The gallery walls are bright white, blindingly so, perhaps to match the fluorescence of the paintings by Tom Wesselmann in the 'Bedroom Paintings' exhibition. The viewer sees the flaming paintings through the floor to ceiling glass windows of Gagosian gallery. In fact probably from across the street because the colors are so bright. Wesselmann focuses on fragments of the human body and zooms in on them in each painting, whether they are hands, feet, or breasts.
The colors are purposefully primary and vivid, almost as if the artist had put a spotlight on the body parts that occupy a bedroom. Wesselmann is one of the most famous pop artists. Although, instead of popularizing products such as soup cans (as fellow pop artist Andy Warhol did) he used sexual pieces to draw attention to himself and gain his fame. This theme is especially apparent in this group of paintings.
His art has always been sexual and erotic, but there has not been such an intense focus on human body parts as he zooms in on them and almost disfigures a person before re-piecing he or she together, then painting the body parts with harsh primary colors. The images seem to cheapen sexual experiences because Wesselmann doesn’t make the bedroom important, special, let alone private. In fact, the artist seems to be interested in putting an emphasis on body parts, but not necessarily in a respectful way. Wesselmann degrades experiences that occur in a bedroom which are supposed to be respected and shared between only two people. Instead, the artist commercializes what happens in the bedroom with a rash use of scale and color.
Work by Tom Wassermann, By: Alexandra Zirinis
However, Wesselmann does not seem to believe this about his works in this exhibition. Actually, it is ironic because he had said that he considered these works, “more emotional” than works he had created before. I suppose this claim is somewhat fair because he has done a lot of collage work and maybe he sees these works as more personal because they are close up, and/or parts of the body are alone instead of put on a collage.
Of course there is a method to his madness (even if I don’t necessarily like it) because he is one of the best known pop artists of his time, or simply in the world. So, regardless of the respect Wesselmann has for sexual acts, the exhibition is interesting and well done, which is not surprising as it was put on by Larry Gagosian at his London gallery. So, there is really no room for error. It is also a small show which doesn’t take long to walk through and is on until 16th December so I would recommend popping in if you happen to find yourself strolling down Davies Street in Mayfair.
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