Feature Articles


February Issue 2001

Weatherspoon Art Gallery in Greensboro, NC, Features Andy Warhol Related Exhibitions

"Pop Art is for everyone. I don't think art should be for the select few, I think it
should be for the mass of American people, and they usually accept art anyway. I
think Pop Art is a legitimate form of art like any other, Impressionism, etc. It's not
just a put-on, I'm not the High Priest of Pop Art, I'm just one of the workers in it."
- Andy Warhol, (1928-1987)

Pop Art will take center stage at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro this spring, when an exhibition of prints and films by Andy Warhol opens in the Weatherspoon Art Gallery.

On loan by special arrangement from The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, PA, The Prints of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again) is to be one of the largest exhibitions of the artist's work ever seen in the southeast. The exhibition will be on view from Feb. 4 through Apr. 22.

Through his paintings, underground movies and personal life, Andy Warhol came to personify Pop Art more any other artist in the public imagination. The scope of his work was enormous, ranging from painting, drawing and printmaking to film and video. Printmaking, however, with its capacity for infinite reproduction as well as manipulation, was at the heart of Warhol's work.

Among the 70 Warhol prints on display will be some of his most well known, including his repetitious renderings of Campbell's Soup cans, dollar bills, camouflage, cows, Marilyn Monroe, Muhammad Ali, Elizabeth Taylor, Mick Jagger and other celebrities.

To mark the significance of this rare event, the Weatherspoon has planned an extravaganza of related exhibitions and programs beginning in January, and extending well into April.

The Warhol Project, an exhibition by Deborah Kass, opens Jan. 28, showcasing the New York City artist's use of Warhol's style to explore gender, ethnicity and sexual identity. This exhibition continues through Apr. 8. A third exhibition, Pop from the Permanent, Jan. 14 through Apr. 15, features works from the permanent collection by other artists who influenced Warhol and made an impact on the Pop Art movement, including those by Roy Lichtenstein, Tom Wesselman, Jim Dine, Robert Rauschenberg and Alan D'Arcangelo. The concurrent exhibitions will provide an overview of the history, development and significance of Pop Art.

"The Weatherspoon Art Gallery is very pleased for this opportunity to present a trio of exhibitions of such popular interest and artistic importance," said Nancy Doll, director. "Warhol is clearly one of the most significant artists of the last fifty years, and his influence on art and popular culture can't be overstated." (For information about the director and curators at the Weatherspoon, take this link.)

Special programs will include a series of films by and about Warhol, a panel discussion featuring UNCG faculty and Deborah Kass, a lecture by the director of The Andy Warhol Museum, and special Sunday tours. A web site, gallery guides and curriculum packets for teachers will be developed.

All events and exhibitions are open to the public, and are part of the "ArtSmart" series at UNCG this year - a year-long program to highlight the role of the arts in American society.

Andy Warhol earned fame and notoriety in his lifetime, both for his art and for the company he kept. Among his cohorts were the female impersonator, Candy Darling, the German model and actress, Nico, heiress and actress Edie Sedgwick, singer Lou Reed and his band, The Velvet Underground.

Schooled in commercial art at Carnegie Institute of Technology, the Pittsburgh native relocated to New York City in the late 1940s, determined to become a celebrity artist. By the 1960s, his ambition had been fulfilled, when his multiple images of Campbell's Soup cans created an art world sensation. Repetition became Warhol's signature style, with his work continuing to reflect and comment upon a culture of mass-production. In the process, he continually blurred the lines between art and the everyday, forcing viewers to see and think about the brash, commercial landscape of America in a new light.

Though he is best known for his paintings and prints, Warhol worked in an array of mediums. His New York studio, which came to be known as The Factory, became fertile ground for his myriad collaborations with multiple artists. Photography, film and video, music and prints emerged from The Factory over the decades, elaborating upon this prolific artist's life-long fascination with popular culture, mechanization and celebrity.

For further information check our NC Institutional Gallery listings or call 336/334-5770, or check out their web site at (http://www.weatherspoon.uncg.edu).

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