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Lot Essay
Trained as a sign painter, Rosenquist won his first acclaim in the early 1960s as a Pop artist, with his enigmatic paintings and assemblages. His work provocatively combines disparate subject matter, drawing on images of Pop culture, celebrities, politicians and images of objects and food. Vent's painted images are a laughing woman (or perhaps in ecstasy), a sunnyside-up egg and a pole-like form with hanging circular elements, combined with an actual sculptural element: a open wire vessel hanging form a string. One is tempted to decipher the puzzle, like a Freudian investigator, but is ultimately rebuffed.
Rosenquist resists narrative, in favor of suggestive emblems, which he combines visually and conceptually. In his paintings--as in the work of the Surrealists and Duchamp, his work is deliberately open to interpretation, allowing each viewer to come up with its "meaning." When asked why he painted spaghetti, Rosenquist replied, "Two reasons: I like the way it looks, and I like the way it tastes" (J. Rosenquist quoted in James Rosenquist: A Retrospective, New York, 2003, p. 9), a statement that no doubt would also include his depiction of eggs.
Vent embodies all of the masterful compositions and delicious contradictions of Rosenquist's best work. At the heart of his practice, Rosenquist is a collagist of images, cutting images together and weaving them together. In this regard, his paintings are related to the work of his good friend Robert Rauschenberg, an important precursor for the artist. It is not surprising that Rosenquist's primary studies for his large scale works are actual collages. "In collage, there is a glint or reflection of modern life. For example, if you take a walk through midtown Manhattan and you see the back of a girl's legs and then you see out of the corner of your eye a taxi comes close to hitting you. So--the legs, the car--you see parts of things and you rationalize and identify danger by bits and pieces. It's very quick. It's about contemporary life" (J. Rosenquist quoted in Ibid, p. 17).
Rosenquist resists narrative, in favor of suggestive emblems, which he combines visually and conceptually. In his paintings--as in the work of the Surrealists and Duchamp, his work is deliberately open to interpretation, allowing each viewer to come up with its "meaning." When asked why he painted spaghetti, Rosenquist replied, "Two reasons: I like the way it looks, and I like the way it tastes" (J. Rosenquist quoted in James Rosenquist: A Retrospective, New York, 2003, p. 9), a statement that no doubt would also include his depiction of eggs.
Vent embodies all of the masterful compositions and delicious contradictions of Rosenquist's best work. At the heart of his practice, Rosenquist is a collagist of images, cutting images together and weaving them together. In this regard, his paintings are related to the work of his good friend Robert Rauschenberg, an important precursor for the artist. It is not surprising that Rosenquist's primary studies for his large scale works are actual collages. "In collage, there is a glint or reflection of modern life. For example, if you take a walk through midtown Manhattan and you see the back of a girl's legs and then you see out of the corner of your eye a taxi comes close to hitting you. So--the legs, the car--you see parts of things and you rationalize and identify danger by bits and pieces. It's very quick. It's about contemporary life" (J. Rosenquist quoted in Ibid, p. 17).