11/17/10
Feeder 3.1
Andy Warhol: Fashionable Artistic Talents
“Art,” the famous artist Andy Warhol once observed, “is what you can get away with” (The New Criterion, 2009). This statement led me to further question Warhol’s credibility. After conducting further research as to whether this assertion could be proven true, I finally came to the realization that the successful, yet rather strange career of Warhol was in fact centered on this particular claim.
When first searching for an artist and without having any true educational background on the topic, I immediately chose Warhol as soon as I saw his first piece of artwork. I based my artist selection strictly on artwork style that appeared closest to my own liking; at first glance, Warhol’s art work and his contributions to art portrayed him as trendy and fashionable with an odd, artistic ability. Yet, once taking a closer look into the life of Andy Warhol, I quickly realized that my initial attraction to his artwork certainly did not mean that Warhol and I shared any internal qualities or similarities. With this assumption made, I continued my research to either validate or disprove Warhol’s rationalization of what really happens in the world of art. My thoughts regarding Warhol’s particular dissociation within his own art was magnified after learning that the renowned artist, filmmaker and writer actually had other people creating some of his work for him. It seemed as if Warhol initially engaged in an artistic process, but then removed himself from the art to see what would happen.
Dedicating his entire career to showing what happens in the world of art, Warhol managed to do so through many levels of art, including photography, graphic design, portraiture, multi- colored silk screen prints, screen tests, filmmaking and writing a novel. After learning about his many talents, I was stumped with yet another question – how does one man possess so many talents? After developing a better background on Warhol, my only logical answer to this question was that he accomplished all that he did because of his unique methodology for producing art. His evasive, quiet personality related back to the freeness of removing himself from the actual art itself. This answer helped develop my initial credibility regarding Warhol’s statement about the observance of art.
Although Warhol was often in the public eye and surrounded by celebrities, it was discovered that few people actually knew the real Andy Warhol or actually knew details about his personal life. In the 1980s, he made a series of Last Supper images that were devoted to the Catholic Church he attended; most people did not even know that Andy Warhol was religious, thus adding to his outwardly secretive and mysterious life. Even with his well-known status and great wealth, Warhol remained naïve and detached in a sense to those around him. Media devices, such as a camera and tape-recorder, allowed him to interact with people and the public more easily.
After learning about many of Andy Warhol’s strategies and personal characteristics, I realized that I had found the answer to whether his observance of art was truly accurate. Just by glancing at a few of Warhol’s funky paintings or color-reversed positive/negative Polaroids, a person with a minimal artistic background could even pick up on Warhol’s unique sense of style that outwardly appeals to people with different tastes. Through my hypothesis that questioned Warhol’s credibility and methods for producing his odd, yet eye-catching artwork, I was left with the simple answer that the observation previously declared by Andy Warhol was in fact exactly the way he viewed the intricate topic of “art.” With this being said, I think that the author of "The art world vs. the world of art" in The New Criterion would agree with my analysis that Andy Warhol’s existence within the art world and his unique works of art have paved the way for other artists to get away with so much more in terms of one being able to practice and embody their own ‘one of a kind’ style.
Works Cited
"The art world vs. the world of art." The New Criterion 28.4 (2009): 1-3. Art Full Text. Web. 17 Nov. 2010. http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com.libproxy.lib.unc.edu/hww/results/external_link_maincontentframe.jhtml?_DARGS=/hww/results/results_common.jhtml.43
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