Artist’s Studio ‘The Dance’ 1974

Roy Lichtenstein made this painting called ‘The Dance’ with oil and magna on canvas. Isn’t it funny? Like he’s taken a classical idea of the artist’s studio and flattened it, made it hard and Pop. Look at those lemons. They’re so yellow and round, they almost vibrate off the canvas. Then there’s the brushstrokes, rendered as solid black lines, defining the shapes but also trapping them. It’s like he's saying, "Yeah, I know this is supposed to be a painting, but it's also an object, a thing." The whole composition feels like a collage, a collection of different styles and references mashed together. It reminds me of Picabia, who also liked to play with representation and abstraction. Ultimately, Lichtenstein seems to be having a conversation with art history, deconstructing it and putting it back together in his own unique way. It’s unsettling but also kind of exciting.