We like to think of industrialization as being despicable. I don't really know what to make of it. Thereโs something terribly brittle about it. I suppose I would still prefer to sit under a tree with a picnic basket rather than under a gas pump, but signs and comic strips are interesting as subject matter. There are certain things that are usable, forceful, and vital about commercial art. We're using those things โ but we're not really advocating stupidity, international teenagerism, and terrorism.
Roy LichtensteinI don't think that I'm over his influence but they probably don't look like Picassos; Picasso himself would probably have thrown up looking at my pictures.
Roy LichtensteinIm not really sure what social message my art carries, if any. And I dont really want it to carry one. Im not interested in the subject matter to try to teach society anything, or to try to better our world in any way.
Roy LichtensteinI take a cliche and try to organize its forms to make it monumental. The difference is often not great, but it is crucial.
Roy LichtensteinPop Art is industrial painting. I think the meaning of my work is that it is industrial, it's what all the world will soon become. Europe will be the same way, soon, it won't be American; it will be universal.
Roy LichtensteinI was at Rutgers University, and that was a center for Fluxus in a way. But it wasn't what I was interested in. All of it had an impact - as did happenings - because I could see that art was changing from expressionism, which I was doing at the time, or thought I was doing. But it wasn't the direction I really wanted to go.
Roy Lichtenstein