10 things that made Andy Warhol's provocative genius an outstanding artist

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Today Andy Warhol is a famous American artist, designer, sculptor, producer, director, writer, and magazine publisher. Called the founder of the homouniversale ideology and the provocative genius, he is the author of works that have become synonymous with commercial pop art. Andy Warhol made art available to the general public, so that people learn to see the beauty of everyday things and understand that everything that surrounds them is beautiful in its essence.

Warhol's paintings are so mysterious due to the fact that his life is a complete mystery. The further you dig into his biography, the more you realize that you knew nothing about this artist. Here are ten examples that further blur the line between life and art of Andy Warhol.

1. He knew how to turn trash into objects of art

Surely, the notorious Plyushkin would have envied Warhol. The artist literally preserved everything that passed through his workshop. His studio was dominated by mountains of newspaper clippings, art supplies and materials, posters, audiotapes, photographs, books and magazines, decorative arts and, of course, his famous wigs.

But what specific amount of "legacy" are we talking about? The Warhol Museum estimates that its collection contains over 230 cubic meters of material, or over 500,000 items. Only about 4,000 audiocassettes have survived. In addition, there are "time capsules" that Warhol began making in 1974. Today there are over 600 of these mini-archives containing films, letters, invitations and more. With an inventory of 100 objects a day, it would take over 13 years to disassemble an artist's entire collection.

2. Poking in the nose

Warhol has attracted attention since his student days. While studying at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1949, he first painted a picture of a man picking his nose, and presented it in an exhibition. The jury clearly did not appreciate this work.

Renamed “Don't Choose Me,” this picture gained attention as part of next year's student show. Subsequently, Warhol created a whole series of "Poking in the Nose."

3. Mama's son

Warhol's mother was the most influential in his youth. Julia Zavatskaya was born in Czechoslovakia and emigrated to the States with her husband Andrei Warhol. From early childhood, Julia introduced her three sons to art, including music, dance and painting.

At the age of six, Andy contracted Sindegam's chorea, also known as St. Vitus's Dance. A rare disease of the nervous system confined the child to bed for several months. It was then that his mother first began to teach him to draw. Interest in art was fueled by the brothers, who brought comics and photographs of Hollywood celebrities to Andy (the boy treasured his autograph Shirley Temple very much).

When Andy was 9 years old, his mother gave him his first camera. The boy became interested in photography and equipped a photo lab in the basement of their house. When he first entered the commercial art scene in New York, Andy's early projects were most strongly supported by his mother.

4. Screen tests

Few people know about this, but in 1963-1968, Warhol shot several hundred films. For example, in the 1963 film "Sleep", a sleeping guy (John Giorno, who was Warhol's lover at the time) is shown for 5, 5 hours. In the 1964 film Empire, the Empire State Building in New York is shown in slow motion for 8 hours. Only the underground film Chelsea Girls of 1966, co-authored with Paul Morrissey, gained at least some commercial success.

Less well known are the 472 four-minute screen tests that Warhol began filming in 1964. It was essentially his celluloid equivalent to canvas portraiture. Most of these short films have captured everyone who surrounded Warhol. Most of these people remain anonymous, but some are hard to recognize - Bob Dylan, Salvador Dali and Lou Reed.

5. Recording industry

Warhol's two album covers are remembered for decades. The cover of the debut album Velvet Underground & Nico in 1967 featured a peelable banana (peel) and the cover of the Sticky Fingers album of the Rolling Stones in 1971 featured a real zip fastener.

Warhol started doing the earliest cover designs back in the 1950s. Warhol's distinctive blotting technique has literally captivated advertisers and magazine editors.

6. Rock star

According to Warhol's assistant Paul Morrissey, Warhol became a rock manager when he was approached by a Broadway producer. The impresario was planning to open a dance club in an abandoned airplane hangar in Queens, and he wanted to involve a famous artist in this. Morrissey suggested starting his own band, so Warhol went shopping. He met Lou Reed at a Café Bizarre concert and signed with his manager in late 1965. As a result, the club was never opened, but the album “Velvet Underground & Nico” was born.

Nearly 20 years later, Warhol directed his first rock video, directing the hit Cars "Hello Again" in 1984. Warhol himself appeared in the video as a bartender.

7. Dealing with endangered species

A series of ten paintings created by Warhol in 1983 is rarely mentioned. This could hardly be called classical art: images of an African elephant, bald eagle, ram, black rhinoceros, Grevy's zebra, giant panda, orangutan, Anderson's tree frog, the Silver Spot of San Francisco butterfly and the Siberian tiger.

8. Flirting with everyone

It often seems that Warhol was struggling to please everyone and everything. He was something like Bob Dylan in the visual arts world. He seemed to love attention, but deliberately avoided understanding.

In an interview with Cavalier magazine in 1966, Warhol was asked what his art meant to him. Warhol simply replied, “Oh, I don't know. I just drew to please. It gives me a sense of my own worth."

In a 1966 video interview, Warhol appeared in a biker outfit, a black leather jacket and dark glasses. Behind him hung a portrait of Elvis, and to the left was a canvas of Campbell's soup. At some point, the interviewer asked again: "Let me ask you a few questions that you can answer." Warhol, suggesting that the reporter would also give him answers, said, "Repeat the answers too."

Even when asked how he liked the wrestling match, Warhol got off with general phrases like: “I was speechless”, “It's so exciting, I just don't know what to say” and “This is the best thing I've ever seen in all his life”, leaving the audience bewildered if he even bothered to watch the match.

9. He is credited with things that he did not create

While Warhol is one of the most photographed and touted artists of the 20th century, he is probably the most cited. Most of the quotes are taken from his book The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (A to B and Back). The most curious thing is that Warhol did not actually write this book.

10. The art of creating your own image

The image meant everything to Warhol, and this also applied to his appearance. Warhol's love of art led to his zealous self-control. Today, there is no longer any doubt that the artist manipulated the way the world saw him.

Warhol has been embarrassed by his skin blemishes since early childhood. He also never liked his nose. In the 1950s, he decided to undergo plastic surgery to reshape his nose. He also used cosmetics and collagen treatments all his life. And, of course, we must not forget his legendary, signature brown wig with tints of gray on the sides and front.