The art gallery at the end of the universe

The final main chapter examines DeLillo’s engagement with visual art forms other than cinema and the key location of the art gallery. We begin with photography in Mao II and Falling Man . The second section turns to painting with attention to Warhol, Giorgio Morandi, Rothko and Gerhard Richter in Mao II, Falling Man, Cosmopolis and ‘Baader-Meinhof’. The presence of Breughel in Underworld is considered alongside the art installations of Klara Sax and the graffiti of Ismael ‘Moonman’ Muñoz. The third and final section of the chapter offers an extensive reading of Point Omega starting with the key framing chapters set in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Particular attention is given to the interplay between the philosophy of time, religious vision and the psychopathology of US imperialism. As in previous chapters, emphasis is placed on the extent to which DeLillo’s ideas about art, philosophy, the spiritual, the political and the historical are deeply embedded in the body and especially in the intricate mechanisms of visual experience.