Pow Wow 1979

Roy Lichtenstein made “Pow Wow” with oil and magna on canvas, and it’s a big one. Looking at the image, it's like tumbling into a box of mismatched symbols and patterns. There’s this huge eye staring out at you, zigzags, and stripes crashing into each other. I can imagine Lichtenstein working on this, piecing it together, maybe scratching his head, maybe laughing. He takes these disconnected forms and tries to jam them together. What was he thinking? It’s funny, but I feel like Lichtenstein is in dialogue with the Native American art that inspired him, but filtered through his signature Pop Art lens. I can see him trying to reconcile these different worlds. You see this tension throughout his work, this constant push and pull between high and low culture. For me, “Pow Wow” feels unresolved, open-ended, like a question mark hovering in the air. And that’s the beauty of painting, right? It’s not about answers, but about keeping the conversation going.