DAILY PIC: In this week’s Newsweek – in the iPad and International editions only – I write (and speak, on video) about Roy Lichtenstein’s career-spanning survey at the Art Institute of Chicago. I try to pull away from our usual concentration on the “fun” of his comic-book and pop-culture references, and emphasize his interest in the larger print culture that continues to condition us.
His “BenDay” dots are my crucial evidence.
Lichtenstein’s printer’s dots never help him render a real scene and its colors, as Benjamin Day, their 19th-century inventor, intended them to. They aren’t even true magnifications of the dot-field on a page in “Donald Duck” or “X-Men” – or, in this case, a nudie magazine. They float free of such specifics, as untethered symbols of a world derived from print. (Image is Lichtenstein’s “Nude with Street Scene”, from 1995 © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein, collection Simonyi)
Read a much longer version of this post at thedailybeast.com/daily-pic.