a little lichtystein....just to brighten the room.

Good Morning...Darling! 1963



In “Lichtenstein’s Borrowed Spots”, Cecile Whiting deconstructs notions of gender that accompany the pop art movement in the 1960’s via the work of Roy Lichtenstein.

Whiting suggests that when the subconscious narrative associations found in Roy
Lichtenstein’s sources are fed through a high art mechanism, the implications of the chosen frames and their relationship to rhetoric are inflated. This effect is compounded by Lichtenstein’s deliberate tendency to use frames of males in commanding situations and females in states of anguish, distress, or romantic scenarios. By refining the narratives to simplistic constructions of gender, Whiting suggests, Lichtenstein propagates a division between masculine activity and feminine passivity.

In an effort to secure Lichtenstein’s canonical importance in the art world in the 1960’s, major defenses of his work were employed on the basis of formalism. Incidentally, this also reinforced high art’s claim on masculinity. Although Ellen Johnson notes the parodic nature of Lichtenstein’s content, she believes that this is a secondary issue to the formal aspects of the composition1. When Mary Kelly discusses the loss of figurative depiction in the pop movement, she asserts that this too coincided with a loss of masculine presence2 In an interview with Paul Cummings in May of 1969 Leo Castelli admits however that there were still underlying masculine desires that were placated in Lichtenstein’s female forms. Whiting explains that an alternate type of masculine authority was defined by means of formal interpretation and gender-loaded rhetoric. The counterpart to this new definition of artistic masculinity was identified with respect to the previous framework of abstract expressionism. The insightful angst (typically referred to as emotion when executed with feminine hands) that Pollock had made so doughty in his technique was confronted with pop art’s cool, collected sensibility. In the end, this did nothing to challenge high art’s proprietorship of virile manhood; it simply offered another interpretation of it. For example, when associations with consumer culture undoubtedly arise with Lichtenstein’s work, they are transformed into a critique of it, not a submission to it. This manifested a strategy that was not a defense against feminine sensibilities, but simply a redefinition of masculinity.

Where Lichtenstein subverted consumerism through comic book illustrations, consumerism subverted Lichtenstein through an employment of his own gender laden techniques5 Whiting argues that the difference in utilization of these methods was only one of audience. When pop art entered the advertising realm, it played a much different role than it did in its intellectual context. The subversions that Lichtenstein had incorporated into his thoughtful frames became fodder for the propagation of established stereotypes. Consumer culture mimicked the systematic ranking of masculine authority in the high art world by demarcating between the culturally informed consumer and the naive buyer. Whiting illustrates this point by citing a failed attempt to use pop art in a non-art context at UCLA in 1992. Students discontented with the image of a Benday blonde representing them were accused of not understanding the parodic comment on a pop art icon, while the au fait elite were accredited with being able “to take a joke”6 The anger from a culturally “illiterate” demographic reinforced another hierarchic divide between sensitive social constructions of gender and class.

In an interview with G.R. Swenson in 1961, Lichtenstein discusses the concept of visual unity.7 He suggests that when the subject matter of his work loses its value over time, the formal aspects will be perspicuous. Regardless of Lichtenstein’s intentions of visual unity or his desire to embrace the crassness of what surrounds us, the perceptions of his work remain multifarious. The power from pop arguably comes from its relationship with the world, rather than its relationship with the artist. It is this mélange of interpretation that foments critical thought about art, not a situated understanding of context. Gender constructions still need much more time to diffuse for Lichtenstein’s formality to have prominence. Until then, his work invariably will be connected to such issues as masculine high art sensibilities and feminine gravitations to consumer culture. The fact that his work both emboldens and subverts this distinction is the world’s way of acknowledging all of those subtle complexities that Lichtenstein leaves out of his hyperbolic frames.