Subject | Matter : Warhol Double Take

Self Portrait, 1986, The Modern Museum of Fort Worth

Looking back at my post from the Warhol exhibit opening last year at the Rose Art Museum, I was surprised to see how little of the show I captured. Although due in part to my unfamiliarity with the artist, I think the real reason I refused to delve into Warhol's work was because I couldn't see anything more than surface matter. I never liked Warhol, no matter how much I was faced with his work. I found it garish, popular, over-priced, and steeped in luxury and extravagance--the kind of art that I avoid.

It wasn't until I took on a Warhol project that I began to see more than the silver fright wig and the gauzy celebrity portraits. To discover meaning in his work, it took more for me than simply looking, and that's exactly what he didn't want anyone to do. It's been said before that Warhol is someone who hid in the limelight, and it's true. Warhol made sure to construct a facade as distracting and captivating as could be, something that reflected a flattering mirror onto a society, a sort of Dorian Gray reversal. 

"It's been said before that Warhol is someone who hid in the limelight, and it's true."

I recently read a discussion dialogue between several Warhol scholars and came upon a section where they were talking about Warhol's Interview magazine. Started by Warhol in 1969, the magazine is at once a tribute and exploitation of the time's most glamorous celebrities. As Benjamin Buchloh argues, Interview cannot be read like reportorial magazines. It doesn't discuss current politics, or social issues, or other news. The people who appeared on the cover appeared as an "affirmation of the rich, the powerful, and the glorious, which says that the picture has no meaning, the personality doesn't stand for anything. The personalities are just another type of subject matter." [1]

What has always bothered me the most about Warhol's work is that it makes me painfully aware of the fact that I am participating in something superficial. Warhol used repetition and beauty, and it lured viewers in. It lures me in too, even if I try to deny it. Last year at the opening of Image Machine: Andy Warhol And Photography, I reveled in the aura that Warhol's world creates. I soaked in the the bright colors, museum mood lighting, and the images of famous people I didn't really know. I drank the Kool Aid, and liked it. Then I walked away none the wiser. Is it possible to disassociate with the subject matter? Not really. If I'm not feeling uncomfortable, I kind of feel like I'm missing something crucial about it.  

I hesitate to make this deeper than Warhol ever intended, because I think, in part, Warhol subscribed to the surface world. But I think it would also be a loss to ignore what lies beneath.  


[1] Discussion with Gary Garrels, Benjamin Buchloh, Trevor Fairbrother, Rainer Crone, and Nan Rosenthal, in The Work of Andy Warhol, (Seattle: Bay Press, 1989), pp. 125-139.

Categories: Andy Warhol