Stowaway Peers Out at the Speed of Light 2000

Editor: Here we have James Rosenquist's 2000 painting, *Stowaway Peers Out at the Speed of Light*. The explosion of color and abstract shapes feels so chaotic! What do you make of this composition? Curator: The 'chaotic' nature you observe is interesting, because it echoes a particular moment in the history of artistic representation. Rosenquist came from Pop Art; he really embraced the commercial aesthetics and incorporated a modern visual language of billboards. This piece makes me consider how that past filters through his later work, especially at the turn of the millennium. Do you think the ‘stowaway’ in the title has any bearing here? Editor: That's interesting. It feels like you’re suggesting this is like… sneaking a look into the future through this visual language? Curator: Exactly. It’s about that surreptitious viewpoint of modernity. Speed, in the title, ties directly to the Futurists’ manifestos and the ambition for a visual idiom reflecting modern life, only it comes over a century later. He gives us this image filtered through a culture of Pop Art and advertising – do you think that context adds or detracts from its commentary? Editor: I hadn't really thought about its placement in art history that way. To be honest, without your pointing that out, it just looked like a bunch of colliding colours to me! Curator: Rosenquist seems conscious of inserting himself into the artistic trajectory by ‘stowing away’, to me. Consider how Pop Art forced the hand of institutions to reckon with 'low art', the images of everyday life. We see here, at the turn of the millennium, Rosenquist reasserting this disruptive force in an expanded visual field. He forces us to reconsider the definition of imagery as commodity, and perhaps pushes what painting, and public image can achieve. Editor: So much to unpack! Thanks, I will never look at this in the same way again.