JAMES ROSENQUIST

In these significant early years of his career, Rosenquist extensively investigated the nature of the picture plane. Drawing on his background as a commercial billboard painter, he employed radical disjuncts of scale and enigmatic compositions, using collage techniques and popular imagery from magazines to create his own idiosyncratic visual vocabulary. It was during this decade that he completed what many consider a magnum opus: the room-installation_F-111 (1964–65), _now on permanent display at The Museum of Modern Art, New York. His work radically tested the possibilities of perception, of the image and of the painted medium itself, propelling him to the centre of art world attention and establishing his place at the forefront of his time and the nascent Pop art movement.

This exhibition will__bring together important works, including monumental painting, shaped canvas and a number of rarely shown studies, preparatory sketches and collages – foundational works for some of his most celebrated paintings now housed in major international museums. Together, these works explore the period in which Rosenquist emerged as one of the most influential artists of his generation.

In his multi-dimensional work, he continually merged his personal world with global political concerns – the power of the military industrial complex, the destruction of our environment and human rights for all races and sexes, to name a few. Jim had a plain-spoken reason for including them, ‘I painted the things that needed painting.’ — Mimi Thompson Rosenquist