Lichtenstein’s primary source of inspiration is his social surroundings. Society, its clichés and behaviour patterns, its idols and celebrities along with the influence of the media and advertising provide the artist with an inexhaustible array of new visual ideas. The creative focus falls on the role dynamics of American society in the 1950s and 1960s with its idealised selfprojection. He goes far beyond the mere artistic interpretation of consumerism and the banalities of daily life. Apart from his famous comic and Girl pictures from the early 1960s, the show also includes the paraphrases of art history (such as Monet’s Hay Stack pictures), the overdimensional Brushstrokes (an allusion to Abstract Expressionism) as well as his Mirrors and Interiors through to his last pictures from the 1990s, which quote his own previous styles.

The show in the BA-CA Kunstforum presents the key works in Lichtenstein’s career for the first time in Austria, including the Girl pictures Little Aloha, Eddie Diptych and Crying Girl as well as Wimpy, one of his rare cartoon pictures, the monumental Yellow Brushstroke II and the legendary Matisse paraphrase Still Life With Gold Fish.