Who is “Andy Warhol”? Before this year I really thought I knew. One day in English 110h, the class was assigned to read an essay by Leonard Kriegel all about his opinion of graffiti. In this piece were references to Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Not knowing too much about them, I Wikipedia-ed (not an actual word) their names and Andy Warhol came up on both of their pages. I thought to myself, “Might as well look at Andy Warhol also, I do have to go to his exhibit.” Thus began my journey to discover that I really did not know that much about this iconic figure. After a quick skim of his page, I found this really great quote he said about coca-cola:
“Warhol also used Coca Cola bottles as subject matter for paintings. He had this to say about Coca Cola: “What’s great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coca-Cola, Liz Taylor drinks Coca-Cola, and just think, you can drink Coca-Cola, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the cokes are the same and all the cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it.[14]
Who knew a picture of Coca-Cola or a can of Campbell’s soup could speak to a random guy on the street and a Hollywood actress. Warhol was able to control society in this way. He was able to take your average box of detergent and create something that was considered art. He was able to bring this sense of unique culture to an ordinary America.
I think for Warhol, being an active member of his community, and being a social critic were one in the same. He was friends with famous figures, and then would create art with their images. He was involved in high society yet was also able to create art works about consumerism. Warhol started Interview magazine, which also put the ideas of being a social critic and part of society in harmony with each other.
As seen in the exhibit “Andy Warhol: The Last Decade”, Warhol collaborated with many other artists, including Jean-Michel Basquiat, who was a new face and a graffiti artist in the 80’s. Warhol would usually begin with his original artwork and Basquiat would paint his own work over it. In this, Basquiat would almost create a new message or a commentary on Warhol’s original piece creating something completely critical and different. Their collaborative efforts were just another example of Warhol’s role. By joining forces with Basquiat, Andy Warhol was able meld two seemingly different voices as well as extend his audience and community.
Andy Warhol was always pushing the boundaries of the concept of art, and the definition of an artist. I was able to see his complete immersion in art and culture and society effectively through the exhibit. He really dabbled in everything in his last ten years of his life. From self-portraits in his classic silkscreen format, to freeing his hands and using his own urine as a centerpiece, Warhol was definitely not what many would consider a traditional artist. There were parts of the exhibit with clips from his television programs he created as well as photos of celebrity buddies. All of this is art.
I don’t think the mesh of an artist as a social critic and active member of society reflects any hypocrisy in an artist’s role. Who is to say what the limits of an “artist’s role” really are. As was shown in the Andy Warhol exhibit, the boundaries of art and who an artist is will forever be pushed and reshaped. The Evolution of art and the artist is still in motion.
14. Warhol, Andy (1975). The philosophy of Andy Warhol: from A to B and back again. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. ISBN 0-15-189050-1. OCLC 1121125.
