F- I I I
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art may become, like a fragment of this painting which is just an
aluminum panel.
SWENSON:
It
might have been better, closer to your intention, if it had
been sold piece by piece.
ROSENQUIST :
Yes.
S,WENSON:
Then what would have happened
to
the picture?
ROSENQUIST:
I don't know exactly. I wanted to relate the idea of the
new man, th'e new person who appreciates things, to this painting.
It would be to give the idea to people of collecting fragments of
vision. One piece of this painting would have been a fragment of a
machine the coll'ector was already mixed up with, involved in whether
he knew it or not. The person has already bought these airplanes
by paying income taxes or being part of the community and the
economy. The present men participate in the world whether it's good
or not and they may physically have bought parts of what this image
represents many times.
Then anyone interested in buying a blank part of this, knowingly
or unknowingly-that's the joke-he would think he is buying art and,
after all, he would just be buying a thing that paralleled part of the
life he lives. Even though this picture was sold in one chunk, I
think the original intention is still clear. The picture is in parts.
SWENSON:
If
someone bought one of these panels, he would be buying
a souvenir, of the painting, of the F-111, of the time?
ROSENQUIST :
Yes.
SWENSON:
To get back to the images, what about the runner's hurdle?
ROSENQUIST:
At the gallery the hurdle was presented in two perpendicu-
lar halves because it came at the comer of the room. The hurdle
was broken right down the center. On the left are a couple of
aluminum panels so that the right side, which is superimposed on
painted areas, reflected around the corner into the aluminum and
it appeared that there was another piece of the hurdle. In the
gallery it looked as if a runner would have to jump a triangular
hurdle, or one with several 'alternatives, but they were blind alter–
natives because the hurdle was in a comer. The runner seemed to
hurdle himself into a corner.
SWENSON:
The angel food cake?
ROSENQUIST:
It's foodstuff. The small flags planted on it show the
elements in the cake, like protein and iron and riboflavin-food
energy. There is also a shaft that goes in the middle of the cake
that is from the core or mold used to bake those cakes. I always
remember it as some kind of abyss, this big hole in the middle of the
