“WHOAAAAA THERE’S PEE IN THAT PAINTING!!”

In that quiet museum, I think perhaps we were a bit too loud saying that.

But we could not help it, our surprise made us forget a bit of our manners. Andy Warhol made a painting with urine. And it looked pretty cool.

Walking into the Warhol exhibit last week was quite surprising. There were so many paintings, and they were all so different. There were the oxidation paintings, pop art, portraits, and the very sparkle-y diamond dust paintings. It was hard to believe that just one person did all of this.

What was even harder to believe was that Warhol was such an active member of his community. I have always thought that artists often isolate themselves. That they must be outcasts of society in order to truly observe what is around them. No one can really criticize something while they are taking part in it.

But I guess I was wrong because Andy Warhol was a celebrity himself. He painted portraits of celebrities and of classic icons in American culture, which he was still a part of.

This contradicts my view of the role of an artist. The artist has many roles in society, but I think the artist’s most important role is to open the eyes of a society. An artist is someone who views the world differently and it is his responsibility to contradict the social norms. Because an artist sees things differently, I find it only natural that they be set apart from their community.

When viewing Warhol’s work, I thought that some of it, like the black in white pieces, belonged in magazines. They seemed random and made me question if all of Warhol’s work is truly art, if it was truly social commentary. I think his art is mostly for the purpose of entertainment. However if you look closer, or maybe even think about the artwork more, you can see that there is some subtle social commentary.

For example the painting of Marilyn Monroe and of the Mona Lisa are duplicated to portray that they are no longer unique individuals. By having many images of them on canvas Warhol is trying to show that iconic figures are not as special as people think they are.

He also turned commercialist products such as a soup can into an iconic piece. The fact that people admire such a simple work of art that they can see in a supermarket criticizes a society’s values. People admire a soup can just because a famous artist painted it. There is clearly something wrong with a society that does that. The oxidation paintings can produce the same commentary in a way: people are marveling at a man’s urine.

Even though Andy Warhol is a celebrity, his criticism of society is not hypocritical. He became famous because of his art yet he continues the duty of an artist as a social critic. This goes against my view of a ‘normal’ artist as an isolated person, but Warhol’s fame added to his art. He somehow became a work of art himself, as seen in his self-portraits (again, there are many duplicated images, perhaps to lessen individuality).

In short, seeing the Warhol exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum was an interesting experience. While staring at many paintings and wondering, “what can this mean??” after seeing more of his artwork I began to understand more and realize that being a celebrity was just part of his career as an artist. His art and fame are inseparable.