Via FIU News
In this month's edition of FIU Campus Voices, Carol Damian, Director and Chief Curator of the Frost Art Museum at FIU reflects on Andy Warhol's legacy on the 25th anniversary of his death.
"Andy Warhol died 25 years ago today, February 22nd, at the age of 58 due to complications from gall bladder surgery. A painter, graphic artist and filmmaker who was once vilified as a charlatan and praised as an American visionary, he still remains the iconic representative of Pop Art in the United States and beyond.
A strange character with ghostly pale skin and a platinum wig, which he used to cover a receding hairline, Warhol was as cool as he was energetic. A self-promoter who became one of the wealthiest artists of the twentieth century, his work still commands record-breaking prices, Warhol was the image of consumer society in a celebrity-crazed environment that he made his own.
He began as a commercial artist, learning skills that would serve him throughout his career but received sudden notoriety in 1962 when he exhibited stenciled pictures of Campbell’s soup cans and Coca-Cola bottles.
The silk-screen process that he favored allowed for infinite reproductions and replications, dramatically in opposition to prevailing ideas of art as unique and an object of craftsmanship made for only a privileged few.
There is no doubt that Warhol changed the way we all look at art and consider art. No one asks the question, 'Is that Art?' because we know it is 'Pop Art.'
Pop Art is popular art; art for the common man with everyday subjects for everyday people.
His work was a commentary on the depersonalization and standardization of contemporary American society represented in monotonous repetitions of advertisements and commercials on billboards and television; one cannot help but wonder what he would say about Twitter.
When he 'retired' as an artist in 1965 to devote himself to films and his rock group, The Velvet Underground, he became a popular and recognizable “underground” director instead, creating a mythical element of his personality that attracted attention for many reasons, including voyeuristic concentrations on static scenes and sex.
His lifestyle, as provocative as his films, spiraled out of control until, in 1968, he was shot and severely wounded by a bit-part player, adding to his legendary status. He continued to paint and make prints and to use his advertising skills to promote what he considered beautiful in the banal, and what he knew best: himself."
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