I Can See the Whole Room...and There's Nobody in It! [SEP] creator
I Can See the Whole Room...and There's Nobody in It!
I Can See the Whole Room...and There's Nobody in It! (sometimes I Can See the Whole Room and There's Nobody in It! or simply I Can See the Whole Room!) is a 1961 painting by Roy Lichtenstein. It is a painting of a man looking through a peephole. It formerly held the record for highest auction price for a Lichtenstein painting.
The work is based on a William Overgard-drawn comics
of the image, which included a speech bubble that presents the caption "I Can See the Whole Room and There's Nobody in It", clarifies that the man can not see anything in the room although he has a good look at it. The work is a satirical reference to abstraction because it can be imagined as a monochrome canvas that is affected by an actor that has inserted his finger as well as a narrative that also violates this imagining. This finger is also regarded as phallic.
The speech bubble makes