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The Arts Intel Report

A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler
A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler

Pop Forever, Tom Wesselmann & …

Tom Wesselmann, Mouth #14 (Marilyn), 1967.

Until Feb 24, 2025
8 Avenue du Mahatma Gandhi, 75116 Paris, France

When we talk about Pop Art we immediately think of Roy Lichtenstein—that painting of the blonde on the phone, surrounded by Ben Day dots—or of Andy Warhol and his silkscreens of Marilyn. Tom Wesselmann, their equally significant contemporary, should pop into our heads but doesn’t. In the 1960s, Wesselmann arrived on the New York scene with a vision all his own—still life paintings that had a Pop flatness, a strange sense of fragmentation. Some were nudes, some were rooms, some were collages of Americana that seemed to have been sired by commercials. Showcasing 150 paintings by Wesselmann, Fondation Louis Vuitton aims to place him front and center in the conversation. Seventy works by 35 different artists (from Marcel Duchamp to Ai Weiwei) round out the show. —Elena Clavarino

Photo: © Jeffrey Sturges © Adagp, Paris, 2024