Word: wesselmann
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Cutting Satire. For all his cult of objects, Samaras has never become as famous as the pop artists with whom he first exhibited. If Claes Oldenburg or Tom Wesselmann turned out a strawberry sundae, it looked good enough to eat. Samaras filled his sherbet glass with nails and topped it off with a razor. Such cutting satire made it impossible for dealers to promote him as part of the bland pop school. But this year dealers are pushing the school of no-school. The premium is on artists whose versatility makes them impossible to be pigeonholed. Samaras neatly fills that...
...store was one of the first in the U.S. to introduce men's Carnaby Street fashions. It has also brought in Simon & Garfunkel, Dionne Warwick, and Spanky and Our Gang to entertain shoppers. Among art fanciers, it is known and respected for its Gallery 12, which sells Tom Wesselmann nudes as well as $8,000 Marisol wood sculptures. The store is Dayton's of Minneapolis, which has exhibited a flair for showmanship that has been emulated by some of the biggest names in U.S. retailing. Still, the showcase downtown store is only one part of the fast-growing...
...artists shown, 39% were born or are living in the U.S. But Documenta makes no case for a U.S. monopoly on styles. The sprightly satires of Britons Richard Hamilton and David Hockney hang in the same gallery with their better-known U.S. pop equivalents, such as Tom Wesselmann and Robert Indiana. Indeed, it is Documenta's unity that last week prompted Sculptress Louise Nevelson to remark: "Usually an artist works in loneliness. But here, one suddenly experiences the kinship one always suspects one might have with the rest of the artistic world...
...Wesselmann is nothing if not thorough, and the show's inventory includes: 36 painted toenails, 13 breasts, eleven legs and eight pairs of lips; he adds for good measure six oranges, three cigarettes, two radios, two pop bottles, one toilet seat, one hero sandwich, one glass of milk, one Volkswagen and one lemon. Altogether, the lot amply illustrates that, as Director Jan van der Marck observes, "Wesselmann shows woman as the consumer, both consuming and being consumed...
...presents her as a consumer product, he does so with considerable tenderness, and over the years Wesselmann has tended to move even closer to his subject. Early paintings depict her in full. Later (often shaped) canvases zero in on specific portions of the anatomy: feet that rise like mountains above the seashore, mouths dragging at enormous cigarettes, huge breast. Yet, explicit though the images are, Wesselmann's nudes are not pornographic. They are too remote for that, too glazed, too impersonal. They could be legendary divorcees, airline stewardesses or Candys who spend all lay on the beach...