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[[image of a painting with caption]]
James Rosenquist,[[italics]] President Elect[[/italics]], oil on masonite 84" x 144" (3 panels), 1960-61.
(Collection: the artist.)

lights and (pre-Estes) reflections is no less a product of technology than the plane. The drier can certainly be construed as an analogue of a high altitude flying helmet, thus casting the child as if she were a member of the air crew. Rosenquist referred to the dependence of people "in Texas or Long Island" for work on the production of the plane, and crossovers like that of the helmet and hair drier carry this further. The picture is, in a sense, a visualization of systems theory, with the support system of the plane rooted deeply in American society. Another connection is given by the artist who, after referring to the A-bomb mushroom in one section, said: "then next, that's an underwater swimmer wearing a helmet with an air bubble above his head, an exhaust air bubble that's related to the breath of the atomic bomb. His 'gulp' of breath is like the 'gulp' of the explosion. It's an unnatural force, man-made."[[superscript]]8[[/superscript]] (There is also the pair of fire and water.) In addition, I am reminded of Bruce Conner's [[italics]]A Movie[[/italics]], 1958, in which shots of the mushroom cloud precede a sequence underwater in which a diver sinks into the hold of a wreck with a rhythm that implies the extinction of the human race.
  [[italics]] F-111[[/italics]] combines the image of America as the Big Country with a highly developed war technology. [[italics]]Horse Blinders[[/italics]], 1968-69, Rosenquist's next big picture, shifts the view to a control center, like the driver's seat, the cockpit, though the governing theme is kitchen technology. There is an enormous finger, reminding one of all those ads for touch control, a telephone cable — its color-coded wires opening out like a bouquet, and motion studies of a spoon beating food in a bowl, and a snaky telephone flex.  A block of butter melts in a pan over a glowing burner and there are images of energy in wave form. Apropos the man-energy theme, Nicolas and Elena Calas point out that "the giant finger points to an acoustic device emitting sound. The room is in fact filled with noise, with 'rumor', according to the artist, coming from without"[[superscript]]9[[/superscript]]
   The title [[italics]]Horse Blinders[[/italics]], referring to the item worn by horses to block peripheral vision, is unclear. Presumably the artist is either (1) freeing us of our blinders so that we can see the world more widely or (2) implying that the objects in the painting act like horse blinders on us, their users. These drastic alternatives are not resolved in the painting and it is not part of the Rosenquist's intention to do so. Forms are defined as obscure bosses of expanding detail or as amorphous surfaces that expand into what Rosenquist once called "immediate infinity." The effect is of objects slipping out of focus, losing their boundaries. Enlargement and identity loss go together: the result of Rosenquist's giantism is doubt, not clarity. In addition the artist uses multiple viewpoints for the different objects and areas of the painting. There is no correlation between the scene depicted and an ideal point of view from

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