"There is nothing outside the text,"Jacques Derrida once wrote, and Roy Lichtenstein's oeuvre stands as either a robust endorsement of this sentiment or a potent rebuttal. His most famous works are essentially isolated, blown-up comic strip panels; some, like "Drowning" (above) appear with ambiguous snatches of text, while others, like
"Blonde Waiting", simply present an image. They are like stills from from a larger imaginary narrative (who is Brad, and what has he done to this woman to make her forswear his aid?) or simulacra of our own reality, rendering it strangely abstract while intensifying it. As pop art, Lichtenstein's work is both the thing itself and an implicit critique, playing up the vapid and the melodramatic, finding a mixture of pathos and joy in the former, and an ineffable sense of mystery in the latter. Yet, even if these paintings "are intended as ironic commentaries on modern man's plight, in which mass media — magazines, advertisements, and television — shapes everything, even our emotions," as the cataloguer at the Metropolitan Musuem of Art would have it, they are also undeniably playful. With his bright palette, bold lines, and eye for gutter drama, Lichtenstein's art, like
Spider-man or
Peanuts, requires no explanation or justification; its appeal is effortlessly self-evident.
