I C A R C H 

 

 

 

A HOUSE FOR ROY LICHTENSTEIN

 

 

What does the verb “to fetch” mean…?

 

Since we just read that a painting by Lichtenstein “fetched” 42.6 million dollars (although the video mentions 38 million) at a much celebrated Christie’s Auction, just days ago.

 

Examples of FETCH (from Miriam – Webster Dictionary)

 

If you throw the ball the dog will fetch it.

Hunting dogs are trained to fetch.

This table should fetch quite a bit at auction.

The house fetched more than we expected.

 

As you can see, the verb “to fetch” has obvious quantitative and speculative connotations.  It is also a somewhat ferocious word, if you ask us. A Capitalist word, even if it originated, apparently, in the XIIth century.

 

During his lifetime Van Gogh sold only one painting, if we remember correctly, for the equivalent of 5$ today…. But his art was not made to “fetch” anything, as far as we can tell…!!!

 

But, to return, who is Roy Lichtenstein, ladies and gentlemen…?

 

And what is “Ohhh … Alright…” (the painting just sold) saying to us…?

 

And why is it called “a masterpiece…?”

 

Maybe we should ask again: what is a “masterpiece..? And, even more, what is ”art…?” And, to descend into the mud of sheer prose, what is a "million dollars…?!?”

 

Depressing is the gathering of these rich, but probably immensely bored people in the capacious room at Christie’s… very depressing, when one considers the banality of collecting, subtly illustrated in the novel “The Volcano Lover” by Susan Sontag.

 

Yes, anal personalities, these collectors, squandering their millions on nothing… on “Ohhh… Alright…” With 42.6 millions dollars how many schools or affordable apartment buildings could have been built, not just in Africa, and many other countries, but also in South Chicago, or Harlem - New York, in the very city where Roy, the boyish artist and Castelli, his boyish art dealer, made their millions…?!?

 

Design a House for Roy Lichtenstein.

 

A House inspired by the comic strip, like our own very lives.

 

Meaningless lives, no doubt, as meaningless as the above mentioned “masterpiece.”

 

Try to express, through your building, the vacuity we arrived at, on the peak of our “progress.” Invest your 42.6 million angry feelings and thoughts into fighting the inevitable malaise that the empty “event” at Christie’s brings upon us.

 

Fight back, dear architect!

 

Please send us ANY work, ANY size and ANY format that responds to the theme to icarchgallery@yahoo.com/ We will publish all the works received on our new website, www.icarch.us. There is no registration fee. The deadline to submit your work is January 15th, 2011. If you have any questions, please contact us.

 

Thank you,

 

ICARCH Gallery