This Must be the Place 1965

Roy Lichtenstein made this in 1965, with screen printing on paper. The colour blocks are so flat and bold, and the dots are so deliberately placed; they give a mechanical feel, as if the image was popped out from a printing press. I wonder if Lichtenstein ever felt a bit like a machine himself, churning out these perfectly imperfect images. What's striking is how the hard lines and flat colours still leave room for interpretation. Is it a critique of modern architecture, a celebration, or something in between? The phrase "This Must Be The Place" floats above, adding a layer of irony. It's as if Lichtenstein is asking us: is this sterile, mass-produced aesthetic really where we want to be? It’s a bit detached, like a scene from a comic book, blown up and put on display. There's something kind of cool about that distance, though. It makes you think. These days I often wonder what it really means for something to be a copy, or an original. I guess artists have been riffing off each other for ages; each new move inspires the next, and helps to find somewhere new.