Andy Warhol

Hahahaaa... Kevin...
i like Warhol too, as a matter of fact i've always like him... however i did discover a much greater appreciation for him/his work
while attending different retrospective exhibits of his works in various museums...

i heard thats story before and read an interview with Warhol were he said he was very happy to sell them at that time at that price because it was a $ale...

Yeah, one could have purchased some of his early painting for $50. Man what that investment would be worth today. A child of the 60s-70s I am a fan of the POPs. The art museum in Des Moines, Iowa has a very nice collection of POP art, which at the time I was in college was "contemporary". My how time flies. I could have purchased a restrike Rembrandt etching for $45. As a poor student I did not have the money. I have seen them sell in San Diego for $12,000.

Kevin,

Interesting, back in the late 80s Rembrandt etchings in NYC were often $45k.

I had never heard of a restrike etching. Makes me wonder? What do you think?

Dave

Restrikes are when an artist creates a plate and makes a numbered run. In theory, the plates are to be destroyed, or if there is another run, marked as such. Often with well-know artist in either print making or sculpting the plates and molds are kept. This can create confusion, or even fraud in some cases. The plates, of course will begin to break down over multiple printings as the early etching were mainly on copper, which is soft.

In this case old Rembrandt plates were "discovered," intact. They were marked as such and the prints marketed at an affordable price. Even so, real Rembrandt prints are valuable, restrike or not.

Very interesting. The NYC strikes well might have been restrikes, I do not know, but the market is expensive in NYC.

Dave

The art museum here in town is featuring Warhol this summer and I have been trying to get up there to see it. Fortunately, it lasts longer than fifteen minutes.

Joseph! Ha!

I recall the DM museum has a Jasper Johns Ballantine beer can. I used to take time to admire it.

We just had an Andy Warhol/Robert Mapplethorpe dual exhibit at the Wadsworth Antheneum early this summer.

Now that gay is much more mainstream, I wonder if the money will be in this sort of art. Particularly Mapplethorpe's images.

Money comes and goes in the art world.

Dave

did he hand paint those cans?

"In a flash of inspiration he bought cans from the store and began to trace projections onto canvas, tightly painting within the outlines to resemble the appearance of the original offset lithograph labels. "

But still, I like the message he was trying to get across with these works.

Melissa, i think they were the last paintings he did... they are hand-painted, while the fleur de lys pattern ringing each can’s bottom edge is hand-stamped.

"Towards the end of 1962, shortly after he completed Campbell’s Soup Cans, Warhol turned to the photo-silkscreen process."

Yes Melissa, they are hand painted. Of course this is an ongoing argument with artists but transferring to canvas by many means goes back before Micheangelo. I have seen one of the original of multi cans and it is not perfect.

But really with Warhol, it was the idea not the execution.

Btw, my self portrait is definitely hand painted.

Hi Kevin. Great thread, buddy. Andy Warhol's soup cans make me feel hungry as they are perfect food for an artist who has an empty stomach as I do (lol).

"But really with Warhol, it was the idea not the execution." Kevin Callahan

I think that you've; raised one of the essential factors of contemporary art. The artist has the creative concept that could be executed by other people. It is true that many giant sculptures have been fabricated by machines and installed by workers from artistic drafts/layouts or/and from tiny models created by sculptors.

Kevin,
Like your "Warhol" ( -:
Also found the article interesting - especially the note about how he was exploring the concept of habituation (where you stop noticing/processing a stimulus if it gets repeated too often) in the context of media images.

I still like Warhol's cats & childrens' book illustrations better than his pop art. Less intellectual content, perhaps, more warmth & charm. Although maybe that's selling him short, you can't do good children's book illustrations if you don't have your mind engaged with the problem of making the story come alive through the illustrations, and some of his 3-D pop-up illustrations are fairly complex. A different set of intellectual problems than the social commentary intellectual problems he later addressed - where part of the point of the exercise was to deliberately strip the images of any warmth and charm they may have originally possessed.

He first tried some of the experiments with flat color that he used on Marilyn on his cats, you can kind of see how the transition happened from illustrations that used flat color as a book illustration tool (remember 4-color separation & printing things more cheaply by using black and only one other color?) to using flat color to manipulate images in pop art.

Viet:
Some of this art has dispensed with the small models. I've seen large scale murals on exhibit at MASS MoCa - a contemporary art museum that specializes in large scale art - where the "art" isn't the art you see on the wall. The only permanent "art" is a set of instructions, written by the artist, for how to create the art.

The resulting mural is intended to be temporary... the wall is painted over - the mural is destroyed - once the exhibit is over (the museum space then reverts to other uses, usually displays of other artists' work). The recreation by a different set of painters on another wall in a different museum far away is considered to be the same piece of art as the one that was painted over and destroyed.

The artist takes on a role similar to that of a playwrite - one who writes stage directions, but neither acts in nor assumes any other role in the actual performance of the play. The painters and other people create the mural -- much like the directors and actors create the play.

I love Warhol; everyday I tell myself to just move to New York and be the next Warhol...what an amazing career!

While LA is the 1st world and New York is 2nd world...the rest of the planet is 3rd world as far as art. You have to move where the money is...period. Andy made it in 2nd world which makes his talent and work ethic even more amazing than those who were in LA during his time. He made it where many cannot make it big even given that they are in the right place, and that is because he was pure talent, willing to work hard for those who needed him at all hours of the day. His health was horrible and still...amazing.

If you don't like Warhol, just ignore me...he's one of my favorites.

Cheryl.

I think that you've raised some excellent points about installation art through which an artist has his/her concept presented in a temporary format. Most essentially, the temporary installation art would convey her/his message to the viewers. I think in that regard, the contemporary art has made a giant leap. Unlike artists/painters in the old days, modern artists have more freedom in presenting their creative /artistic concept with may or may not involved in the help of machinery and other people in the creative process.

How old is the cute little child? Obviously not the dad in the picture. lol

Does that child often have that look?

Does her finger taste good or is she up to no good?

The apple does not fall far from the tree.

Artists working for other artists? Why? For the money, but not for the idea?

Dave

Viet:
Set design, in theater, has always been installation art...it's just never been called that, to my knowledge. The lines between the art forms become ever more fluid...

Lisa:
Warhol was brilliant... you find someone who has a brilliant mind, and you find they've done all kinds of interesting things, not just the things which brought them fame.

To be honest, I don't really like pop art because I have to know too much about the nuances of pop culture in which the artist was immersed in order to "get it." It's like being at a party where everyone's telling inside jokes -- it's all very slick sophisticated humor if you're in the know, it's pretty boring and uncomfortable if you're not. You move on to a different place and time, where Marilyn Monroe is only seen performing in hokey old movies or Campbell's soup has gone out of business or completely redesigned its packaging (maybe it's only selling boxed soup), and the pop art itself becomes flat and stripped of meaning.

Some of his other art is less famous, but for me it has more lasting appeal. I wish more people would look at something by him other than his colorized Marilyn faces & soup cans...

Was Warhol a fine artist or a graphics artist?

Did Margitte ever progress beyond graphics artist? He was a graphics artist to begin with.

There is a bias in my thinking. Not a snobbery, a bias.

Dave

Dave:
"Artists working for other artists? Why? For the money, but not for the idea?"

Why not for the idea? Some of them may be unpaid student interns... no money at all... What makes people decide to do what they do? Would they all give the same answer, if asked why?

Why ask why?

Was Warhol a fine artist or a graphic artist?

Yes. Both. Often at the same time.

IMO: I think that Andy Warhol was no longer a graphic artist after he successfully turned "graphic art" into "pop art". In another words, Warhol did change the general and old concept that graphic design couldn't be fine art. He became a fine artist - an avant garde of the Pop art movement.

Several years ago I was at the Whiteny in NYC with my son. One of the exhibits was a whole room covered in styrofoam, which was in turn covered in aluminum foil. The idea was that museum goers could take ballpoint pens or other tools and crest their own art and or messages. In some places they cut all the way through the foam. It was an evolving work of art. I loved it.

Such work, intentional or not, is a legacy of artists like Warhol and his fellow POPs.

Thanks all for your thoughtful posts.

while Warhol is known for his screen prints,
the master of the artform in my opinion is Patrick Nagel

I don't know much about the screening process but Nagel always seemed to fashion illustrationish to me.

Yes, Nagel worked in the magazine industry like Rockwell.

the largest work I've ever constructed to date was a hand cut film screen print.

Just when I thought I was ready to let this die, I found this:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/how-to-be-like-andy-warhol-according-to-andy-warhol_55c2411ce4b0138b0bf4b3ff?kvcommref=mostpopular

It's fun, you can skim it. Totally Andy light.

Liked it!

Yes it is an easy fun read, which effectively spotlights how Warhol changed art for good.

i can appreciate Warhol's screen printing and bringing mass consumption to light but changing art for good? nay, he will be a minor footnote in art history in less than a century.

Ok, in our lifetime. I guess we'll never know. But I think you have a point.

Andy is definitely a curiosity and has some creative aspects.
the group of artist who were interested in founding art movements i think will be minimized through time and talent will overshadow fad.

@ Kevin Callahan
You dont have an original A Warhol ? Make your own ! - in the spirit of Andy - you too can copy his copies of Brillo boxes.... - now in stool, chair and table sizes through FAA - I mean Pixels.

This was the TV documentary that changed my mind about AW
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-VFhb-oxHU

"... very famous. Does that mean that he's actually any good ??"

James you made me smile, in college I made large cardboard bananas. I do have a wooden banana sculpture that made a major show many years ago.

One might conclude that Andy Warhol saw the beginning of a new era in art..pop art..as important yet free and honest. The social networking scene was owned by him in art circles.

Warhol may have been as some say, the second act to Duchamp, but he had a much more broader and larger effect on
the "general public’s" acceptance of what is art than Duchamp…
i think his works questioned what is it about our culture that is really authentic and important…


i too could never afford a Warhol so 15 or 20 years ago i bought a bunch of Warhol pins from a museum store
and made my own Warhol using his quotes and pinning the pins to a black plastic coated paper... it's titled "Warholing Andy"

i should of had someone else do the work (pinning and writing) for me... lol

James.

Very interesting video on AW. I learned a lot about him.

Dave

James, thanks for posting. I set it aside to watch when I have more time.

James. thanks for the Warhol documentary link, i just finished watching... it was very informative and
could possibly cause some to rethink their take on Andy and his works...

Has Andy had his 15 minutes?

Did you sell your soup can?

Nope not that one.

The Warhol video is from a series of four (Warhol, Picasso, Dali and Matisse - I like the presenter's take on all of them) - while I value the other three for their art - the Warhol one made me rethink Andy's contribution - much more respect ! His whole self promotion in part motivated me to join FAA - start in Twitter - among other people.

And I do have many famous paintings that I cant afford - i just co´py them - good practice.

I saw an excellent Warhol today at the Nelson Atkins, his portrait of mrs Henry Bloch of H&R Block here in KC. It is fantastic.

Did you get a picture of it?

The Blocks and Kempers were the biggest collectors of art I ever met. Henry had many million dollar impressionist paintings he ended up donating to the museum for a good home.

This was my Andy Warhol inspired Marilyn Monroe painting.



I love Andy Warhol!

Maria,

Great work. If I ever get around to doing something riffing off of Warhol your work is like a guiding light.

Dave

Thanks Maria. Good work.

Thank you David and Kevin!