February Issue 2001
Andy Warhol Exhibition Opening Feb. 4 at Weatherspoon Art Gallery in Greensboro
"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)
A retrospective of prints by the late Pop Art
great, Andy Warhol, opens at the Weatherspoon Art Gallery Sunday,
Feb. 4.
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 include 70 prints and print series, making
it one of the largest exhibitions of the artist's work ever seen
in the southeast.
Thomas Sokolowski , director of The Andy Warhol Museum, will deliver the opening lecture at 2 p.m., followed by a public reception. To mark the significance of this rare event, the Weatherspoon has planned an extravaganza of related exhibitions and programs which started in January, and will extend well into April.
The Warhol Project, an exhibition by Deborah Kass, showcases the New York City artist's use of Warhol's style to explore gender, ethnicity and sexual identity. A third exhibition, Pop from the Permanent, features works from the permanent collection by other artists who made an impact on the Pop Art movement. The concurrent exhibitions will provide an overview of the history, development and significance of Pop Art.
Special programs will include a series of films by and about Warhol, a symposium featuring Deborah Kass and UNCG faculty at 7 p.m., March 21, hands-on family workshops, and special Sunday and noontime tours and talks. A web site, gallery guides and curriculum packets for teachers will be developed. As always at the Weatherspoon, all exhibitions and events are free except for a small fee for Saturday workshops.
"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."
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.
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; heiress and actress Edie Sedgwick; German model and singer Nico; singer-songwriter Lou Reed and other members of the 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 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 he named 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.
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