Friday, May 10, 2019

Andy Warhol—From A to B and Back Again

Instead of focusing on Warhol’s most recognizable paintings, this exhibition spans diverse media and periods of his lifetime, including commercial illustrations, silkscreen paintings, experimental films, and some abstract pieces. The audiences are exposed to a wide range of artworks of Andy Warhol and were guided to discover new things about Warhol from perspectives in the 21st century through this exhibition.
The theme and his production skills changed through time. At the very beginning, commercial products are the main subject of Warhol’s work. Then he devoted to creating paintings of superstars. In the early 1980s, Warhol lost several partners and friends which made him trapped in deep sorrow and fear. His creations during this period, such as Skull and Camouflage Last Supper, are closer to abstraction rather than Pop. He thought more about subjects such as death and kept building his belief in religion.
In his experimental films, he recorded someone eating a mushroom and a man sleeping for eight hours without any lines. It seems that these experimental films are boring and meaningless. When we look at what is happening on social media nowadays, however, we will be amazed that Warhol had already predicted it back in the 70s. On YouTube, a film about “What I eat in a Day” can have millions of viewers. Warhol has already predicted that people are bored and will be attracted to boring things to fulfill inner emptiness.

1 comment:

  1. This is a very nice summary of this very exhibition. I learned many related informations. I appreciate your deliver. This gave me a very good idea about how this exhibition as a whole is expressing Andy Warhol's life and his different stages. However, I found this review too generalize. It was a big exhibition, I wish you could focus on one period of Warhol's life or a couple of his works to highlight your argument.

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