LUNCH
Lunch as a moment of solitude and isolation. Tooker was one of the first in American art to show what loneliness in a crowd feels like. Albeit, by reducing the colour palette in this way, Tooker creates a sense of connection between the diners, almost as if they are in uniform and work in tandem with each other.
A
MASKED
BALL
Masked figures play a significant role in Tucker's work. As a symbol of detachment, they allow the artist to depict people as empty functions, indifferent to the world around them.
THE
SUBWAY
Of all of Tooker's work, this iconic image has so much to say in such a tightly composed space. Tucker's subway is an endless series of stairs, checkpoints, and a throng of people. The gloomy and disoriented characters convey the alienating atmosphere of big cities.
GOVERNMENT
BUREAU
Government institutions as a bureaucratic compartment preoccupied Tucker in the 1950s, the heyday of the American state apparatus explosive growth. Functional people and an endless stream of petitioners collide in a conventional space, simultaneously abstract and recognizable.
THE
WAITING
ROOM
The monotony of waiting seems to be a real strength of Tooker’s: we have all been in that situation and the way in which he anonymises his figures make them ‘every’ man and ‘every’ woman. At no point do any of the people represented in these works appear angry at their waiting, they are so used to the despair they feel that it becomes the norm; an aspect of our busy daily lives, that we seem unable or unwilling to lose.
LANDSCAPES
WITH
FIGURES
We all live in boxes. The apartment box, the courtyard box, the office box. Each in their own little cell-box, at their own monotonous work. Day after day. Tooker shows us a world so ordered and formalized that there's no longer any room for freedom.