I am a deeply superficial person. Sound

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ANDY WARHOL

• I am a deeply superficial person.
• Sound track http//www.youtube.com/watch?vn_bO7t
  RJRs0

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Key biographical details

• 1928 born Andrew Warhola in Pittsburgh
• Father was a miner
• 1940s studied commercial art at Carnegie
  Institute of Technology
• 1949 - Moved to New York
• 1950s Commercial artist (advertising)
• 1960s 1st exhibitions, fame, established the
  factory, made experimental films (many very long,
  improvised dialogue, no plot)
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vjaf6zF-FJBkfeature
  related

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• Published books e.g. The Philosophy of Andy
  Warhol and America
• Published the magazine Interview
• Managed a band The Velvet Underground.
• 1968 was shot in the factory by Valerie Solanas,
  a radical feminist who founded S.C.U.M
• 1970s did celebrity portraits
• 1987 died in his sleep after an operation
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vVn6sE0kcPaI

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Warhol the Factory

• Warhol was theboss
• Assistants (like Robert Malanga in pic right)
  collaborated in the making of works
• Mass production of art influenced by Duchamps
  ready made
• He became the highest paid commercial artist,
  earning more than 3 million per painting
• Eccentric group of superstars who would feature
  in his art films

How would the use of a factory / assistants
challenge notions of high art?
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An insight into Warhols personality and
relationshipsas presented in the film Factory
Girl

• Edie Sedgwick, a model became one of the Warhol
  superstars, and appeared in a number of his
  films.
• CLIPS FROM FACTORY GIRL
• Scene 5 Warhol in The Factory
• Scene 6 Warhol Edie in France
• Scene 12 Edie meets Warhols mother
• Scene 15 Edie confronts Warhol
• Scene 17 last few minutes show Warhols final
  words about her.

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Warhols interests / subjects

• Consumerism mass production
• Celebrity, glamour
• Warhol had an ambivalent attitude his works seem
  to both celebrate and denounce the culture of
  consumerism, celebrity
• Death disaster Everything I do it connected
  with death. Following his shooting he had a
  heightened sense of mortality.
• Commodification of art
• Nature of art, ie What is art?

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Said by Warhol

• "I love Los Angeles. I love Hollywood. They're so
  beautiful. Everything's plastic, but I love
  plastic. I want to be plastic.
• If one thing is good, isnt one hundred of them
  even better?
• The reason Im painting this way is that I want
  to be a machine

What do these quotes show you about the public
face that Warhol wanted to present?
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Marilyn Diptych 1962Acrylic Silkscreen on
canvas, 208 x 145 cm
Photo from Niagara
The reason Im painting this way is that I want
to be a machine.
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Elvis I and II

• How is this work similar to the previous work?

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Campbells Soup Can 1 196891 x 61 cm

• I started painting Campbells soup because I
  used to drink it. I used to have the same lunch
  everyday, for twenty years, the same thing over
  and over again.
• Its just too hard to think.
• How is this image different from a real soup tin?

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Warhol on Mass Production

• If one thing is good, isnt one hundred of them
  even better? (Warhol)
• Shows no personality, no aesthetic judgement.
  This is an commonplace arrangement, not a
  composition.
• Mimics products on a supermarket shelf sense of
  excess
• Is boring boredom seen as a social symptom
• How did Warhols technique reflect his interest
  in this?

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Green Coca Cola Bottles 1962

• How does this subject fulfil Warhols aims?
• What is machine like about the work?
• This work is 2m x 1.4m how does this challenge
  the notion of high art?

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Warhol on Coca Cola

• What's great about this country is that America
  started the tradition where the richest consumers
  buy essentially the same things as the poorest.
• You can be watching TV and see Coca Cola, and you
  know that the President drinks Coca Cola, Liz
  Taylor drinks Coca Cola, and just think, you can
  drink Coca Cola, too.
• A coke is a coke and no amount of money can get
  you a better coke than the one the bum on the
  corner is drinking. All the cokes are the same
  and all the cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it,
  the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you
  know it.

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Brillo Box 1964

• Wooden boxes
• Silk screen printing
• Avoids attractive, slick advertisting
• Celebration of the banal, everyday
• Whats inside them? what does that suggest
  about the culture?
• Which of Warhols aims are fulfilled by this
  work?
• How can we tell it is a work of art and not a
  carton?

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Two Dollar Bills (front and rear)

• What is the subject of this art work?
• What kind of IDEAS do you think Warhol is trying
  to communicate?
• In what way does the STYLE of the work conform to
  Pop Art aims?

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Two Dollar Bill (Front and Back),

• Shows the idea of art as commodity.
• engaged in the ongoing debate in New York between
  high and low art
• This elevated the most base subject matter into
  the realms of high art.Warhol wanted to
  manipulate the dollar bill and reproduce it in
  various and multiple ways in a grid format he
  realized that his method of cutting a stencil or
  carving an eraser (as was done for his postage
  and trading stamps) was too difficult and
  tedious.
• Because reproducing a photograph of a dollar bill
  would constitute forgery, Warhol made a screen
  from a drawing of a bill.
• Info from Christies catalogue on Two Dollar
  Bills (sold for US352,000)

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Red Race Riot / Saturday Disaster
desensitisation
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Media reality

• Warhol was interested in representation how the
  media (film, TV, newspapers) are considered to be
  true to life when in fact they are
  intermediaries between the viewer and reality.
• Photos tend to order and control our perception
  of reality

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White Car Crash 19 times(1963)

• Warhol said once, Everything I do is connected
  to death.
• Does the multiplication of images makes the
  images more terrifying or do they lose their
  terror ?

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129 DIE (1962)

• Source - What kinds of newspapers use this style
  font and front page?
• How does this work fit Warhols aims?
• What message does it give us about reality and
  the media?

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129 DIE (1962)

• From a tabloid newspaper
• Shows how the media has triumphed over empirical
  reality as the authentic truth
• The reality of a violent plane crash has been
  reduced to an aesthetic arrangement of capital
  letters and a photographic image.
• Heightens our awareness that true reality is
  secondary to painting.
• Warhol reminds us that so much of our
  experience/perception of reality is second hand.

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Do-it-yourself Flowers 1962

• In what ways is this work typical of Warhols
  aims and ideas?

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Summary create a mind map for Andy Warhols art

• 1. Identify 4 main types of sources for Warhols
  imagery. (ie where did the images come from?)
• 2. Describe 4 typical stylistic features of
  Warhols work (consider colour, composition,
  treatment of form, use of text, etc)
• 3. Name 4 Iconographic motifs used in his art
• 4. Explain 4 main Pop art aims or ideas in
  Warhols work

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Style comparison question

• Compare Warhols work
• Jacqueline Kennedy (Jackie III) II.15,
  1966Screenprint on Paper, 40" x 30" To
  Lichtensteins Drowning Girl, 1963 Oil and
  synthetic polymer paint on canvas, 67 x 66"

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3.1 STYLE QUESTION

• (i) Identify three key stylistic differences
  between these two paintings
• (ii) Explain the reasons for the differences
  between the two paintings by relating them to
  each the aims, interests and methods of each
  artist and those of Pop artists in general.

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Set up your answer like this

• Brief intro name 2 works and 3 main areas of
  difference
• Para 1 The first main difference is(For A)
• Para 2 The second difference is(For A)
• Para 3 Thirdly, the works contrast because
  (For A)
• Para 4 The reasons for the difference can be
  linked to Warhol and Lichtensteins differing
  interests. Lichtenstein aimed to. (Relate to
  artists aims for M)
• Para 5 Warhol, on the other hand, was
  interested in(Relate to artists aims for M)
• Para 6 Both artists were strongly influenced
  by America in the 1960s. (Comprehensively
  relate ideas to context for E)