I’ve always been out of step with contemporary trends in art and I’m resigned, but at no point is this divergence greater than when it comes to Andy Warhol. An exhibit of his work recently opened at the Speed Museum in louisville. To me he’s the diva ghoul of art, from his early days peddling photos of fatal car wrecks to robbing the graves of celebrities and shamelessly selling their tragic personas, all such as that. He’s notorious as well for a total lack of empathy for those in his circle and a lack of interest in anything that didn’t benefit him directly, a model in kind for our current president, imagine that.
Still, I’ll attempt to see the other side. When Andy came along art had stumbled, the dominate mode had been rudely transitioned to pure abstraction and average folks never bought in. They were suspicious at first but gradually just lost interest which was fine with the marketing moguls and state supported academics, both camps willing to collaborate on an obscurity only the extremely intelligent, culturally aware, and financially secure could comprehend. This dearth of art for everyone else was barren ground, and Andy and his industrially prolific factory were the perfect invasive. He changed art wall to wall no doubt and to the scholar that’s enough. To them it’s all about influence and legacy and Andy leaves a wide wake, there’s the president.
I grew up in a house with two commercial artists wed to retail marketing and that was Andy’s beginning too, so I see what he did. Andy was never really an artist and didn’t claim to be. ‘Art, that’s a man’s name‘ was his standard reply to a bothersome reporter. If you had called him a retailing genius you’d have likely gotten a very rare hug, a wink for sure, because he was. There have been family dynasties built based on his principles, all in retail. The bare-knuckle fashion industry mentality rampaged across old fashioned artistic notions like intellect and vision, already in distress, and made art all about social standing and glamor, the very same things that sell shoes and dresses.
I’m more interested in art not made for money and wouldn’t you know, it’s everywhere. Reducing art to multiples of whatever can be sold has cheapened art, even the notion of art, to a point where artists just about everywhere can’t make an independent living. Instead they paint for pure passion and the hope that their work will be seen and recognized by someone somewhere someday. If they can get enough practice in to be revealed in their work perhaps they’ll make friends with others who think like them and receive their support. Art taken seriously at a local and regional level could lead to a viable and wholesome exchange and become an organic self-sustaining element of community life fostering mutual respect and understanding, why not? One thing is fairly certain, there will come a day when the iconic and sought-after soup can label will be just a soup can label once again, but the painting bought direct from the artist twenty five years back will have become much more valuable, regardless of its current market price.
Still, I’ll attempt to see the other side. When Andy came along art had stumbled, the dominate mode had been rudely transitioned to pure abstraction and average folks never bought in. They were suspicious at first but gradually just lost interest which was fine with the marketing moguls and state supported academics, both camps willing to collaborate on an obscurity only the extremely intelligent, culturally aware, and financially secure could comprehend. This dearth of art for everyone else was barren ground, and Andy and his industrially prolific factory were the perfect invasive. He changed art wall to wall no doubt and to the scholar that’s enough. To them it’s all about influence and legacy and Andy leaves a wide wake, there’s the president.
I grew up in a house with two commercial artists wed to retail marketing and that was Andy’s beginning too, so I see what he did. Andy was never really an artist and didn’t claim to be. ‘Art, that’s a man’s name‘ was his standard reply to a bothersome reporter. If you had called him a retailing genius you’d have likely gotten a very rare hug, a wink for sure, because he was. There have been family dynasties built based on his principles, all in retail. The bare-knuckle fashion industry mentality rampaged across old fashioned artistic notions like intellect and vision, already in distress, and made art all about social standing and glamor, the very same things that sell shoes and dresses.
I’m more interested in art not made for money and wouldn’t you know, it’s everywhere. Reducing art to multiples of whatever can be sold has cheapened art, even the notion of art, to a point where artists just about everywhere can’t make an independent living. Instead they paint for pure passion and the hope that their work will be seen and recognized by someone somewhere someday. If they can get enough practice in to be revealed in their work perhaps they’ll make friends with others who think like them and receive their support. Art taken seriously at a local and regional level could lead to a viable and wholesome exchange and become an organic self-sustaining element of community life fostering mutual respect and understanding, why not? One thing is fairly certain, there will come a day when the iconic and sought-after soup can label will be just a soup can label once again, but the painting bought direct from the artist twenty five years back will have become much more valuable, regardless of its current market price.
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