Foot Medication Poster

Foot Medication Poster adopts the visual vocabulary of consumer and popular culture to counteract idealised artistic legacies. In this minimalist offset lithograph, we see a scaled-back illustration of a foot being cared for by a simplified hand holding a cotton wad. Similar to On from one year prior and Spray Can of the same year, the artist here contrasts the trivial and the serious; the mechanical versus the handmade.

Conceptually, Lichtenstein plays on the beholder’s preconditioned understanding of art. The limbs shown have been magnified and are situated in the middle of the canvas, taking on the emblematic authority of icons. Formally, the print utilises an old-fashioned pictorial organisation devoid of colour fillers. As a result, Foot Medication Poster achieves an impact depending on its graphic and detailed rendering of a generic object. Ultimately, the radical flatness and the sketch-like qualities of the print offer an impeccable parody of fine art and other classical genres.