Our first exam is on Tuesday. All tests here are combined, meaning every single lecture from the past three weeks is fair game.
What did I do today to prepare for the 3.5 hour-long exam? I took the Metra train into the city, walked to The Art Institute of Chicago, signed up for a student membership, and moseyed through the exhibit Roy Lichtenstein: a Retrospective. It's the first retrospective since the artist's death and the largest assemblage of his works ever. Read: not to be missed. This is the last weekend of the record-breaking exhibit.
Lichtenstein was arguably the first Pop artist with his 1961 painting Look Mickey. It seems like nothing to us now, but fifty years ago it shocked the art world. Headlines such as, "America's Worst Artist?" slandered Lichtenstein in the '60s. What critics hated about him is that he elevated mass produced "low arts" such as advertising and comics to the fine art world, effectively blurring the line between museum-worthy painting and disposable products. Who in their right mind paints a composition book? I think it's brilliant - he created unreproducible pieces in the style of oft-reproduced things.
Previous to this exhibit I was familiar with Lichtenstein's iconic distressed women and comic book paintings but was surprised to discover other themes to his works. My favorites were his interpretations of other famous works:
Don't worry, I mastered the subject of embryonic cardiac development while on the train down. Now I know a whole lot about birth defects of the heart! It's important to balance studying with an outside life. This weekend I needed to get away from my peers' mounting stress for an afternoon. This museum membership will definitely give me reason to venture into downtown often.
What did I do today to prepare for the 3.5 hour-long exam? I took the Metra train into the city, walked to The Art Institute of Chicago, signed up for a student membership, and moseyed through the exhibit Roy Lichtenstein: a Retrospective. It's the first retrospective since the artist's death and the largest assemblage of his works ever. Read: not to be missed. This is the last weekend of the record-breaking exhibit.
Lichtenstein was arguably the first Pop artist with his 1961 painting Look Mickey. It seems like nothing to us now, but fifty years ago it shocked the art world. Headlines such as, "America's Worst Artist?" slandered Lichtenstein in the '60s. What critics hated about him is that he elevated mass produced "low arts" such as advertising and comics to the fine art world, effectively blurring the line between museum-worthy painting and disposable products. Who in their right mind paints a composition book? I think it's brilliant - he created unreproducible pieces in the style of oft-reproduced things.
Previous to this exhibit I was familiar with Lichtenstein's iconic distressed women and comic book paintings but was surprised to discover other themes to his works. My favorites were his interpretations of other famous works:
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| Laocoon, 1988 interpretation of Roman sculpture Laocoon and His Sons |
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| Woman III, 1982 interpretation of William de Kooning's Woman series |
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