James Rosenquist F-111
So hey, I’m back from New York! On an artistic level my visit to the MoMA was unquestionably the high point, not only because they have a number of my favourite modernist art works on display, but for the current exhibitions. In particular, a while back I posted about James Rosenquist’s monumental F-111 currently on display at MoMA and holy cow, was it ever more impressive in real life – and not just because it really is quite enormous.
Rosenquist’s playfulness with material really doesn’t come across in reproduction; seeing F-111 “in the round” is a breathtaking experience. Rosenquist really knows paint and his obvious appreciation of its subtleties is very evident – he’s a real painter’s painter in this sense. Some of the panels were aluminum, with varying transparency of paint application, some areas of wallpaper-like patterning, paints of varying glossiness including metallic, enamel, and matte… you could really see that his background as a commercial billboard painter allowed an incredible fluency as an artist. Rosenquist’s deftnesss with mixed media in F-111 is simply astonishing. Added bonus? Working sketches on display nearby.
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- James Rosenquist F-111 detail
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- James Rosenquist F-111 detail
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- James Rosenquist F-111 detail
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- James Rosenquist F-111 detail
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- James Rosenquist F-111 detail
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- working sketches - James Rosenquist F-111
F-111 is on display at MoMA until July 30 2012, as originally displayed in 1965 at the Leo Castelli Gallery.
This installation marks the first time F-111 has been presented at MoMA as it was initially exhibited at the Castelli Gallery in 1965. From seeing it personally in the past, and from studying detail images in textbooks and slides, I felt I had garnered at least a basic understanding of the work’s important political message about the economic implications and consequences of war. But it was not until we finished installing and I first stepped inside the intimate environment created by the vividly colored wraparound panels that I really registered the painting’s immersive effect.
This was no accident. Rosenquist has often cited a keen interest in the phenomenon of peripheral vision as a driving force behind his decision to make a room-scaled painting. Whatever our eye focuses on at any given moment is necessarily influenced by information at the outermost perimeters of our field of vision, which in turn plays a profound, yet often subconscious, role in our sensory perception.
– Cara Manes, Collection Specialist, Department of Painting and Sculpture MoMA
If you have the chance, you really must go.
I’m having trouble finding out where the piece went after the MOMA exhibit ended in July.
Do you know and could you tell me?
That’s a very interesting question – I found an article in Vanity Fair where the image credit indicates that the painting is actually part of MoMA’s permanent collection, “Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Alex L. Hillman and Lillie P. Bliss Bequest (both by exchange)”. My guess is that they probably have it in storage as it’s too large to keep on display. If you want to see work that is not on display, you can contact the relevant MoMA study center.