JAMES ROSENQUIST | FOUR DECADES | Galerie Ropac | Paris Pantin | 2016

Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac is pleased to present a solo-exhibition of American artist James Rosenquist 'Four Decades. 1970-2010' in Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac Paris Pantin, on view until 7 January 2017.
Born in 1933 and raised in the American Mid-West, James Rosenquist led a career as a billboard painter before rising to fame in the 1960s as a leading figure of the Pop Art movement alongside contemporaries Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Claes Oldenburg.
Drawing on his experience as a billboard painter, Rosenquist plays on the iconography of advertising and mass media, to create distinctive compositions that explore the culture of modern capitalism. With striking immediacy, he questions the make-up of his surroundings: on the one hand, the urban environment shaped by the aesthetics of consumerism, on the other Florida’s nature graced with tropical flora. Whether sequenced, prismatic or crosshatched, each of Rosenquist’s ingenious compositions unfolds multiple narratives and plays with space and dimension. The works touch upon subjects that range from aesthetics to geo-politics, from technology to ecology as well as outer space and time travel.
Video presentation of the exhibition by Nikolai Saoulski, including a very elaborate introduction to James Rosenquist's work by Sarah Celeste Bancroft art historian and curator. She is the vice-president and the director of James Rosenquist Studio and the executive director of James Rosenquist Foundation.