Study for The Geometry of Fire
James Rosenquist
American, 1933–2017
2011
A cut-and-paste collage study in which Rosenquist assembles photocopied and printed images with pencil to fuse exploding cosmic imagery and roaring flames into a single, cinematic composition.
Your eye is caught by a central pinwheel of sliced starfields that fractures the picture plane, while molten fire and glossy, metallic flower-like forms slide past one another in a dizzy, slow-motion collision.
The piece continues Rosenquist’s long practice of reworking mass-media fragments into monumental visual displays, translating Pop art’s billboard logic into a vehicle for confronting spectacle, destruction, and the sublime.
Medium
Cut-and-pasted printed and photocopied papers with pencil on paper
Dimensions
15 3/4 × 31 1/16" (40 × 78.9 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Gift of the Estate of James Rosenquist in honor of Ann Temkin
Accession
455.2024
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
