The Friction Disappears

James Rosenquist, The Friction Disappears, 1965, oil on canvas, 48 ¹⁄₈ x 44 ¹⁄₄ in. (122.2 x 112.4 cm.) irregular, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Container Corporation of America, 1984.124.254

Artwork Details

Title: The Friction Disappears
Artist: James Rosenquist
Date: 1965
Location: Not on view
Dimensions: 48 ¹⁄₈ x 44 ¹⁄₄ in. (122.2 x 112.4 cm.) irregular
Credit Line: Gift of Container Corporation of America
Mediums: oil
Mediums Description: oil on canvas
Classifications: Painting
Subjects: Architecture — vehicle — automobile
Object — other — sign
Object — foodstuff — spaghetti
Object Number: 1984.124.254
Linked Open Data: https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/1984.124.254

Artwork Description

Rosenquist got his art training on the job, painting billboards in Minnesota and New York City, where he had to make food "delicious" and cigarettes "smokable." The Friction Disappears represents the effortless flow of pictures and information in our culture, where unrelated or contradictory ideas overlap one another. Rosenquist painted the car in the same hot hue as the canned spaghetti simply because he liked the color. The tiny electrons orbiting the globe on the car door are like the paths of ideas and images crisscrossing in the modern world. Rosenquist compares the uncanny combinations that result to "two soap bubbles colliding and coming together instead of destroying each other."

Exhibition Label, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2006