James Rosenquist: A Retrospective

From October 17 to January 25, the Guggenheim Museum of New York is present a retrospective on artist James Rosenquist, known to be one of the most important members of the Pop Art movement. Rosenquist, like Warhol and Oldenburg, used icons of advertisement and mass media to represent and target America¿s consumer society and lifestyle. James Rosenquist was born in 1933 in Grand Forks, North Dakota. He studied in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and at University of Minnesota, and during summertime, painted billboards. He moved to New York to study in the League of Art Students, dropping out a year later and returning to his life as a commercial artist, painting billboards in Times Square and throughout New York City. In 1962, he had his first breakthrough individual exhibit at the Green Gallery, in New York, after which he was included in several collective exhibits that became known as the Pop art movement. The Guggenhiem¿s Rosenquist retrospective started in Houston¿s Museum of Fine Arts and Menil Collection, and will carry on at the Guggenheim in Bilbao. Walter Hopps and Sara Bancroft are curators to the exhibit, which includes 200 artworks, ranging from the artist¿s earliest collages and abstractions, and some of his masterpieces.