I spent last night viewing a colourful display of pop culture. No, not the Eurovisionsemi-final, but the Roy Lichtenstein exhibition at the Hayward Gallery on London's South Bank. The exhibition closes on Sunday so I made the most of midweek late opening by heading down to the concrete artspace by the Thames for a good gawp at the famed spotty canvases.
You probably know some of Roy Lichtenstein's work, even if you don't know the name. Sixties pop art classics, cartoon-like with bold colours and strong lines, shaded by innumerable tiny red dots. Roy's reproductive style dawned in 1961 with a couple of Mickey Mouse drawings and suddenly, whaam, his graphic paintings were the talk of the American arterati. First blonde heroines, everyday kitchenware and mirrors, then brushstrokes, headless self portraits and Chinese landscapes - all were rendered in his unique yet strangely familiar format. It's all very Roy.
I was surprised to discover that many of his paintings started out as someone else's drawings or images. Roy paints art about art. When it looks like he's painted a living room, what he's usually painted instead is a representation of a picture of a living room he found in the Yellow Pages. And his most famous painting, that Whaam! fighter aeroplane shot, is lifted directly from a single frame in an All American Heroes comic book. Saw that last night too, it's an all-encompassing exhibition.
As well as the art, I enjoyed observing the people who'd come along to see it. The Hayward was definitely the destination of choice for vaguely intellectual couples in need of something to fill that difficult midweek pre-pizzeria slot. Then there were media-savvy creative types in just-casual-enough garb, art snobs lowering their expectations for a brief hour and the odd unwilling kid cursed by free admission. And I also enjoyed listening in to loud couples broadcasting their considered opinions of the paintings to one another ("ah, this must herald his stripy period" "close up the dots make my eyes go all funny" "that banana is so quintessential isn't it?"). Glad I went to take a look. Do go if you can, you have four days left until the exhibition goes pop.
