Saturday, March 16, 2013

A Pop-Art Friday


Yesterday I went to the Tate Modern to see the Lichtenstein retrospective. It was somewhat surprising -- I had no idea Lichtenstein painted Chinese landscapes, or colorful comic-book tributes to artists like Picasso and Monet. His versions of Monet's Rouen Cathedral paintings are positively painful to look at, vibrating with little colorful dots. But they're interesting -- as are his paintings of simple, iconic advertising images like tires or glasses of fizzing Alka-Seltzer. They're so simple as to be almost abstract.

Then I popped into another show, "A Bigger Splash," which is centered around David Hockney's thusly-named painting of a Southern California swimming pool. The show supposedly explored the intersection between painting and action or performance, though honestly, about 90 percent of it was over my head. I mostly wanted to see the Hockney painting, even though I have a nagging feeling I've seen it before. (I used to have a poster of it over my bed back in the '80s, but I think I may have seen the real thing before, too.)


In other news: I've been adding to my collection of coal hole photos, and I created a set of them on Flickr. I won't inflict them all on you here, but if you're interested, check them out. Some of them are suprisingly beautiful!

I also noticed that the controversial pub-turned-Tesco has opened on North Pole Road. I didn't go in, but people were shopping there, so I suppose the neighborhood has decided to live with it and move on.

(Photos: Colorful phone equipment -- I think? -- boxes on sidewalks near the Tate.)

3 comments:

ellen abbott said...

loved the coal hole covers album. I'm sure they were much more interesting than the pop art. for me at least.

Steve Reed said...

Ha! They kind of ARE pop art, I suppose. But there's an additional element of fun in discovering them.

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