The artistic path of one of the most renowned 20th century's artists
September 25, 2006
"What you should do is get a box for a month, and drop everything in it and at the end of the month lock it up. Then date it and send it over to Jersey". A. Warhol, The philosophy of Andy Warhol: From A to B and back again, London, 1975. There is something magical in the opening of a new space, especially if this is a place given back to a city and its citizens. This was the sensation EVERS felt at this year's event, "re-opening" an historical building (for the first time). ITS#FIVE moved this year to a brand new venue, the old fish market, settled in the heart of the city, and was the first event after the re-qualification of the building. Guests and press attending at the event also had the chance to take a peek at the upcoming first exhibition organized in this space, Andy Warhol's Timeboxes. |
This simple space-sharing with something connected to such a known and loved artist as Warhol gave an additional chill .... Warhol's name is probably one of the most known in contemporary art, to experts and novice alike, mostly because of the pop(ular) appeal of his creations (don't forgetting the massive merchandising machine), and the successful intuition to elevate everyday objects to become pieces of art. In this exhibition the attention is focused on the so called Time Capsules, a sort of set of archives that Warhol set up through various decades in his life, collecting a wide variety of items which were part of his existence in different ways; in the end he archived over 600 of these "brown magic boxes". (He said he was "always looking for that five-dollar object that's really worth millions.") |
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Somehow the goal of this serial classification was an attempt to systematically sort the hectic progress of life, both at society and individual level. In Trieste the exhibition curators created six "timeboxes"; a sort of small cardboard houses filled with a selection of objects coming from Warhol's own Capsules. Inside the set the curators prepared all the items are protected by thick windows, and this sometimes makes the appreciation of the collections a little harder, often regarding small detailed tiny objects. An interesting aspect of this exhibit is the simultaneous presence of Warhol unique creations together with mass production articles, giving strength to the absolution of any border line between "high" and "low" profiled art, which was one of the basic concepts of Pop art. This idea has on the other side a little puzzling result on the viewer, resulting in a (desired?) confusion between the artist production and the serial objects, especially because of the not really precise and informative notes. 
From 1950's England this movement moved and rooted itself in the sixties in New York, introducing to a wide audience new languages and expressive forms such as collage, advertising-influenced photography, serigraphy and video making ....
Warhol challenged himself in everyone of these medias: choosing his subjects from consumer society on one side and show biz icons on the other, alternating known figures and ordinary objects (the renowned soup can, washing powder boxes), giving form to record covers of popular musicians and bands (Rolling Stones, Aretha Franklin, John Cale Debbie Harry and many more) and shooting in some of his videos young unknown artist-wannabees (or occasional Factory* visitors) as well as celebrated personalities, both simply standing in front of a camera in continuous shots and monologues.Cataloguing, the attempt to give a form of registration to depict reality has been present in Warhol mind since his childhood, when he started collecting pictures of immigrant families in scrapbooks (his family, whose original last name was Wharola, came from Czechoslovakia). His latter scrapbooks seem to reprise this ancient wish, substituting unfamiliar faces with celebrities form different fields, and being portrayed in Warhol's stylized series finally became a very requested honour. The progress of his art forms later took a turn toward multi-media expressions and Warhol went from the successful publication of a magazine (Interview) to an unlucky cable TV project (Warhol Tv, 1978). It is very fascinating to discover the idea and the attitudes of an artist who was able to express himself in such different forms, stealing manners and methods from the "consumistic social environment" and transforming them in new inputs on one hand, but on the other so aware of history and fundamentals of art history to apply his talent to religious painting and to the revisiting classical masters' artworks in the last years of his career. The melting of all the influences into one charismatic character might be the explanation of his worldwide lasting success, and the key to understand why a collection of things we are used to see everyday, like the ones collected in Trieste exhibition, might lead to a totally different point of view when filtered by a different vision. * The Factory was Andy Warhol's original New York studio from 1963 to 1968, although his later studios were known as The Factory as well. The Factory was located on the fifth floor at 231 East 47th Street, New York. |
