Roy Lichtenstein at the Pompidou Centre (from July 3 to November 4, 2013)

After Chicago, Washington and London, Roy Lichtenstein is in center of a major retrospective in Paris, at the Pompidou Centre.

American artist Roy Lichtenstein is chiefly known for his Pop Art works made in the 60s, his instantly recognisable comic book prints blown up to a massive scale. “Look Mickey”, “Whaam” and “Drowning Girl” are some of his best-known pieces. 

However, at the same time as he was producing these works, Lichtenstein was also pushing the boundaries in other directions, as a postmodern artist. 

Through references to art history and to specific artists and styles, (Picasso, Mondrian, Cézanne, cubism, abstract expressionism and so on) he explored many different approaches to art.
With his typically dry sense of humour, he manages to keep a certain distance between himself and his subject, allowing us to see the funny side but never criticizing.

For him, the art world tended to take itself far too seriously, and indeed this is one of the underlying messages in his witty, self-deprecating work. With great technical brilliance he worked in a variety of artistic mediums; sculpture and prints as well as painting. 

Late in his career, he tackled a new era in art history: Chinese landscapes. These he explored with his personal brand of pop humour, resulting in surprisingly atmospheric works such as Landscape in Fog, 1996. Here, the foreground and background are rendered in dots, while the fog in the mid ground is an expressive painterly swirl, in stark contrast to the detachment suggested by the dot matrix. 

Lichtenstein's clever visual language is surprising and engaging throughout this exhibition at the Pompidou Centre. Discover another side to a familiar artist, at one of the top exhibitions in Paris in 2013. From July 3 to November 4, 2013.