Modern Head #2 1970

Roy Lichtenstein made Modern Head #2, and it's like he's playing with how we see, breaking down a face into shapes and patterns. There's this flatness to it, right? Like he's printed it rather than painted it, even though I bet it's got some cool texture up close. The yellow halftone dots are so iconic. It is funny to think of them as individual marks in the process of artmaking. Look at how the lines make up the nose and mouth. It is a game of geometry. A circle here, a triangle there. Are these elements references to Picasso? I love how Lichtenstein takes something as basic as a face and turns it into this puzzle. It is hard to decide what is in the foreground and what is in the background. Makes you think about what it means to see, not just look. Makes you think about the history of modern art, too. The way Lichtenstein borrows and transforms makes you wonder about what is original, anyway.