

Barkley Hendricks Family Jules: NNN ( No Naked Niggahs) 1973

Hendricks made four paintings featuring George Jules Taylor, one of his former students at Yale University. The other paintings showed him dressed in contemporary fashions, while this one depicts him nude except for his glasses. Hendricks was already a well-known African-American painter, and his decision to place a naked black male figure in the position of the traditional female ‘’odalisque’ was extremely radical. As the title suggests, the stereotypes surrounding white fears and sexual stereotypes surrounding the black male. These issues are heightened by a realistic representational style that went against contemporary trends in black American art.

read more about the schedule and info www.tate.org.uk

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About the author

Christine Barnett went to a boarding school in West Sussex, England. She is fluent in 2 languages, a world traveler and a keen skier. Christine began writing and composing at a very young age. Her grandfather, an accomplished poet who has recently published his 8th book, has inspired and encouraged Christine’s passion for writing . She enjoys character broadening hobbies like oenology, Russian literature, learning new languages, writing about ART, fashion and culture. Christine Barnett