Usually wondering around art gallery’s and exhibitions, for me, is about looking at the paintings and exhibits rather than finding some hidden meaning in the art. I have never completely understood how people can look at a picture and derive some meaning conveyed by an artist who may have lived centuries ago. However walking around the Andy Warhol Factory the art, on some level at least, made sense.

Maybe it was the English tour explaining the exhibition as I went or maybe it was because I could comprehend some of the ideology behind Warhol’s pictures but, for the most part, I actually understood the message behind the art.

The exhibition was split into four parts: I want to be a machine, I love stars, Shadow of Death and Unseen Warhol.

The exhibition began with some of Warhol’s early work in the section titled ‘I want to be a machine’. The exhibition leaflet explained:

Featuring everyday things like a Campbell’s soup can and a Brillo box, Andy Warhol’s pop art reconciles the traditionally separate realms of art and life. Furthermore, he named his studio ‘The Factory’ and produced many images that reproduce the same image repetitively through the silkscreen technique. Thus applying the industrial method of mass production to art making. The art made in The Factory was one that eliminates the artists originality, individually and emotions and mass produces the same object. It is in this light that Warhol stated: “I want to be a machine.”

Andy Warhol Factory – Emily beside Warhol’s famous Campbells soup picture.
Emily beside and image of Warhol’s famous Campbell’s soup painting.

This part of the exhibition was about consumerism and making people aware of their own obsessions. The fact that Warhol chose to make his art in a way that enabled easy mass production speaks volumes about the message conveyed by his art.

The second part of the exhibition was called ‘I love stars’. This included the famous picture of Marilyn Monroe that I have always associated with Andy Warhol. Many of Warhol’s images of stars were repeated. This in emblematic of the way the mass media over produces images of stars setting them in a light that, for the most part, is unobtainable by the ordinary individual.

The leaflet said:

Stars are fantasies manufactured by the mass media. Warhol is said to have carried around a picture of Marlon Brando, evidence of his deep interest in popular cultural stars. He is now well know to the public for his many portraits of Marilyn Monroe, Jackie Kennedy and Mao Tse-tung but also for portraits of wanted criminals. He at times composed his portraits as grids of identically repeated images and, removing the individuality of each subject, turned it into a sign. This unique method of Warhol’s points to the excessive production of images by the mass media and also symbolises its undervalued authority in society.

The exhibition then moved on to Warhol’s ‘Death and Disaster’ series. In this area there were some incredibly graphic images of death that Warhol used to demonstrate how constant reproduction of shocking images in the media will eventually desensitise the public. Arguably this art was very forward thinking as evidence of Warhol’s message can be demonstrated by looking at what was acceptable to show in the media back in the ’60s, when the art was produced, compared to what is acceptable to show in the media today.

The leaflet provided this information about the ‘Death and Disaster’ series.

Warhol’s ‘Death and Disaster ‘series began with the image of an aeroplane crash that killed 129 passengers in 1962. Works in this series are found reportage photos of car accidents and scenes of death amplified and reproduced by means of silkscreen. Here the originals lose their reality and turn into mechanically reproduced indifferent images. Lucidly addressing how even terrible images of death can become simple objects of every day consumption by being repeatedly shown to viewers by the mass media. Warhol’s ‘Death and Disaster’ series also revels well the characteristics of the artist’s 1960s pop art.

The final part of the exhibition was called ‘Unseen Warhol’ and was mainly comprised of Warhol’s self portraits. These were interesting in the sense that once he’d become a ‘celebrity’ he began to reproduced his own image in the way he had done with other stars. However he had a complex about the way he looked so many of his self portraits are devoid of detail.

According to the leaflet:

With a series of exhibitions of his work from 1962 onwards Warhol became a celebrity not unlike Hollywood film stars. The artist started making self portraits in 1964 and this reflects a desire to become a star himself for the man who had always been infatuated with stars. Paradoxically, however, Warhol’s self portraits dispense with details and show his visages in intense dark-light contrasts, simultaneously revealing the artist like a star and completely concealing his self. Warhol never stopped strategizing to become a star and in the process became a work of art.

Andy Warhol Factory – This was the only painting I managed to sneak a picture of inside the exhibition. I loved it because looki
This was the only photo I managed to sneak inside the exhibition!

The picture above was one of my favourites in the Unseen Warhol section because looking at it gave you the feeling of having had one too many on a night out and not quite being bale to focus on what you were looking at!

I thoroughly enjoyed the Andy Warhol Factory, so much so that once the guided tour was over I went back for a second look round pausing to take a closer look at some the art work I hadn’t had chance to view in detail before.

In doing a small amount of research whilst writing this article I have found that in many way Warhol’s thinking was well ahead of his time. The now famous “fifteen minutes of fame” quote can be attributed back to him. I found this version of his quote on Wikiqoute: “In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes. I’m bored with that line. I never use it anymore. My new line is: In fifteen minutes everybody will be famous.” Maybe not fifteen minutes, but if today’s obsession with reality television and the Internet keeps growing everyone really will be famous – even if it is only for the duration of the latest series of Big Brother!

From me it’s over and out until another day.

* Posted by j150vsc on 23/03/2007.