Lot 658 R

In Tom Wesselmann's Bedroom collages, the female body is fragmented and portrayed in association with the other objects. The clear language of forms of the pop art artist shows the breast dominating in the foreground in front of a New York skyline. As the central pictorial motif, the shape creates an association to the city panorama as well as to the orange and the daffodils on the painting. The erotic innuendo of the work therefore precludes a formalised staging, which defines a leitmotif in Wesselmann's oeuvre. ''My work was always too formal, too composed, as if the erotic could take such overriding importance. But particularly at the beginning it was a part of my work and belonged originally to it as well, like the abstract expressionist brushwork: that was how it was. Since the latter was out of the question - I had ended that - I needed to find a new tool to give the painting, the 'picture', dynamism. And along the way - the abstract expressionist paintings continued to develop, their shapes exploded formally from the canvas and forced your perception on your eye - the erotic was a means of achieving this. (Tom Wesselmann, in: Marc Livingstone, Telling it like it is, in: Thomas Buchsteiner et.al. (ed.), Tom Wesselmann 1959-1993, Ostfildern 1994, p. 18)