Beyond Pop Art

The Cincinnati Art Museum hosts Beyond Pop Art: A Tom Wesselmann Retrospective from October 31, 2014 to January 18, 2015. 

“This is Wesselmann’s first retrospective in North America, and it is long overdue,” says Matt Distel, museum curator. 

Wesselmann was born in Cincinnati in 1931. When he died in 2004 he had become a central figure, together with Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and others in the Pop Art movement that came to prominence in the 1960s. 

The paintings at the exhibition showcase Wesselmann’s unique take on the commoditization of narrative and form. They represent, almost playfully, the branded, prepackaged milieu of the modern world, though they do not deride it. The works are perspicuous and approachable because they contain no hint of judgment. 

“Once inside the exhibition, people will see the Tom Wesselmann they think they know, the iconic Pop Art, is just one component of a long, nuanced and varied career,” says Distel.