Andy Warhol and Pop Art
From Higher Intellect Documents
Arts: Film:
Andy Warhol and Pop Art
May 26, 1998
Pop Art The pop art movement began in London during the 1950's and then
quickly spread throughout nearly all of the industrialized world. Although the
artists did have some overlapping styles, pop art focuses more on the subject
and less on style, which was left up to each individual artist. The main themes
that is evident in all pop art revolves around modern social values. The style
in which these values were portrayed varied depending on the culture and
artist. Critic Barbara Rose claimed in her review of a Pop Art show that Pop
Art, " I wish to disagree with the assumption that pop art is an art style. It is
not; these artists are linked only through their subject matter, not through
stylistic similarities. This makes it possible to talk of the iconography or
attitudes of Pop art, but not of Pop art as an art style, as one would speak of
Baroque or Cubism." (Bondo, 1998) In America, Pop Art used the images and
techniques of mass media, advertising, and popular culture, often in an ironic
way to play off the social issues of popular culture. The art form developed
rapidly once reaching the U.S. New York City, often viewed as the epicenter of
American popular culture, fostered the growth of many of the most highly
regarded pop artists, including Warhol, Rosenquist, Segal and Lichtenstein.
California, namely San Fransisco was recognized as the Pop Art capital of the
west coast (Bourdon, 1989, 12) Subject The subject of Warhol's work revolved
around various American social issues of the mid-century. As America exited
from World War II and entered the Baby Boom era, the culture had become
decidedly sanitized. Some of this could be attributed to the Cold War and fear
of the "enemy". The flight to suburbia, mass production, conservative family
values, and development of new social standards also played a major role in
this "Leave-it-to-Beavering" of the nation. This was also the period of time
where admass culture had its beginnings. Warhol played off the irony of these
issues in such works as Campbell's Soup Cans and his famous Brillo Boxes
(Bourdon, 1989, 34) During the 1960's, the nation began to see rapid
changes. The space program was under way, the Vietnam war was in action,
Kennedy was killed, racial equity became and issue and the "hippie"
movement was at its peak; spreading its trademark ideals of free love, drugs
and music. Although Warhol continued his focus on the irony of admass
culture, he began to branch out into new territory. He began to print his
Flowers series, which had a decidedly psychedelic flavor to them, matching
the flavor of the current social scene (Bourdon, 1989, 42) As the 70's disco
scene came to rise, Warhol's work followed. Warhol himself frequented many
of New York City's hottest, most glamorous nightclubs. Studio 54, famed for its
exclusivity, was one of Warhol's favorites. It is at this period that Warhol
became totally engulfed with creating works of other people, mostly celebrities.
Ever since childhood, Warhol had been obsessed with celebrity life and fame.
Some of Warhol's most famous works were of celebrities. Many were chic
designers such as Halson, Diane von Fursenberg, Jean Paul Gaultier and
Yves Saint Laurent (Bourdon, 1989, 53) Death and disaster was also a
subject that Warhol worked with, especially during the early 60's. These
subjects contrasted somewhat with his others, for they seemed to be far more
gruesome and vulgar. However, it was said that these were not intentionally
vulgar, but again a clip from popular culture. When confronted about the
morbidity, Andy said "Every time you turn on the T.V. or radio, they say
something like '4 million are going to die'. That started it." Warhol frequently
remarked about news broadcasts that projected deaths. For example, a news
program may project that 50,000 people will die in alcohol related automobile
accidents. To most, it seemed as if the media were relating this as a warning.
To Warhol, this was a "goal to be met." Also, Warhol was obsessed with the
way vulgarity looses its effect after view multiple times. This is the reason that
he multiplied car accident pictures many times. Many of his famous works,
such as Car Crashes, Race Riots, Electric Chair, Suicides and Tuna Fish
Disasters were gruesome in nature (Bourdon, 1989, 109) Another subject that
seemed to permeate his work, especially his movies was sex. This was not the
sex that was seen in the pornography of the time, but a more erotic and
advant garde style. Sometimes, only bared flesh was seen, and other times, it
was full blown intercourse. Homoerotisism was another strong theme in these
movies. It wasn't just man with man or woman with woman, that would be too
simple. Many of the scenes featured men as women, drag queens and
asexuals. This only added to the peculiarity and erotisism. His four most
famous movies revolved around sexual themes: Sleep, Blow Job, My Hustler
and Flesh (Bondo, 1998). Medium Warhol's art career began with commercial
art, in where he created illustrations using a blot-line technique. The blot
technique is as follows: a completed drawing is taped and hinged to a piece of
Strathmore paper. The original would be inked and then blotted onto the
Strathmore paper. One may wonder, why blotted drawings instead of using the
originals? Andy stated, "I like the style.....Well, it was just that I didn't like the
way I drew. I guess, we had to do an ink blot or something like that at college,
and, then, I realized you can do an ink blot and do that kind of look, and, then,
it would look printed somehow." (Bondo, 1998). This printed look is what made
Warhol famous, adding to his admass culture themes. For a brief period,
Warhol also used rubber stamps and stencils to achieve the machine made,
printed look. It was in the early 60's that Warhol began to use the silk-screen
method. In retrospect, the rubber stamp method he was using to repeat
images over and over (a Warhol trademark) suddenly seemed to homemade--
he wanted something stronger that gave more of an assembly line effect. The
silk-screening method was done by taking a photograph and transferring it in
glue to silk, and then rolling ink across the silk so that the ink permeated only
certain spots in the silk. This way, Warhol could achieve the same image,
slightly different each time. The pictures were slightly faded and blurry, which
resembled the way the media dulls down a story each and every time it is told.
Tiny but important details are lost (Bondo, 1998) Film and magazines were two
other mediums used by Warhol. His films were considered underground and
low budget, with strong sexual overtones. They were produced for only a brief
period in his career, and were many times initiated by friends and lovers. His
magazine, however, would live on even after Warhol's death. Interview was the
name of the magazine that he co-produced with John Wilcock, then editor of
an underground newspaper called Other Scenes. The magazine featured text
and loosely edited interviews from cassette tapes. Andy often said that he
started the magazine to get free tickets to all the premieres. The magazine
quickly turned into a monthly review of popular culture, including moviestars,
fashion, art, music, television, gossip and celebrity nightlife-- especially the
notorious Studio 54 (Kakulani, New York Times Magazine, 1996). Another
medium that Warhol used in the 70's was known as Oxidation paintings. These
were large canvases created by coating them with copper paint. Warhol and
his male friends would urinate on them while the paint was still damp. The uric
acid and copper sulfate combined to produce a green patine. The result was
work that varied widely, from Pollock-like drip paintings to misty landscapes
(Bourdon, 1989, 238). Organization & Style Organization plays an important
role in defining Warhol's work. His use of color, treatment of masses and
values and use of patterns are distinctly "Warhol", separating it from that of
the other Pop artists. Color was key to much of Warhol's work. In fact, it was
so important, that many times Warhol would produce a work without color first.
Then, he would observe the work and think for days what the color should be
used. Many times, color was applied by airbrush later to achieve an overlay
effect. For the most part, his color schemes were bright. He also used a
dot-matrix technique that spread color out by means of a tiny dot pattern. This
was achieved through the silk-screening process, and added to the mass
produced look (Bondo, 1998). He used appropriated and serially repeated
images to achieve his machined look. This imagery arrests the eye, and
speeds up the work creating his "admass" effect (Bourdon, 1989, 206) The
shape of many of the images in his most popular works had a rounded,
streamlined look to them. The values did not posses lots of detail either. This
was to give them a plastic look. He was quoted as saying that these resembled
club life, "plastic clothes, plastic jewelry, plastic surgery, plastic emotions."
(Kakulani, New York Times Magazine, 1996) The center of interest on a
Warhol image is the image itself. The objects were not meant to be
"storytellers", as did the more classic artworks. The Warhol image was intend
to confront the audience with boredom as an issue itself by making the images
superficial. Usually, the objects were surrounded with space rather than
pattern, emphasizing this center of interest idea (Bondo, 1998). Warhol used
a detached style, in which little emotional involvement or identification is
created. By use of this method, a statement is made, but does not effect the
audience on a personal level. Conclusion Andy Warhol was one of the
twentieth century's greatest artists. And like many artists, Warhol saw the
world in a very different way. However, he was misunderstood as one who
satirized American Pop culture because he did not agree with or fully
understand it. Nothing could be more opposite of the truth, Warhol loved Pop
culture since he was a child engrossed with the beautiful people that graced
the magazine covers and movies. He became a Pop culture genius, and
through his work, he became a part of it as a social commentator and
visionary. And through his genius, he launched his work to become an icon of
Americana.
