THE F-111
An Interview with James Rosenquist
by
G. R.
Swenson
Pop Art is a big commodity in New York, and one recent
example at the Leo Castelli Gallery was literally big, in both size and
price. James Rosenquist's painting, called
F-1ll
after the new
Air
Force
fighter-bomber, is eighty-five feet long and ten feet high. Pop Art
collector Robert Scull bought the fifty-one panel picture for a reported
$60,000.
F-1l1
covered all four walls of the gallery, making four right–
angle turns. It was on loan to the Jewish Museum in New York when
this interview was taped, in front of the pictul'e, and though the museum
has one of the longest walls available for display purposes, it was still
necessary
to
make one corner turn. Whether or not its owner can
eventually find room to house the painting is questionable. But meanwhile
the painting will go on a European tour, beginning at the Modern
Museum in Stockholm this September.
Monumentality may be impossible in an age of built-in obsolescence
-the artist himself tends to think of the painting more as a souvenir than
a monument (and of the plane itself as a bitterly ironic birthday cake).
But Rosenquist's intentions are clearly equal to the dimensions of the
picture. I first asked
him,
"What is the F-111
?"
ROSENQUIST:
It is the newest, latest fighter-bomber at this time, 1965.
This first of its type cost many million dollars. People are planning
their lives through work on this bomber, in Texas or Long Island.
A man has a contract from the company making the bomber, and
Copyright
©
G.
R.
Swenson.
