Michael Lobel
James Rosenquist
Pop Art, Politics, and History in the 1960s
An Ahmanson-Murphy Fine Arts Book
$49.95, £34.95 hardcover
9780520253032
Available Now
232 pages, 7 x 10 inches, 16 color and 54 b/w images
March 2009, Available worldwide
Also in: Modern & Contemporary Art
March 2009, Available worldwide
Also in: Modern & Contemporary Art
James Rosenquist's paintings, with their billboard-sized images of commercial subjects, are utterly emblematic of 1960s Pop Art. Their provocative imagery also touches on some of the major political and historical events of that turbulent decade—from the Kennedy assassination to the war in Vietnam. In the first full-length scholarly examination of Rosenquist's art from that period, Michael Lobel weaves together close visual analysis, a wealth of archival research, and a consideration of the social and historical contexts in which these paintings were produced to offer bold new readings of a body of work that helped redefine art in the 1960s. Bringing together a range of approaches, James Rosenquist provides a compelling perspective on the artist and on the burgeoning consumer culture of postwar America.
"This study offers a compelling alternative to formalist and semiotic studies of Pop Art. Michael Lobel examines in new depth the complex, highly charged socio-political resonances of James Rosenquist's fascinating work of the early- and mid-nineteen sixties. This is the social history of art at its best. Lobel's groundbreaking reinterpretations of President Elect (1961-1964) and F-111 (1965) track the many, often allusive, references to contemporaneous realities embedded in the works. Showing how provisional, even contradictory, their meaning could be, he brings to light the complex temporal logic and sense of history implicit in Rosenquist's art. This analysis makes possible a new understanding of how artists of Rosenquist's generation deployed the materials of modern American consumer."—Alex Potts, author of The Sculptural Imagination: Figurative, Modernist, Minimalist
"James Rosenquist: Pop Art, Politics, and History in the 1960s provides a new perspective on the work of Rosenquist, a key but neglected artist of the Pop Art movement. Michael Lobel, who bases his study on detailed contextual research as well as close visual analysis, highlights the themes of obsolescence, novelty, and ephemera in Rosenquist's images and effectively relates the artist's interests to broader questions of consumer culture and urban planning in 1960s New York. Clearly written and thoroughly engaging, this book makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the artist and of Pop Art."—Cécile Whiting, author of Pop L.A.
"James Rosenquist: Pop Art, Politics, and History in the 1960s provides a new perspective on the work of Rosenquist, a key but neglected artist of the Pop Art movement. Michael Lobel, who bases his study on detailed contextual research as well as close visual analysis, highlights the themes of obsolescence, novelty, and ephemera in Rosenquist's images and effectively relates the artist's interests to broader questions of consumer culture and urban planning in 1960s New York. Clearly written and thoroughly engaging, this book makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the artist and of Pop Art."—Cécile Whiting, author of Pop L.A.
American Art Bestsellers
