Roy Lichtenstein: Tokyo Brushstrokes
This video offers comprehensive documentation on a major public sculpture by the Pop master, Roy Lichtenstein. Just as he drew inspiration from cartoons and advertising to produce some of the most indelible images in contemporary painting, Lichtenstein became intrigued by a brushstroke he saw in a cartoon as a "symbol" of painting. He started "brushstroke paintings" in 1965, and he has been making sculptures since the late 1960's, but only in the 1980's has he embarked on a series of "monumental brushstroke sculptures" which have become public works in Paris, Barcelona and in 1994, Tokyo.

We see Lichtenstein start from a collection of brushstrokes he created for collages, selecting images, making models, meeting with the Japanese architect and curator, enlarging the drawings to some thirty feet, fabricating the sculptures in a foundry, and finally, installing the sculptures in Tokyo where all the work of preparation gives way to the mystery of creation. In the artist's own words, "It's just a road you start taking, and you keep correcting and changing until you get something that seems right...I don't really mind having art go from me to other people, even if I never see it again. I'm interested in doing it..."

D I R E C T O R : Mark Trottenberg
C O L O R ,  3 0   M I N U T E S
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