In response to the excessive amount of abstract art being produced by his contemporaries, artist Andy Warhol began creating Pop Art. Apparently, the idea was that Campbell’s Soup cans were the appropriate antidote to splattered paint and formless colors. In any case, it never seemed to catch on, as a trip through any modern art gallery will prove.
I’ve probably already pissed off some art history majors by calling Pop Art a failed movement and already proven my ignorance about the subject to anybody who actually knows anything about it. My blithe comments and irreverent attitude are an insult to the profession of art criticism, and I will forever be branded a pathetic impostor in the world of art. On that note, let’s take a journey through the recently reopened Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art and its “Andy Warhol’s Dream America” exhibition. So pop in your Velvet Underground mix tape, put on your dark sunglasses and follow me into the wonderful world of Technicolor screen prints.
The first thing museum attendees (that can’t be a real word) will see upon ascending the marble staircase to the exhibition is a whole lot of Marilyn. The image is a series of prints featuring the famous dead celebrity Marilyn Monroe. Dead celebrities are a recurring theme in Warhol’s work, as can be witnessed by his portraits of George Gershwin, John Wayne and Mick Jagger. (Actually, one of those isn’t right. George Gershwin didn’t actually “die” in the sense a mere mortal dies. His spirit will return to this dimension come Judgment Day, which he is scheduled to score with some catchy Broadway hits. Also, they saved John Wayne’s head until a new body could be cloned.)
So anyway, the collection is an excellent overview of Warhol’s screen-print work, ranging from the multiple soup cans (if you have not seen this, you have not experienced the true power of soup) to a sheet of stamps to his numerous self-portraits. The prints all come from the Jordan Schnitzer family collection (it’s good to have benefactors). Reworked pieces of art, such as a neon Edvard Munch painting, are also on display, leading one to view Warhol as either a powerfully original thinker or some New York hipster cribbing his best ideas from Marcel Duchamp (bonus academic points for the Duchamp reference).
Individually, these works are interesting and occasionally a bit comical. As a whole they provide something more than the sum of its parts. You get the idea that for Warhol, everything was art. There is no distinct difference between Campbell’s Soup and Marilyn Monroe, electric chairs and Mohammed Ali, at least not from an aesthetic standpoint. You, me, this newspaper, those words, these words here — it all counts as art provided it is framed as art. Beyond that, it is up to the viewer to judge it.
So does Warhol stand up as art? Well, those are some damn pretty soup cans. And those Mick Jaggers? No kidding, it’ll blow your mind. Just remember that to Warhol, a perfect copy was no less valuable than the original. You might as well be paying to see a print hanging in someone’s bathroom. The joke is on you, I guess. I got in for free.
