From 17 October 2024 to 24 February 2025, Fondation Louis Vuitton present “Pop Forever, Tom Wesselmann &…”, an exhibition dedicated to Pop Art, one of the major artistic movements of the 1960s, whose influence continues to be felt across all continents and amongst all generations.
The exhibition is centered around Tom Wesselmann (1931-2004) – one of the leading figures of the movement — through a selection of 150 paintings and works in various materials. The exhibition also feature 70 works by 35 artists of different generations and nationalities who share a common sensibility for “Pop” – from its Dadaist roots to its contemporary manifestations, and from the 1920s to the present day.
In addition to works by Tom Wesselmann, the exhibition include works by Derrick Adams, Ai Weiwei, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Evelyne Axell, Thomas Bayrle, Frank Bowling, Rosalyn Drexler, Marcel Duchamp, Sylvie Fleury, Lauren Halsey, Richard Hamilton, David Hammons, Jann Haworth, Barkley L. Hendricks, Hannah Höch, Jasper Johns, KAWS, Kiki Kogelnik, Jeff Koons, Yayoi Kusama, Roy Lichtenstein, Marisol, Tomokazu Matsuyama, Claes Oldenburg, Meret Oppenheim, Eduardo Paolozzi, Robert Rauschenberg, Martial Raysse, James Rosenquist, Kurt Schwitters, Marjorie Strider, Do Ho Suh, Mickalene Thomas, Andy Warhol, Tadanori Yokoo…
Among the historical icons of Pop Art featured in this exhibition, is Andy Warhol's famous 1964 screen printing Shot Sage Blue Marilyn, which immortalises Marilyn Monroe in an explosion of vivid and constrasting colours.
According to the exhibition’s guest curators Dieter Buchhart and Anna Karina Hofbauer, more than just a retrospective, “Pop Forever, Tom Wesselmann &… contextualize Tom Wesselmann’s work within art history, and offer fascinating perspectives on Pop Art, past, present and even future”.
In the late 1950s, Pop Art surged on both sides of the Atlantic, in North America and Europe. Comic strips, advertising, cinema, celebrities, food processors and tabloids all became painting subjects. When they were not paintings in themselves, they were photographic images glued or mechanically reproduced onto the canvas. Pop Art celebrates, with a degree of ambiguity, the marriage of art and popular culture, of museums and galleries and the cultural industry. With no manifesto and no boundaries, Pop Art denominates an aesthetic that extends far beyond the artistic realm and prevails to this day. It is difficult to say when Pop Art begins, and certainly impossible to close the chapter on it.
It is this premise of a timeless Pop Art, “Pop Forever,” that is presented in a two-pronged exhibition which is simultaneously a retrospective and a thematic show. Tom Wesselmann is immersed in the intellectual and aesthetic climate of the “Pop” era from which his work emerged, and which continues to frame it to this day.
As opening hours are subject to change, we invite you to check the opening hours on the Foundation's website before traveling.