Masquerade of the Military Industrial Complex Looking Down on the Insect World, 1992

  • James Rosenquist, American, 1933 - 2017

Oil and mixed media on canvas

  • Overall: 90 inches × 29 feet 2 inches (228.6 cm × 8 m 89 cm)

Founders Society Purchase, gift of Mrs. George Kamperman by exchange

1993.62

Rosenquist’s experience as a billboard painter contributed to a unique vision; his imagery shifts from telescopic to microscopic. Rosenquist bears witness to this country’s triumphs and defeats, its explorations of outer space, and its inquiry into inner truths. Every four years since 1964, the artist has created a “Presidential Election” painting, a “reality check” on the viability and survival of the American Dream. Against a background of trade wars and star wars, “Masquerade” sets into perspective man’s proclivity for destruction—the Stealth bomber—and nature’s wondrous capacity for creation—the butterfly emerging from the caterpillar.

Signed, back of panels: James Rosenquist

the artist

(Castelli Gallery, New York, New York, USA)

1993-present, purchase by the Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, Michigan, USA)

James Rosenquist. Exh. cat., Castelli Gallery. New York, 1993, pp. 16-17. Van der Marck, Jan. "The Detroit Institute of Arts." In James Rosenquist: The Big Paintings. New York, 1994, n.p.

James Rosenquist, Masquerade of the Military Industrial Complex Looking Down on the Insect World, 1992, oil and mixed media on canvas. Detroit Institute of Arts, Founders Society Purchase, gift of Mrs. George Kamperman by exchange, 1993.62.