Created for the atrium of the theatrical management agency Creative Arts Agency’s IM Pei designed headquarters in 1989, Roy Lichtenstein’s Bauhaus Stairway Mural dominates a single cavernous room at Gagosian Gallery in Chelsea. Featuring the artist’s signature Benday dots and primary colors that imitate commercial printing techniques, the painting remakes Oscar Schlemmer’s famous 1932 painting of students at the Bauhaus, the famous pre-WWII German school of art and design. Though the original was created in response to the Nazi closing of the school, Lichtenstein’s streamlined forms and bright colors on a huge scale suggest a more positive outlook on the upward movement of arts and ideas. (On view through Dec 22nd).
