father of a new art movement, “Pop Art,” which highlighted
popular culture and the commercial world.
In 1962, Warhol exhibited 32 variations of Campbell
soup cans, everything from tomato to vegetable to chicken
with rice. At first glance the public thought the exhibition
was a farce, a joke on them, but in retrospect it was about
capitalism, consumerism, and society. It was about us. Warhol
accomplished what seemed impossible, making people look
and think about art and the world differently. Subsequent artists
such as Keith Haring and Jeff Koons, inspired by Warhol,
advanced the pop art movement going forward.
Even though Warhol became a famous artist, he still
needed to become a celebrity, and decided to brand and market
himself as a celebrity. Still known as “Raggedy Andy,” Warhol,
with the help of a fashion stylist, did a complete makeover to
sport cool clothing and several silver wigs selected to fit his
mood at public events. With his new public image, Warhol
became an icon, successfully branding himself with critics
and supporters alike commenting that it was his greatest work
of art. His next endeavor was to create a studio aptly named
“The Factory” for mass producing consumerism artwork, and
becoming home to endless gatherings of his “family of friends.”
Premiering his next exhibition, Warhol transformed an upscale
art gallery into a supermarket with multiple boxes of Brillo
pads, corn flake packages, and apple juice cartons. Many critics
referred to the exhibition as a ridiculous fraud.
He was told during an interview, “Your art is not
original sculptures… a copy of common ideas.”
In his deadpan voice Warhol replied, “Yes.”
When asked, “Why not do something new?” He
replied, “I guess this was easier to do.”
The interviewer persisted and asked, “Is this a joke
that you are playing on the public?”
He replied, “No… It gives me something to do.” From
Warhol’s perspective, he was questioning the need for artwork
to be original, or whether it was the idea behind the art that
matters and not the skill that is used to create it.
Continuing
his work in “The
Factory,”
Warhol
hired a skilled
printer,
Gerard
Malanga, to teach
him the art of
silk screening, a
technique
used
to
mass-produce
artwork about a
mass-produced
world. The process
is straightforward:
take a photograph
of your subject,
make a negative to
the final size of your
artwork, expose
the negative to
a light sensitive
emulsion
and
then paint with
several
colors
over the silk
screen to create
the
artwork.
This silkscreen
process became
Andy Warhol’s
trademark. With
the help of his
friends (dubbed
the
Warhol
Superstars),
a
family of drag queens, socialites, drug addicts, musicians,
and adult film performers, the artist managed to mass produce
his artwork to meet the growing public demand. During this
time, a single silkscreen would sell for $25,000 and by selling
hundreds of silkscreens Warhol was able to finance the lives of
his Superstars.
In 1962, when Marilyn Monroe died of a drug
overdose, Warhol created a tribute to the celebrity’s life and
death by designing 24 silkscreens from the same photograph
and brushing colors onto each image revealing the tragedy,
glamour, innocence, and pain of the many masks worn by her.
With an uncanny and haunting quality, each mask colored her
colorless portrait of the publicity photograph. From Warhol’s
perspective, Marilyn Monroe, the iconic celebrity, achieved
immortality through his artwork. In May 2007, the Gagosian
Gallery sold one of the silkscreens, Turquoise Marilyn, for $80
million.
Life went on and so did the wild nightlife at The
Factory, hosting everyone from freaks to movie stars, doing
everything from sex orgies to drugs parties. It was all happening
at The Factory, which lead to Warhol’s next passion: filming
“happenings,” which included free love-making, staged
weddings of drag queens, transgender characters, drug use, and
same sex relations. Many times he would film a person staring
into the camera telling them “to do whatever you like.”
Initially we all wear a mask and when you are filming
continually, the mask starts to dissolve. This was the moment
that Warhol waited to capture: the essence of a person. Warhol
truly believed that anyone with enough exposure to the public
via newspapers, film, or television could become a celebrity.
Today, many celebrities, such as Paris Hilton, Kim
Kardashian, or the cast members of reality TV shows, have no
particular skills such as acting, singing, or dancing, but they all
have great media coverage to elevate them to celebrity status.
Warhol said, “In the future, everyone will be world famous
f