A number of artists have done things with Mickey Mouse – including Claes Oldenburg and Andy Warhol. He’s such an American symbol, and such an anti-art symbol.
ROY LICHTENSTEINA number of artists have done things with Mickey Mouse – including Claes Oldenburg and Andy Warhol. He’s such an American symbol, and such an anti-art symbol.
ROY LICHTENSTEINI dont have big anxieties. I wish I did. Id be much more interesting.
ROY LICHTENSTEINThe big tradition, I think, is unity. And I have that in mind; and with that, you know, you could break all the traditions- all the other so-called rules, because they are stylistic.. and most are not true.
ROY LICHTENSTEINThere is a relationship between cartooning and people like Mir? and Picasso which may not be understood by the cartoonist, but it definitely is related even in the early Disney.
ROY LICHTENSTEINPicasso’s always been such a huge influence that I thought when I started the cartoon paintings that I was getting away from Picasso, and even my cartoons of Picasso were done almost to rid myself of his influence.
ROY LICHTENSTEINI suppose I would still prefer to sit under a tree with a picnic basket rather than under a gas pump, but signs and comic strips are interesting as subject matter.
ROY LICHTENSTEINI take a cliche and try to organize its forms to make it monumental. The difference is often not great, but it is crucial.
ROY LICHTENSTEINUsually I begin things through a drawing, so a lot of things are worked out in the drawing. But even then, I still allow for and want to make changes.
ROY LICHTENSTEINYou have no idea where reality is, so to have an idea of what people think is pretty hard.
ROY LICHTENSTEINYou know, as you compose music, you’re just off in your own world.
ROY LICHTENSTEINYou forget that this has been thirty five years now and people don’t look at it as if it were some kind of oddity.
ROY LICHTENSTEINI think art since Cezanne has become extremely romantic and unrealistic, feeding on art. It is Utopian. It has less and less to do with the world. It looks inward – neo-Zen and all that. Pop Art looks out into the world. It doesn’t look like a painting of something, it looks like the thing itself.
ROY LICHTENSTEINAnd I dont really want it to carry one. Im not interested in the subject matter to try to teach society anything, or to try to better our world in any way.
ROY LICHTENSTEINI think its the tension between what seems to be so rigid and cliched and the fact that art really cant be this way.
ROY LICHTENSTEINColor is crucial in painting, but it is very hard to talk about.
ROY LICHTENSTEINI like to pretend that my art has nothing to do with me.
ROY LICHTENSTEIN