It should come as no surprise that the artist whose preeminent series is titled the Great American Nude would command an equally grandiose retrospective. With Pop Forever, Tom Wesselmann &… the Fondation Louis Vuitton made an American great even greater.
In recent years, Wesselmann’s sensuous, disembodied limbs and lips graced Coach handbags and his iconic imagery has long adorned the halls of the world’s great institutions. Yet it seems he is more ubiquitous than ever, as his name seemed to be on everybody’s lips as the art world descended on Paris for the European outpost of Art Basel in October.
While Wesselmann-mania overflowed from the museum exhibition to the halls of the Grand Palais, in the hands of Dieter Buchhart and Anna Karina Hofbauer, the Pop Art master’s works were recontextualized. In conversation with his contemporaries and artists of today, Wesselmann’s already impressively bold, bright, and buoyant works took on new meaning and created a dialogue with those carrying on the legacy of Pop Art into the 21st century.
With a whole area dedicated to his Lips and Smoker series, the distinctly striking facial features feel even more intrepid and timeless. Beyond the content of his creations, Wesselmann was a master of playing with medium. Turning resilient metals like steel into the means for fluid drawings, he blurred the lines between two and three dimensions. This is especially felt in Bedroom Brunette with Irises, which reveals itself to visitors as they ascend the escalator between galleries. Heather James is particularly proud to have helped facilitate the loan of the work to this show.
It is always exciting to discover something new in the art world and, at times, even more exhilarating to rediscover something beloved in a new context. Tom Wesselmann has been revered and treasured from the start, but the current frenzy is a wonderful way to honor a Pop Art icon.
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Available Works by Tom Wesselmann
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