Crash (Roy Lichtenstein)

This poster featuring Explosion II (1965) by Roy Lichtenstein was produced in 2010, in conjunction with Crash: Homage to JG Ballard at Gagosian, Britannia Street, London. Taking its title from J. G. Ballard’s visionary 1973 novel, the group exhibition—which followed the writer’s death in 2009—presented works by artists inspired by Ballard’s highly influential dystopian vision, including his contemporaries Richard Hamilton, Roy Lichtenstein, Ed Ruscha, and Andy Warhol, as well as selections from younger artists such as Glenn Brown, Tacita Dean, Mike Nelson, and Jenny Saville.

Lichtenstein’s wall-mounted enamel-on-steel relief sculpture is based on an illustration in a popular comic book focused on World War II. Flattening and simplifying a violent event into a stylish graphic icon, it incorporates the artist’s familiar Benday dot design—a reference to print media—in the form of small holes punched through one of the work’s layered metal planes.