Study for Mouth #19 1969

Curator: Tom Wesselmann's "Study for Mouth #19," completed in 1969 using acrylic paint, certainly makes a bold statement. What are your first impressions? Editor: Bold is one word for it! My gut reaction? A heady mix of desire and destruction, all rolled into one intensely graphic image. That single, vibrant red mouth...it practically vibrates with suppressed energy. Curator: The mouth as a symbol, of course, is endlessly fascinating. Beyond just the act of smoking, it can represent speech, sensuality, and even consumption. Editor: Absolutely. And placing that cigarette right in the middle, its smoke swirling upward...it’s almost a modern-day memento mori, a reminder of mortality packaged as pop art. It's pretty sinister when you think about it, despite its surface-level glitz. Curator: Consider the date it was created, too—1969. Think about the cultural context of the time; what meanings could have been projected onto a seemingly benign image? Editor: It’s totally subversive, a rebellion expressed with hyperreal detail. He takes something as ordinary as smoking and amplifies its symbolism, almost like he's satirizing desire itself. Is it attractive? Or is it repulsive? Or is it, maybe, both? Curator: The tension lies there in that duality. Wesselmann expertly presents something outwardly glamorous that possesses underlying anxieties. Consider, too, how that particular mouth is devoid of any other facial features...it feels deliberately depersonalized. Editor: Yes, precisely. Isolated, it becomes a symbol of the generic, of the commodification of desire. We’re not looking at a specific individual; we're seeing an emblem. The viewer gets implicated... we become a participant, staring intensely, feeling seduced, slightly repulsed. Curator: Wesselmann taps into a larger commentary on consumerism and representation in our society. He invites viewers to interrogate these potent symbols and our own subconscious reactions to them. Editor: It is kind of amazing how a close up of a mouth and a cigarette can ignite so many anxieties and complicated meanings. Who knew such seemingly simple pop-art was such a rabbit hole? Curator: That's the brilliance of iconic imagery! It serves as a Rorschach test of cultural consciousness.