Rosenquist, unlike many other Pop artists, often directly addressed politics with his work. Here, he assembles everyday images to provoke questions about race and identity, provocations which today may appear blunt: the knob which reads “[D]ARKEN, ” “NORMAL” and “LIGHTEN,” for instance, overly simplifies the painful struggle for civil rights. Lending his support to the movement, Rosenquist hoped to focus his viewers’ attention, while suggesting – as with the opaque glasses in the centre – that our vision is often clouded. This work alludes to complex social and political questions without offering a possible, or possibly reductive, solution.
