Night Waves

1 June 2006

Thursday 1 June 2006 21:30-22:00 (Radio 3)

Paul Allen celebrates another great cultural landmark, Roy Lichtenstein's Whaam!

Duration:

30 minutes

Roy Lichtenstein's 'Whaam!' (1963)

© Estate of Roy Lichtenstein/ DACS 2005

Playlist

The Canadian novelist Douglas Coupland and British artist Fiona Rae discuss a landmark of the culture, Roy Lichtenstein's pop art classic Whaam!

In garish cartoon style reds and yellows a US jet blows another jet out of the air to the words 'I pressed the fire control ... and ahead of me rockets blazed through the sky...'

It is a seminal piece of the work, emblematic of a body of artistic ideas that infused Andy Warhol and Richard Hamilton as well as Lichtenstein himself.

With its themes of the virtual nature of reality, of technology and destruction it is perhaps more relevant now than ever.

Douglas Coupland, who has nominated the piece, thinks so and will be telling Paul Allen why Whaam! deserves to be a Night Waves cultural landmark.

Roy Lichtenstein's 'Whaam' is on display at the Tate Modern in London.

Douglas Coupland's new novel JPod is published by Bloomsbury on the 8th June.

Night Waves

Episode and Playlist Information

• 9 Jun 06 Jackie Kay
• 8 June 2006
• 7 Jun 06 Religion in China
• 6 Jun 06 Alan Bleasdale
• 5 Jun 06 Cicely Berry
• 2 Jun 06 Matthew Sweet
• 1 June 2006
• 31 May 2006
• 30 May 06 Peter Carey
• 29 May 06 Christian Evangelism