President Elect 1964

James Rosenquist’s “President Elect” presents us with a vision rendered in oil on canvas, reflecting the artist’s background as a billboard painter. The sheer scale of billboard painting demanded a certain mechanical approach, but also an intuitive feel for how images would read at a huge size, and at high speeds. Rosenquist brings all of that here. He juxtaposes fragments – John F. Kennedy’s face, a car, cake – emblems of American aspiration, against a red backdrop that recalls both a political rally and the seductive allure of advertising. The composition is carefully crafted, using the interplay of colors and forms to create a dynamic tension. The imagery, lifted directly from advertising, speaks to the growing consumer culture. This juxtaposition of the mass-produced, of political imagery and consumer goods, forces us to confront the ways in which we construct our desires and identities. It's an early Pop masterpiece, born of labor and deeply embedded in its social moment.