The Power of American Art

Driving west on Wilshire Boulevard, motorists pass beneath lamppost banners emblazoned with Jasper Johns’ iconic painting of the U.S. flag. Once the boulevard hits Beverly Hills, the banners are replaced by real flags, set out to celebrate American unity in a time of adversity.

This coincidence underscores the role that art plays in helping people see daily life in a different light. But the juxtaposition also makes a statement about the vibrancy of American culture in a period when Western values are under attack by fundamentalists, domestic and foreign.

The lamppost banners advertise an exhibition opening today at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art: “Jasper Johns to Jeff Koons: Four Decades of Art from the Broad Collections.”

The exhibit is organized into five sections, beginning with the works of Johns, Robert Rauschenberg and Cy Twombly, experimenters who inherited the painterly qualities and newborn artistic confidence of previous masters such as Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning.

It also features works by Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, who celebrated, parodied and helped create popular culture. The Warhol and Lichtenstein images include Campbell’s soup cans, Marilyn Monroe and cartoons, one depicting a tearful blond woman with a bubble caption that says, “I ... I’m sorry.”

The show reflects a 40-year span when Americans were gaining international recognition as artistic pioneers and being applauded as the new avant-garde. Much of the work renders heroic such common objects as flags, newspaper headlines, billboards and advertisements.

The exhibition couldn’t have come at a better time. Museums nationwide have seen a serious drop in attendance since the atrocities in Washington and New York last month. We encourage Angelenos to buck the trend and spend an afternoon enjoying the enormous vigor of American art.