Live Ammo (Ha! Ha! Ha!)

A World War II fighter plane blasts upwards in the sky, the pilot cackling from the cockpit. The highly charged, emotional subject matter is at odds with Roy Lichtenstein’s impersonal techniques—the flat colors, strong graphics, and Ben-Day dots he borrows from comic books. The result is an “action painting,” but one entirely at odds with the raw, improvisational “action paintings” found in the previous gallery. In addition to the ironic commentary he makes about Abstract Expressionism, Lichtenstein subtly critiques the escalating violence seen during the United State’s involvement in Vietnam.

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