Various colorful images radiate from the center of the page, which features a yellow circle with brown designs. At the lower center, two figures light cigarettes.

Lari Pittman

Optimal setting for atmospheric conditions that can induce melodrama in the male

Maker

Lari Pittman (American, b. 1952)

Title

Optimal setting for atmospheric conditions that can induce melodrama in the male

Year

2001

Medium

Materials/Techniques

Techniques

Materials

alkyd paint, gesso, acrylic

Supports

board

Dimensions

81.3 x 101.6 cm (32 x 40 inches)

Credit / Object Number

Credit

Paula and Leonard Granoff and Museum Acquisition Funds

Object Number

2001.63

Type

Drawings and Watercolors

Exhibition History

On Paper

Gifts from Paula and Leonard Granoff

Oct 29, 2022 – Apr 16, 2023

Label copy

These crisply articulated images seem visually organized yet disconnected from each other. Arrows suggest navigational paths or settings on a dial. Previously an interior designer, Lari Pittman borrows imagery from the world of decorative arts. He invents titles to guide his content, looking here “at words that have been degraded to rehabilitate them.” The works in this series are variations on “Optimal setting for atmospheric conditions that can induce _____ in the male,” with this piece focusing on melodrama. Pittman says that through his maternal Colombian family he learned “about sentimentality and the melodramatic and its cultivation and its indulgence.”

–Jan Howard, Houghton P. Metcalf Jr. Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs

Webs, Loops, and Skeins in Modern and Contemporary Art

Feb 24, 2006 – Apr 23, 2006

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This object is in copyright

Tombstone

Lari Pittman (American, b. 1952)

Optimal setting for atmospheric conditions that can induce melodrama in the male, 2001

Acrylic, alkyd paint, aerosol enamel, and gesso on paper

81.3 x 101.6 cm (32 x 40 inches)

Paula and Leonard Granoff and Museum Acquisition Funds 2001.63

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