Sweet Dreams Baby! 1965

Roy Lichtenstein made this screenprint, Sweet Dreams Baby!, and you can tell it’s a print because it’s super flat. The Ben-Day dots are laid down in a totally regular pattern, like a screen. It’s so interesting how he takes a handmade gesture – like a comic book punch – and then makes it on an industrial scale. There’s no texture here, but everything’s about surface. It's about this punch coming right at you, and then the words floating above. Look at how Lichtenstein makes the lines vibrate. They’re not exactly precise, but a little bit wobbly. That gives the image energy. I love how Lichtenstein takes this super macho imagery and then almost makes it camp. Think about someone like Warhol, who was also interested in mass culture, but in a totally different way. For Lichtenstein, the idea of reproduction seems to be just as important as the image itself.