The Crimes of Andy Warhol #13

Photographers and their Cameras #6

Another Weegee

Weegee and Andy Warhol

One is a cool individual "Artist" and one is not...... you decide! Sometimes contrast helps.

Artist Spotlight: Andy Warhol Eats a Hamburger

I would love to see a video of Max Beckmann pounding the crap out of Andy. Or maybe Mary Cassatt?

The Crimes of Andy Warhol #10

Andy's 8 hour film "Empire" is screening tonight at MOMA. That is 8 hours of the 6 minute snippet above. Nothing else but this slowed down view of the Empire State Building. And apparently a lot of important art world types will be in attendance and...wow...some of them will be "Twirping" about it LIVE! Now I have no doubt that hours can be spent analyzing and expounding on this cinematic delight but actually watching it? I think a better project would be to secretly film this "heads up their asses" crowd watching the film. That way we could determine which viewers were the shallowest.

The crimes of andy warhol #9

 

Andy Warhol 'Self-portrait' 1981

 Arnold Schönberg "Andy Warhol" 1910

Amazingly Schonberg painted this portrait of Andy a full 18 years before his birth. To see an amazing array of self-portraits check out this huge posting over at Weimer.

Still Life in Hell

Picasso and Warhol

Mark Warren " Nature Morte (Pablo & Andy)" 36" X 44" oil on linen

To my mind Picasso and Warhol came close to killing modern art. "But Mark", you might say, " I know you hate Andy but I thought you revered Picasso?" Yes but I feel the size of Picasso's achievement has left so little room to work in that "Modernism" was ripe for it's execution by the likes of Warhol. The only thing left was to suck any spiritual or expressive dimension out of painting and to complete modernism's self-fulfilling fantasy of it's own death. I f you think this view is reactionary you would be wrong. I accept Modernism's demise and it's lost principles of progress but remember Post-modernism is the new academy.

The Crimes of Andy Warhol #7

The Piss Paintings-literally

Can you imagine Max Beckmann unbuttoning his trousers and urinating on his canvas?  In all fairness Andy probably had someone else piss.

The Crimes of Andy Warhol #6

“Whoever produces kitsch ... is not to be evaluated by esthetic measures but is ethically depraved; he is a criminal.”
Herman Broch, 1933

Crimes of Andy Warhol #5

Sean Scully on Warhol:

"It might be argued, however, that he was profound in his emptiness and he was profoundly attached to something in the culture that drives out all the content and all hope. He was profoundly attached to the dehumanization of the culture and embraced it and really became a part of it. He is like a blinking sign that says nothing except "I want to be famous."  The emptiness of it is stunning. It is that emptiness and the slickness of it that have appealed to so many other artists who follow him. In that sense he is like Duchamp. Duchamp made it possible for people who couldn't compete with the Van Goghs of this world, and the Matisses, and the Brancusis and the other great masters, he made it possible for them to be in the game as spoilers. Andy Warhol paraphrased this possibility in the 1960's and made it possible for people who understand the mechanisms of the media and the advertising world, and whose only ambition is to be famous, to do that. He offered a model upon which they can base their actions. He made it possible for a whole generation, and many generation of artists who follow him, to be understood. To my mind, it is the burden of art making that is so interesting. So I am absolutely the polar opposite of Warhol." - from an interview in 1999

Crimes Of Andy Warhol #4

Painted by Alice Neel

The Crimes of Andy Warhol #3

Damien Hirst and his "Diamond Skull"

Jeff Koons "Michael Jackson and Bubbles"

The Crimes Of Andy Warhol #2

The Crimes Of Andy Warhol #1

"Red Disaster"

Maybe ten years ago I saw this giant painting at the Boston MFA. I am pretty sure this was the picture but it is hard to tell all the Warhol "Art" apart. The crime is that at this huge scale there should at least be something interesting to view; you look, you get it and move on. There is nothing interesting in the paint nor anything interesting in the subject matter. Now you might say that is part of the point. And after you get the "points" what's left? Certainly nothing to look at. These are paintings that can and have been written about ad nauseam and have been very influential but really offer nothing visual any more then the stop sign that  poor car obviously ran through. Intellectual fodder and historical importance does not necessarily make great art.