Where does Tom Wesselmann belong in the canon of art history? Wesselmann’s pouty lips, media-infused compositions, consumerist commentary, and of course his nude figures are known to art enthusiasts, but little is known about his impact. Curators Dieter Buchhart and Anna Karina Hofbauer sought to answer that question in the exhibition ‘Pop Forever, Tom Wesselmann &...’, on view at Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris until 24 February 2025. Featuring 150 paintings and works by Wesselmann, alongside 70 works by 35 artists, who span from Pop’s Dadaist roots to today, the exhibition goes beyond your standard retrospective, recontextualising Wesselmann’s oeuvre for a more diverse and younger audience.
Although Wesselmann, who passed away at 73 in 2004, was a central figure of the Pop Art movement of the 1950s and 1960s, his name recognition isn’t as strong as his contemporaries Jasper Johns, James Rosenquist, Andy Warhol, and Roy Lichtenstein. ‘People are less familiar with Wesselman’s name than they are with Warhol’s name,’ said Jeffrey Sturges, the director of exhibitions for the estate of Tom Wesselmann. ‘And so what this meant was that we could fit him into that history.’
