Music. We’ve listen to the beats and rhythms of songs. Sometimes they become earworms or slowly disappear from our memory. What about the lyrics? Do they stay in our heads? Yes and no. But do we really KNOW the lyrics – know what they’re trying to say, what they mean? Take Coldplay’s Politik as an example. What do you think those lyrics mean? I know that at first glance I was confused. I didn’t know what it was about. I only knew when I read album. This is how I felt when I saw some of Andy Warhol’s works. I only realized some things after being reminded of the words, “social critic,” “hypocrisy,” and “community.”
Honestly, I can’t describe Andy Warhol as a hypocrite because he was just exposing the world of the rich and famous. And, in order for him to do that, he had to live like they did. You can say that he was acting like an anthropologist by taking part in their rituals and lifestyles, understanding their morals and actions. If you want to understand a culture, you have to understand their reasons for their lifestyles. You can’t just stand and watch a society live and think you can understand their actions as an outsider. You need to become immersed albeit detached at the same time. So, rather than saying Andy Warhol’s works are hypocritical of his lifestyle, I would say that it’s paradoxical. He wanted to show the world their lifestyles and he can’t do that standing outside clubs.
As for being an active part of his community, I believe that Andy Warhol is more than that – he exposed another world to the world. He showed us how they really lived. The lifestyles of the rich and famous are no different than our own. Maybe Warhol is trying to show us the extravagantness of life and how we can live and waste life simultaneously. Or maybe Andy Warhol is trying to go even deeper than that.
Although Andy Warhol was religious, I felt differently when I saw his artwork, The Last Supper (Be Somebody With a Body). It spoke volumes. I thought, at first, that it was telling us that we should have our own values and morals that pertain to our society today instead of keeping old ones. But, in reality, Friedrich Nietzsche’s words, “God is dead,” was raging in my head. I remembered how “God is dead” because of our actions, i.e., our lifestyles. Our morals and ethics have “killed” the god. The slow decay we have fallen into is shown through Andy Warhol’s work. We need to become “somebody with a body.” We cannot live on religion alone. We have to regain our mortality and sight to see that we have to start living differently. Whatever pertains to the past, does not always relate to us – it has to change. Thus, I believe that Andy Warhol is trying to tell us that our view on any religion has to change. This, to me, is his way of criticizing the religious worlds.
But how do we find the message(s) Andy Warhol is trying to get across? Well, if you can somehow telephone the dead, then yes, you can ask him. The problem is that, if it was possible to contact the dead, he might not have the answer. We have to dig through on our own. The artist’s works make us think, see, and know the truth. They, most probably, have the answers to life’s questions. Or not. But they will have an opinion about it. Their thoughts and views do not necessarily have to be imposed on us, the viewer. We can see artwork and not be affected in any way or see them and be affected. Everything depends on how the artist portrays the truth and on the viewers and the world.
How does it happen? Well, the world affects the artists, but Andy Warhol affects the worlds of society. We may not fully see or understand his works, but there are others who will understand.
Oh! I thought this was interesting: http://blogs.artinfo.com/16miles/2010/06/18/andy-warhol-david-salle-fan/
I found it while I was researching the title for The Last Supper because I knew I was missing another part of the title.
Before entering this class, believe it or not, I had never heard of Andy Warhol! I haven’t had much experience in the art field or taken many classes on this subject so going to the Brooklyn Museum to look at Warhol’s work was an exciting experience.
I hadn’t studied art in detail and didn’t have much interest in it before taking this class. Now that I’m being more exposed to art, I believe that an artist may have many responsibilities to society. An artist expresses his/her view in a unique way that can be done openly or secretly. Many times there are secret messages behind an artist’s work that are meant to send out opinions on how society behaves and may critique how humans behave. Furthermore, I believe one doesn’t have to be a hypocrite in order to be an active member of their community along with a social critic. If an artist expresses a specific view on his/her community, he/she can help improve the conditions through community service or charity. However if that artist does what he/she is fighting against, that reflects true hypocrisy and ignorance.
When I entered into the Warhol exhibit, I was surprised to see so many paintings of him! I thought to myself, “Wow this guy must be really obsessed with himself.” The painting that intrigued me in that room was The Strangler and it looked like he was killing himself. There were also paintings of his head in different angles and motions. I thought these were very unique self portraits and shed light on what his life was like. I figured he had social issues he had to deal with and had a complicated lifestyle. I guess I was right.
Walking through the doorway, I saw Oxidations which was made out of urine! I didn’t really think the art was that pleasing and all I saw were blobs. I mean if I looked close enough I guess I saw some sort of animal, but it wasnt THAT great. Up until now, I was pretty bored with his work. After a little while, we go into the room with all the pictures of the celebrities. This fascinated me because it delved deeper into Warhol’s life and his experiences. After thinking about it, I felt he was being a hypocrite because he had such a celebrity lifestyle and he shouldn’t be allowed to criticize it. If he really wanted, he didn’t absolutely HAVE to interact with all those people and live that sort of life. He could have worked towards improving lives of those less fortunate than him and all his “friends”.
I also found it interesting that Warhol had religious aspects in this work. His portrait with Jesus (peace be upon him) repeated over and over was very cool to see because it was like “BAM”, in your face. It also made me wonder how religious he was or if he even was religious at all? Nevertheless, in the same room there were portraits of his head once again, but just more creepy. I felt like he was trying to escape the pressures in his life or get out of something he was stuck in. This might even be the society he was associated with but I still feel that everyone has a final choice in whatever they do and he wasn’t permanently “stuck”.
Overall, I enjoyed seeing Warhol’s exhibit because I felt like it reflected whatever was going on in his life and mind. Though, I felt like a lot of the work shown in the exhibit was the work he was hired for by businesses. Therefore a big aspect of his life must have been working for these companies that needed new artistic themes, etc. In the end, I felt like there was a lot more to Andy’s work than just himself over and over again. It represented a bigger picture about his life and aspects that affected the society and its pressures surrounding him.
Andy Warhol = Brilliant.
I’ve always heard about Andy Warhol and I knew bits and pieces about some of his paintings, but I never actually delved deep to understand the reasons behind his choices. To be honest, every time I go to an art exhibit it’s because I’m usually forced to be there and I don’t really interact with the art and study it. However about a week ago, I visited the Andy Warhol exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum and my attention was captured from the start to the finish. I read every caption, looked at every piece of artwork, watched every movie, and skimmed through every book. His paintings were all gorgeous, even the ones that were urinated on. I mean, come on, there’s a painting that was made because someone peed on it, that’s gotta be something amazing.
I really enjoyed looking at Warhol’s pieces because not only were they nice to the eye, but there was deeper meaning behind it. As I stood there, it was sometimes hard to understand why Andy Warhol chose to do what he did, like the repetition of Jesus, but when you think of him as a social critic, it becomes easier to understand.
Recently in Anthropology 101 we have been discussing what an anthropologist does for a living. The only way the anthropologist can really study humans and different cultures is to actually live in it and experience it first hand. I can immediately relate this to Andy Warhol because in essence, he is studying the American culture, and living it all at the same time. It’s hard for someone who is sitting on the outside of all the commotion to comment on what is going on. Like the old saying, “to understand a man, you’ve got to walk a mile in his shoes,” Andy Warhol was doing just that.
Although he criticized consumerism, sensationalism, the spectacle of media and celebrities, he was himself all of the above. After starting his talk show with celebrities, he became one himself. He was also a consumer at the time and was questioned and influenced by the media. I don’t think that Warhol was being a hypocrite in doing so because he was being honest. I found that honesty in every one of his pieces. I feel as though his works weren’t a call of action or anything, he was basically just stating the obvious. I’m sure everyone in that time agreed with Warhol’s views even though they were all consumers themselves.
One aspect of his artwork that I really liked is the repetition. For me, if I look at something over and over and over again, the first few times I’d get something different out of it but after a while, I’d just get tired of looking at it. In this case, when these images are repeated and they all look exactly the same, it gives it more meaning. It’s like I’m forced to look at it over and over again because there are just so many of the same images, but it feels like he’s trying to tell you something by doing so. The repetition almost feels like a scream that can’t really be heard unless we’re actually analyzing the art work. For example, in the last work of the exhibit, The Detail of the Last Supper, where the face of Jesus is repeated tons of times, Warhol is screaming out to us that he is actually Catholic. The church was a part of his everyday life and I think that is what he was trying to show by repeating the image, but everyone didn’t find out for sure that he was religious until his death.
Warhol also criticized consumerism, ever since the beginning of his career as an artist. Warhol’s most famous painting of the Campbell’s soup cans show how society is pulled in by the media. These “pretty” pictures were all the people needed to just go out and buy a few cans of soup. For Campbell’s, it wasn’t about the soup, it was about the money and about getting people to purchase their product. Another artwork that stood out to me was a part of the Last Supper Series. In this painting, there were pictures of Jesus from the Last Supper as well as motorcycles and a price tag of $6.99. At the time, motorcycles were “in” and everyone was rushing to get one–the essence of consumerism. Warhol criticized consumerism by putting a price on things that should be priceless like Jesus. I’m sure that this must have stirred up controversy during his lifetime from Christians, like himself.
The fact that Andy Warhol was indeed a part of the society that he was criticizing made it all the more believable, honest, sincere, moving, and controversial. The purpose of an artist should be to stir up conversation and that is exactly what he does in his pieces from The Last Decade. In order to judge, he should have walked a mile in that person’s shoes–the person being the celebrity and the consumer.
Andy Warhol said, “If you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface of my paintings and films and me, and there I am. There’s nothing behind it.” Warhol believed that when you think about something for too long, especially one of his paintings, it loses its meaning, if he intended for there to be a meaning or not. He admits to wanting to be “plastic” and says that anyone can get famous in fifteen minutes. He wanted to prove how easy it was to become famous, even if he considered himself a loser who like “boring things.” Andy Warhol was just one of us.
NYTimes Arts
