Warhol's self portrait wall paper
This week at The L Magazine I discuss the value of qualitative comparison in art.
Over the past couple of months, a friend and I have debated the usefulness of labeling one work better than another. “Every bit of ephemera can’t be preserved!” I told him during one of these talks. “We need to focus on what’s of greatest value to the society.” But how dramatically affected will our children be if we decide one Warhol is better than another? Is anything at stake? According to my friend, the answer is an emphatic “no.” “Such proclamations do more to shut down dialogue than advance ideas, ” he told me.
I’d be lying if I said I had no stake in my own punditry, but I enjoy the subject for other reasons: Greater self-awareness comes from knowing what you like and why, and comparative criticism is a great way of figuring it out.
As it happens, my stance on the value of debating the relative greatness of art works was put to the test early last week when I attempted to evaluate Andy Warhol’s self-portrait wallpaper. Executed in 1978, the purple and pink grid was cited in one exhibition as a representation of his worst work, and in another as an example of Warhol’s willingness to experiment. Was the latter a more useful statement than the claim about the work’s relative value? Whatever the answer is, of course, is itself a judgment about value.
To read the full piece click here.
{ 12 comments }
By drippy Pollock paintings are you referring to the Rorschach paintings? I like those a lot. There was a funny Flash Art interview he did with Bob Nickas where Nickas asked him which cards from the series he made into large canvases. Warhol said “you mean it’s a series? I thought the point was that you made your own.” Not an exact quote but Warhol remained ambiguously quotable to the end.
All in all, after the trough of the ’70s and the Wicked Witch of the West, Warhol had a credible last decade, with some ambitious, varied series.The Shadows as installed at Dia are pretty spectacular, and I even like the camos and his late return to “hand painted Pop.” The last work did much to redeem the period depicted in your jpeg above. Those series continue to inform the painting of artists working in a vein that has been called “mediated abstraction” (which could everyone from Jacqueline Humphries to Marc Handelman). This comment isn’t really on point to the issue of quantitative comparison–just doing a little myself.
Honestly, I can’t turn my impulse for quantitative comparison off, even though I see the benefit in being able to do so every once and a while. I keep reading that Pop Life was more substantial than it appeared, and having seen the show twice, I just don’t believe that to be true. Seeing the work a third time at the brooklyn museum revealed another weakness in the show.
The Rorschach’s were different than the work I saw. The museum had some weird “clean” drippy paintings. I think that silkscreen of Wayne Gretzky is worst thing he ever did, but the drip stuff has to be second. It gave me the willies.
The celebrity (rich and famous) portrait series hit a low in the 70’s when they were hustled prix fixe to any taker with cash. The Paul Anka portrait for instance. Not that thats the problem with the Gretsky screen. But it did mean one could buy into the AW catalogue raisonné and that makes for a problematic reading today if not factored in.
http://warhol-art.blogspot.com/2007/12/vintage-lp-record-albums-with-andy.html#links
I’m pretty sure you’re thinking of the commissioned “Yarn” paintings he did in ’83 for a Florentine yarn manufacturer. Yes, definitely not his best work.
Ex-Interview magazine editor Bob Colacello, in his book Holy Terror, gives an eye-opening account of how AW worked the celebrity party circuit to sell those ’70s-era portraits (a very lucrative enterprise). According to Colacello, it was usually decided in the car on the way to the event whether Fred Hughes or someone else in the entourage was going to “pop the question” (as AW called it) to the intended portrait subject(s) of the evening. As in, “Andy would love to do your portrait. What do you think?” Usually the subjects were flattered and gratefully shelled out the big bucks. The portraits were done with large polaroids transferred to silkscreen and could be ginned out very quickly.
By drippy Pollock paintings are you referring to the Rorschach paintings? I like those a lot. There was a funny Flash Art interview he did with Bob Nickas where Nickas asked him which cards from the series he made into large canvases. Warhol said “you mean it’s a series? I thought the point was that you made your own.” Not an exact quote but Warhol remained ambiguously quotable to the end.
All in all, after the trough of the ’70s and the Wicked Witch of the West, Warhol had a credible last decade, with some ambitious, varied series.The Shadows as installed at Dia are pretty spectacular, and I even like the camos and his late return to “hand painted Pop.” The last work did much to redeem the period depicted in your jpeg above. Those series continue to inform the painting of artists working in a vein that has been called “mediated abstraction” (which could everyone from Jacqueline Humphries to Marc Handelman). This comment isn’t really on point to the issue of quantitative comparison–just doing a little myself.
Honestly, I can’t turn my impulse for quantitative comparison off, even though I see the benefit in being able to do so every once and a while. I keep reading that Pop Life was more substantial than it appeared, and having seen the show twice, I just don’t believe that to be true. Seeing the work a third time at the brooklyn museum revealed another weakness in the show.
The Rorschach’s were different than the work I saw. The museum had some weird “clean” drippy paintings. I think that silkscreen of Wayne Gretzky is worst thing he ever did, but the drip stuff has to be second. It gave me the willies.
The celebrity (rich and famous) portrait series hit a low in the 70’s when they were hustled prix fixe to any taker with cash. The Paul Anka portrait for instance. Not that thats the problem with the Gretsky screen. But it did mean one could buy into the AW catalogue raisonné and that makes for a problematic reading today if not factored in.
http://warhol-art.blogspot.com/2007/12/vintage-lp-record-albums-with-andy.html#links
I’m pretty sure you’re thinking of the commissioned “Yarn” paintings he did in ’83 for a Florentine yarn manufacturer. Yes, definitely not his best work.
Ex-Interview magazine editor Bob Colacello, in his book Holy Terror, gives an eye-opening account of how AW worked the celebrity party circuit to sell those ’70s-era portraits (a very lucrative enterprise). According to Colacello, it was usually decided in the car on the way to the event whether Fred Hughes or someone else in the entourage was going to “pop the question” (as AW called it) to the intended portrait subject(s) of the evening. As in, “Andy would love to do your portrait. What do you think?” Usually the subjects were flattered and gratefully shelled out the big bucks. The portraits were done with large polaroids transferred to silkscreen and could be ginned out very quickly.
Do most artists as they become older, become more set in their ways and take the safe route? Or, despite having spent years developing a style and a subject matter, do they continue to take risks? Are famous artists less willing to take risks that might alienate their audience?
Do most artists as they become older, become more set in their ways and take the safe route? Or, despite having spent years developing a style and a subject matter, do they continue to take risks? Are famous artists less willing to take risks that might alienate their audience?
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