Preview

Andy Warhol: Pop Politics

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1132 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Andy Warhol: Pop Politics
Andy Warhol: Pop Politics

Andy Warhol -- one of the most influential American artists of the twentieth century -- captured the likeness of some of the most visionary and powerful political leaders of the 20th century. Images of John F. Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Queen Elizabeth II, and Mao Zedong, among others will hang side-by-side when the Currier Museum of Art presents Andy Warhol: Pop Politics from September 27, 2008 through January 4, 2009.
Pop Politics displays together for the first time more than sixty of Warhol's paintings, prints, drawings, and photographs of political figures. His portraits of American presidents and presidential candidates, queens, Communist dictators, and other political figures reveal intriguing, yet until now unexplored insights into Warhol's own celebrity status and political leanings. Warhol's images of these powerful personalities comment on the interrelationships between politics and celebrity culture in the late twentieth century -- connections that remain ever present today. Timed to coincide with the 2008 presidential election, this exhibition offers a probing and entertaining look through the eyes of America's most famous Pop artist at the leaders who shaped the twentieth century.
Warhol (1928-1987) rose to fame in the 1960s and became synonymous with Pop art and American culture of the period. He played upon the increased bombardment of advertising and media images to develop a signature style that employed commercial subjects rendered in bold, graphic designs and colors using mass production processes. In capturing the rebellious spirit of the time through his work and personality, Warhol created a body of work that transformed our understanding of art by blurring the boundaries between art and popular culture and shaped a new aesthetic that came to symbolize the counterculture. His now iconic work has influenced subsequent generations of artists and continues to resonate with audiences today, both young

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    What is the meaning behind the decision? Inspired by his surroundings and his life experiences, Warhol created an art piece that challenged an audience to view an everyday item in an entirely new way. In doing so, Warhol introduced a completely new viewpoint and created a completely new approach to art that pushed the boundaries and definition of art. This paper will try to understand and analyze why Andy Warhol chose Campbell’s Soup Cans and painted 32 cans with…

    • 2545 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Andy Warhol was born August 6th 1928. In third grade, Warhol had Sydenham's chorea, the nervous system disease that causes involuntary movements of the extremities, which is believed to be a complication of scarlet fever which causes skin pigmentation blotchiness. However this did not affect his life significantly. As a teenager, Warhol graduated from Schenley High School in 1945. After graduating from high school, his intentions were to study art education at the University of Pittsburgh in the hope of becoming an art teacher. He moved to New York City to pursue his own art. In the 1950’s Warhol became known for his drawings for shoe advertisements. During the 1960’s Warhol created his most known works, doing pop art works of Marilyn Monroe, Campbell’s soup cans, and Elvis Presley. He became a huge american celebrity and respected in the global art community. In 1968 a radical feminist attempted to murder Andy, only giving him serious injuries however through shooting. He survived the attempt. Warhol died in Manhattan at 6:32 am on February 22, 1987 after a surgery.…

    • 449 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the 1960s an art movement known as Pop Art had begun. Pop art was meant to be simple to aid the audience in creating their own interpretations of the pieces. Two of the leading artists were Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. Warhol was a fan of women, unlike Warhol, Lichtenstein was inspired by culture; their paintings are both pieces of Pop Art but they are different because Warhol’s paintings are mostly of women and Lichtenstein’s are of famous cartoon characters. The artists used different techniques to catch their viewers attention. Both pieces of art displayed different messages to the viewer. Although both artists used Pop art, they had several differences in their artwork such as one being a real public figure while the other is a…

    • 1048 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Andy Warhol founded the art movement called pop art, and his lifestyle and work both mocked and celebrated the world’s obsession with materiality and fame. On one side, his paintings of distorted everyday items and celebrity faces could be seen as a display for what he viewed as a culture consumed with money and being famous. On the other side, his focus on consumer goods and celebrities, and his own fame and fortune, suggest a life in celebration of the aspects of American culture that his work criticized.…

    • 88 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In every era of American history, the population looks towards leaders of the free world and their politicians for much of the guidance and answers that they seek. But often times the lesser influences of “pop culture icons” are often overlooked. When the general masses idolized a single event, trend, or person so much, the latter can have an impact on social trends with enduring and meaningful significance. Often times a prominent musician, for example, has the power to sway the masses, and create social movements that encourage positive (or even sometimes negative) change that encompass a surrounding society. Through his Americana lyrics, and strong embrace of the American dream and spirit, Woody Guthrie has achieved a cultural and iconic status in the American landscape.…

    • 567 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Warhol: the Flatness of Fame

    • 2586 Words
    • 11 Pages

    THANK YOU all for being here this brisk March afternoon. I’d like to thank the GRAM for the invitation to speak in conjunction with such a wonderful exhibition, and especially Jean Boot for all of her diligent coordination on my behalf. (There are 3 parts to my presentation. First, a virtual tutorial on the process of screen-printing; secondly, a discussion of the formal and conceptual potential inherent to printmaking, and the way in which Warhol expertly exploited that potential. Finally, I will conclude with an actual demonstration of screen-printing in the Museum’s basement studio.) In coming weeks, you’ll have an opportunity to hear much more about the cultural-historical context for Andy Warhol’s work from two exceptional area scholars, beginning next Friday evening with a lecture by my colleague at GV, Dr. Kirsten Strom, and on _______ Susan Eberle of Kendall College of Art & Design. As Jean indicated in her introduction, I teach drawing and printmaking at GVSU. In other words, I’m approaching Warhol’s work very much as a studio artist. As a printmaker in particular, I’m predisposed to note the large degree (great extent?) to which the innate characteristics of the medium – in this case screen-printing - enable and inform the meaning of Warhol’s work. At the outset of each printmaking course I teach at Grand Valley, I provide students a brief overview of the social history of the print; I divulge its rich heritage in the service of dispensing and preserving our (collected cultural discourse, from…) verbal and pictorial languages, knowledge and history, cultural discourse, from ancient scripture to textile design to political critique. In addition I cite the formal qualities specific to the print – multiplicity, mutability, and its recombinant capabilities. I open with this background as a means of framing the work students will produce in the course. I’d like to provide a similar overview here, as a means of framing the work of Warhol, which is so richly…

    • 2586 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Andy Warhol, was the creative mind that created pop art. Andy Warhol is a Polish American artist that lived during the twentieth century. Mr. Warhol’s paintings focused on the mass production of commercial goods, as well as under minded the supposed value of art based on the uniqueness of the work. The thing that I enjoy the most about his works is the way that he incorporates silkscreen in order to produce multiples of a single image yet still manages to make each one different and unique in its own special way. He was someone that took inspiration from the people and things that surrounded him and although he was not every well received when he first started out he continued to work and became a very well-known and respected artist.…

    • 1474 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Art History Ar300

    • 339 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Andy Warhol was the most famous artist of Pop Art. He was often seen as the central figure in this art movement. His work is highly recognizable to the fact of his subject matter. Warhol often used highly commercial and easily recognizable images in his…

    • 339 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Pop art is a movement that started in the United States in the 1950’s. It’s a movement that uses imagery, mass media, popular culture, and themes of advertising. Pop art includes real things or people and also uses includes comic books. The early artist in the United States was Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns. The most praised pop art artists was Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein.…

    • 614 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Andy Whorle

    • 336 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Andy Warhol was one of the most important artists of pop art, which became extremely popular in the second half of the twentieth century. Though he is best remembered for his paintings of Campbell's soup cans, he also created hundreds of other works including commercial advertisements and films.…

    • 336 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Andy Warhol had a very different way of doing things, not just in his art, but in his entire life. He was so different from everyday people, that people saw him as an outcast, just because he did things the way he wanted. Eventually his weird style and social awkwardness became something people were somehow drawn to.…

    • 257 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Andy Warhol Research Paper

    • 1678 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Andrew Warhola, better known under his artist’s name Andy Warhol, was an American painter, graphic artist and designer, filmmaker and main representative of the pop art movement. Warhol was born on the 6th of August 1928 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in a working class family. His parents were immigrants from Czechoslovakia. From the age of eight, Warhol became very interested in drawing, movies and photography. Later Andy Warhol finished an apprenticeship as a window dresser. From 1945 until 1949 Warhol studied pictorial design at the Carnegie Institute for Technology, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. In the same year he graduated, Warhol moved to New York, where he dropped the ‘’a’’…

    • 1678 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Andy Warhol Influence

    • 1519 Words
    • 7 Pages

    His neutral and obsessive attitude towards popular culture transformed his work into a quintessential reflection of the industrial era. His adaptation of a multilayered process, and obsession with reproduction became the underlying feature that would set him apart from most pop artists. Warhol had a detached crisp style of art making that was centred on commercial imagery found in media outlets such as advertisements, magazine clippings, comics and newspapers. The use of silk screen allowed him to create copious amounts of near identical prints in a short amount of time, however he was not actually interested in the amount he could produce, rather he was more inclined to work with a mechanical process in which silk screen offered, by doing this he was able to replicate and critique the very way popular culture functioned, believing that a mechanistic process would erode the value and meaning of the image, in other words the more exposed you are to an image the more detached you will be towards it, reinforcing the statement that pop artists were generally more critical towards the society they…

    • 1519 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Warhol was both an American artist and filmmaker who gained success as a commercial artist. He was one of the artists among many who focused art on ordinary and recognizable subjects that expressed the popular culture of the day during that time (Source 3). He was the first to explore the new art technique of silk screen canvas printing, where an enlarged photographic image was transferred to a silk screen which allowed him to produce a repetitive series of mass-media images with slight contrast (Source 5). Through untraditional techniques, Warhol enforced new ways to create art and helped open up new subjects to explore on. Warhol was a major impact during the Pop Art movement who paved the way for Pop Art to be more renowned to society at the time. However he was widely criticized and unaccepted, especially by traditional artists, during his time. But he never let that change him or how he wished to create art. He freely expressed himself and his homosexuality. As he collaborated with younger artists he exchanged his ideas and his works influenced other pop artists to be more open with their lives and sexual orientation just like he was (Source 5). As one of the most influential pop artists, Warhol captured an authentic American outlook based on packaged products and people (Source…

    • 1168 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    For my History Day topic, I chose Andy Warhol. Andy Warhol seemed to be a good topic because I have had an interest for pop art for a long time. Andy Warhol is one of the biggest, most popular icons from the pop art movement. This movement started the 1950s in the United States and Great Britain. Warhol led the pop art movement and was always on the cutting edge of art, music, and popular culture. During the course of his career he produced paintings, films, commercials, print ads and many other works.…

    • 436 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays

Related Topics