Search Results (6)

In 1990, three years after Andy Warhol’s death and one year after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) organized the first one-man show of this pop artist in Eastern Europe. The Prints of Andy Warhol, although never shown at the MoMA in New York, traveled to the Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain in Jouy-en-Josas, France, the Národní Galerie in Prague, Czechoslovakia, the Staatliche Kunstsammlung in Dresden, the GDR, the Mücsarnok in Budapest, Hungary, and the Muzeum Narodowe in Warsaw, Poland. The current paper analyzes the cultural–political context of The Prints of Andy Warhol. It first discusses the place of both American pop art and Eastern Europe in MoMA’s International Program (IP) and then explores the organizational challenges, art historical contents, and public reception of the exhibition. The paper concludes by examining the broader impact of The Prints of Andy Warhol on both the growing awareness of American pop art in Eastern Europe and MoMA’s cultural diplomacy in this region after the fall of the Iron Curtain. Full article

In 1976, at the moment when the U.S. celebrated the 200th anniversary of the American Revolution, one of its prominent citizens, Pop artist Andy Warhol (1928–1987), enjoyed growing popularity. By turning from a Sixties underground artist into a truly mediated business persona, he inaugurated his Interview magazine, published several books, and began to receive hundreds of commissioned portraits from socialites, film and music stars, and celebrities. Even though some academic research sheds light on the history of the international circulation of Warhol’s oeuvre during the artist’s lifetime and after his death, nothing is still widely known about his contributions to the international celebrations of the U.S. Bicentennial. The current paper aims to fill in this research gap. It examines how and why Warhol’s painting Silver Liz was exhibited in 200 Years of American Painting organized by the U.S. government in Landesmuseum Bonn in 1976 as part of the international celebrations of the U.S. Bicentennial and explains how this show influenced both the artist’s international success and the U.S. Cultural Cold War strategy. Full article

Synthetic organic dyes were extensively used by artists in the first half of the 20th century, knowingly or otherwise. This included Andy Warhol and his À la Recherche du Shoe Perdu (c. 1955), a major portfolio of hand-colored prints, a copy of which resides in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). Warhol and his friends were known to use Dr. Ph. Martin’s Synchromatic Transparent Water Colors to bring these prints to life. A historical set of Synchromatic Transparent Watercolors were initially investigated by UV-visible spectroscopy, and samples from the historic set were also characterized by µ-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy for fingerprint identification. To better elucidate the nature of the mixtures present, thin-layer chromatography was coupled with surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy to separate the components of all colorants in the set. The dyes decisively identified include Acid Red 73, Acid Red 87, Acid Red 17, Acid Red 103, Basic Red 1, Acid Orange 7, Acid Yellow 23, Acid Green 1, Basic Green 4, Acid Blue 3, Acid Blue 93, Basic Violet 3, Basic Violet 10, Basic Violet 17, and Acid Black 2. Overall, Acid Blue 3, along with Acid Orange 7 and Acid Black 2, were found in the greatest number of dyes in the Dr. Ph. Martin’s set. Data from the historic set was subsequently used for direct comparison with reflectance spectra from the Warhol portfolio using principal component analysis. Microfade testing on a Synchromatic Transparent Watercolors brochure was also conducted to identify fugitive colorants, the results of which were extrapolated to each of the prints in the Warhol portfolio. The analysis provided further insight into the dyes used in À la Recherche du Shoe Perdu and confirmed the extreme light sensitivity of some colorants and the fastness of others. Full article

For its enthusiasts, the blockchain is an archivist’s dream come true: an immutable historical record that is publicly accessible and immune from censorship. Distributed file systems such as IPFS aim to store creative works in a redundant, networked fashion outside the control of any single cloud provider. Projects designed to work with blockchains such as Filecoin and Arweave propose a dedicated cryptocurrency as financial incentive to support the cost of governing and sustaining this “permaweb”. As dreamy as this picture sounds, many of these promises depend on technologies that have yet to be sufficiently developed or adopted. Rather than forecast the future, we can separate the hype from the reality in the present day by examining a real-life example, namely the 2021 auction of Andy Warhol’s digital art with NFTs. This essay focuses less on blockchain’s general promise as a preservation medium and more on the particular case of the digital Warhols, which both in form and spirit would seem a perfect application of NFTs to preserve historically important works of digital art. Which promises of the crypto-dream of permanent access to digital heritage ring true for this case study, and which are overblown? Full article

Jim Harvey was the artist who created the Brillo box that Andy Warhol copied and made famous. Warhol’s Brillo Boxes changed the course of art history and the entire field of aesthetics and the philosophy of art. Meanwhile, Jim Harvey died a failed second-generation Abstract Expressionist. To his death, Harvey refused to accept that his Brillo box was a work of art. However, the theory—the story—that was woven about Warhol’s Brillo Boxes transformed them from commonplace objects into multimillion-dollar masterpieces. As a counterbalance, this article appeals to narrative theology as a way to tell Jim Harvey’s story. Appealing to narrative theologian James McClendon’s notion that a biography can reveal an image—a metaphor—that serves as a prism through which that individual’s life can be seen and understood, this article suggests that the defining metaphor of Jim’s life was “artists are prophets”. Importantly, this essay is not an attempt to redeem Harvey’s artistry, although it may provoke a reconsideration of his work. Rather, it is an exploration of the tragic and luminous life of a beautiful failure. Full article

This work presents strategic multi-analytical investigations performed on “Orange Car Crash” by Andy Warhol in order to make a well-informed conservation decision. For determining the type of binding medium used in the artwork, Pyrolysis–Gas Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry (Py–GC/MS) and Thermally Assisted Hydrolysis and Methylation of GC/MS (THM–GC/MS) were employed. The presence of a coating was investigated by Py–GC/MS. Moreover, the comprehension and elucidation of the paint stratigraphy were studied by examining cross-sections of samples taken from both canvases with Optical Microscopy (OM) under reflected visible (Vis) and ultraviolet light (UV) and by Scanning Electron Microscopy with Energy Dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM–EDX). The investigation of possible synthetic organic pigments (SOPs) and extenders was performed by µ-Raman spectroscopy, while micro-Attenuated Total Reflection of Fourier-Transform Attenuated Total Reflection (µ-ATR–FTIR) allowed us to assign each component detected by Py–GC/MS or THM–GC/MS to a specific layer. The data collected from “Orange Car Crash” show mostly the application of acrylic-based paint as well as alkyd with rosin acids-based ink, thus providing fundamental information about the paint stratigraphy and chemical composition of each layer. In addition to the goal of informing an appropriate conservation–restoration strategy, this work represents a rare scientific study of a work by Andy Warhol. Full article