Visiting American Dream: pop to present at the British Museum is a bit like solving a whodunit, cracking a finickity puzzle, or unmasking a villain, il capo di tutt’i capi. Finally, we see it all: the hand that holds the strings, where the real power resides – or resided – in international art.
Warhol’s Marilyns, Johns’s American flags, Lichtenstein’s Pow!, Rauschenberg’s JFK collages, Keith Haring’s long-armed cartoons – everything in the way we look at art today stems from the post-war American scene. They’re the ones whom we secretly adhere all our admiration to, the biggest kahunas, hiding in plain sight.
