The Case For Andy Warhol | The Art Assignment | PBS Digital Studios

The Art Assignment

28 May 201503:41

Summary

TLDRThis video delves into the significance of Andy Warhol's work, exploring his journey from a sickly child in Pittsburgh to a commercial illustrator and pop art icon. It highlights Warhol's innovative techniques, like silk screening, and his focus on consumer culture, fame, and commercialization. Warhol's role as a businessman, filmmaker, and brand is discussed, along with his influence on contemporary artists. The video underscores how Warhol's art reflected and shaped the mass production and celebrity-obsessed culture of the 20th century, making him a pivotal figure in modern art.

Takeaways

🎨 Andy Warhol, originally Andrew Warhola, was born in Pittsburgh to Slovakian immigrant parents and grew up sickly, spending time drawing at home.
🏙️ He moved to New York after graduating from Carnegie Tech in 1949, where he quickly became successful as a commercial illustrator.
🖌️ Warhol developed a technique of tracing and copying images, showing early signs of his interest in automation and using others to help create his art.
🍵 He transitioned to the fine art world by making art based on advertisements, creating iconic works like Coca Cola bottles, S&H Green Stamps, and Campbell's soup cans, which became central to pop art.
📦 His art reflected postwar American consumer culture and the mass production of goods, commenting on the abundance of products available to both rich and poor alike.
🖼️ Warhol began using silk screening to speed up production and established a 'factory' where he worked with assistants to mass-produce his art.
🌟 Warhol's work with celebrity portraits, often reproducing images from media, critiqued the commodification of fame and highlighted recurring themes like money, disaster, death, and self-portraits.
🇺🇸 His art was deeply reflective of American culture, particularly its obsession with fame, commercialization, and uniformity during the 20th century.
💼 Warhol was a shrewd businessman, forming Andy Warhol Enterprises in 1957 and continuing to create commissioned portraits, earning $25,000 for each.
🎥 Besides being an artist, Warhol explored other media, including filmmaking, managing a band, publishing magazines, and producing TV shows, always embracing innovation and new media.

Q & A

Who was Andy Warhol before becoming famous?
-Andy Warhol was born as Andrew Warhola in Pittsburgh to Slovakian immigrant parents. He grew up sickly and spent much of his time drawing with his mom before moving to New York after graduating from Carnegie Tech in 1949.
What role did automation play in Warhol's work?
-Automation was a key element in Warhol's process. He embraced techniques that allowed others or mechanical processes to help produce his art. Early on, he developed a blotted line technique that relied on tracing and copying images, foreshadowing his later use of silkscreening and assistants in his Factory to mass-produce art.
How did Warhol transition from commercial art to fine art?
-Warhol began as a successful commercial illustrator, but sought to break into fine art by choosing subject matter aligned with pop art. He began making paintings of everyday consumer products, such as Coca-Cola bottles, S&H Green Stamps, and Campbell's soup cans, which reflected American mass culture.
Why did Warhol focus on consumer products like Coca-Cola and Campbell's soup cans?
-Warhol saw consumer products as a universal language that everyone, from the richest to the poorest, could understand. He celebrated the sheer abundance of products, reflecting America's postwar consumer culture.
What significance does Warhol’s use of silk screening have in his art?
-Warhol's adoption of silk screening allowed him to speed up his production process and make art more mechanically, reinforcing his interest in automation. This technique allowed for the creation of multiple identical or nearly identical works, paralleling mass production.
What subjects frequently appeared in Warhol's artwork?
-Recurring subjects in Warhol’s work included shoes, products, money, celebrities, rich people, disasters, death, and himself. These themes reflected his commentary on the culture of fame, wealth, and mass consumption in postwar America.
How did Warhol's art reflect American culture?
-Warhol's art mirrored the growing commercialization and uniformity of American life, highlighting the country's obsession with fame and consumer goods. His work is often seen as a reflection of 20th-century American culture, particularly in the context of the postwar economic boom.
How did Warhol’s business savvy influence his art career?
-Warhol was an astute businessman who formed his first corporate entity, Andy Warhol Enterprises, in 1957. He accepted commissioned portraits and marketed himself as a brand, understanding the commercial potential of art in a market-driven economy.
How did Warhol contribute to contemporary media and other fields outside of traditional art?
-In addition to being a visual artist, Warhol was a filmmaker, band manager, magazine publisher, and TV producer. He embraced new media and was always exploring innovative ways to express his art and ideas.
Why is Warhol's work considered prophetic?
-Warhol’s work predicted the merging of art and commerce, revealing the relationship between the two. By openly embracing this dynamic, Warhol paved the way for future artists, such as Jeff Koons and Shepard Fairey, to explore similar themes without fear of being labeled 'sellouts.'

Outlines

00:00

🎨 Andy Warhol's Early Life and Artistic Roots

The narrator introduces Andy Warhol, discussing his early life as Andrew Warhola, born to Slovakian immigrants in Pittsburgh. Warhol grew up sickly, spending time drawing with his mother, and eventually moved to New York after graduating from Carnegie Tech in 1949. There, he achieved early success as a commercial illustrator, developing a unique style that involved tracing and copying images, which foreshadowed his interest in automation and using other processes to assist his art.

🖼️ Warhol's Shift from Commercial Art to Pop Art

Warhol transitioned from creating art for advertisements to turning advertisements into art. He began focusing on iconic commercial products like Coca-Cola, S&H green stamps, and Campbell's soup cans. His work reflected the emerging pop art movement and American consumer culture, emphasizing the shared experiences between the rich and poor through common products. Warhol believed that the significance lay not in the individual items, but in the mass-produced abundance they represented.

🖌️ Warhol’s Innovative Techniques and Factory

Warhol initially used rubber stamps and stencils but later embraced silk screening to speed up production. This led to the creation of his famous 'Factory,' where he worked with assistants to mass-produce his art. His fascination with celebrity culture was evident in his portraits of famous individuals, where he often used publicity images and media sources to comment on the commodification of fame.

🔁 Recurring Themes in Warhol’s Work

Warhol's work often featured recurring subjects such as shoes, products, money, celebrities, and death. These themes not only reflected Warhol’s personal obsessions but also provided a deeper commentary on American culture during the 20th century. His art critiqued the commercialization and uniformity of American life, making his work significant in documenting the cultural shifts of the time.

💼 Warhol as a Businessman and Brand

Warhol's business acumen was central to his success. In 1957, he formed Andy Warhol Enterprises and continued to work on commissioned portraits, which became a substantial part of his income by the 1970s. Warhol cleverly marketed himself, creating self-portraits and endorsing products. His ability to turn his own image into a commodity highlighted his understanding of the art market and his role within it.

🎥 Warhol’s Diverse Artistic Ventures

Beyond visual art, Warhol expanded into filmmaking, music management, magazine publishing, and television production. His willingness to embrace new media from the 1950s until his death in 1987 demonstrated his versatility and forward-thinking approach. Like modern celebrities, he understood the importance of branding and became a globally recognized figure.

💡 Warhol’s Legacy in Modern Art

The narrator discusses the lasting impact of Warhol’s work, noting that his art blurred the line between commerce and creativity. Critics debated whether Warhol was shaped by consumer culture or helped shape it, but his influence is undeniable. By exposing the relationship between art and commerce, Warhol opened the door for future artists like Jeff Koons and Shepard Fairey, making him a prophetic figure in contemporary art.

Mindmap

Keywords

💡Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol was a prominent American artist known for his role in the Pop Art movement. The video introduces him as someone famous for his depictions of everyday commercial items, such as soup cans, and highlights his transformation into an influential figure in contemporary art. His work reflects broader cultural themes, such as consumerism and celebrity.

💡Pop Art

Pop Art is an art movement that emerged in the mid-20th century, characterized by its focus on mass-produced commercial goods, media, and popular culture. Warhol’s use of everyday objects like Campbell’s soup cans and Coca-Cola bottles exemplifies Pop Art's celebration and critique of consumerism, as mentioned in the video.

💡Silk Screening

Silk screening is a printing technique that Warhol adopted to speed up the production of his artworks. This method allowed him to reproduce images in a mass-production style, aligning with his interest in automation and the commodification of art. The video discusses how silk screening helped Warhol produce art more quickly, reflecting his fascination with manufacturing processes.

💡Celebrity as Commodity

The concept of 'celebrity as commodity' refers to the way Warhol treated celebrities like Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley as products to be reproduced and consumed, just like the commercial items he painted. The video highlights Warhol’s commentary on the commodification of people, noting his repetitive portrayal of famous figures in his artwork.

💡Consumerism

Consumerism is a key theme in Warhol’s work, as he focused on the mass production and consumption of goods in postwar American society. The video describes how Warhol used iconic brands like Coca-Cola and Campbell’s soup cans to reflect the abundance and uniformity of consumer products, linking it to the growing commercialization of American culture.

💡The Factory

The Factory was Warhol's studio, where he and his assistants mass-produced art using assembly line techniques. The video refers to The Factory as a place where Warhol embraced industrial processes to create art, reinforcing his connection to mass production and his identity as both an artist and a businessperson.

💡Automation

Automation, for Warhol, represented the use of systems and processes that reduced the artist's manual input, like silk screening or having assistants work on his pieces. The video mentions Warhol’s early affinity for automation, reflecting his desire to blend art creation with mass-production techniques and challenge the traditional notions of artistic craftsmanship.

💡Commissioned Portraits

Warhol's commissioned portraits were artworks made for clients, usually wealthy individuals, in exchange for payment. The video explains how Warhol monetized his fame by offering portrait services, with some of his clients paying large sums for his work. This business model was a major part of Warhol’s income, and it blurred the lines between art and commerce.

💡Mass Manufacturing

Mass manufacturing refers to the large-scale production of goods, a process that Warhol both critiqued and emulated in his art. The video discusses how Warhol’s work, including his repetitive depictions of common objects, mirrored the industrial production methods that characterized postwar consumer culture in the United States.

💡Self-portraits

Self-portraits were a recurring theme in Warhol’s career, reflecting his interest in his own celebrity and the commercialization of his image. The video notes Warhol’s numerous self-portraits, showing how he traded on his image just as he did with other famous personalities, further blending the boundaries between art, celebrity, and branding.

Highlights

Andy Warhol, originally Andrew Warhola, was born in Pittsburgh to Slovakian immigrant parents and later became a globally recognized artist.

Warhol started as a commercial illustrator, using a blotted line technique that showcased his affinity for automation and process-driven art.

His work transitioned from making advertisements to treating advertisements as art, particularly through pop culture icons like Coca-Cola and Campbell's soup cans.

Warhol embraced mass production in his art, using rubber stamps, stencils, and silk screening to create his iconic works more efficiently.

He created the 'Factory'—a workshop with assistants who helped him mass-produce artworks, reflecting industrialization in the art world.

Warhol's recurring themes included consumer products, money, celebrities, disaster, death, and his own image, which reflected 20th-century American culture.

He commented on the commodification of fame, reproducing celebrity images from publicity stills and media sources to critique society's obsession with celebrity culture.

Warhol’s work is seen as a reflection of postwar American consumerism, highlighting the abundance and uniformity of manufactured products.

In 1957, Warhol founded 'Andy Warhol Enterprises,' blending his artistic work with a keen business sense and entrepreneurial spirit.

By the 1970s, Warhol was known for commissioned portraits, with some costing $25,000, which became a significant source of his income.

Warhol produced thousands of commissioned portraits, using photos taken in photo booths to create unique artwork, a concept that was highly innovative at the time.

He actively traded on his image and brand, producing numerous self-portraits and endorsing various products, turning himself into a commercial entity.

Warhol was a pioneer in embracing new media, working not only as an artist but also as a filmmaker, band manager, magazine publisher, and TV producer.

His work blurred the line between art and commerce, making a statement about the increasing overlap of the two in modern society.

Warhol's influence is seen in contemporary artists like Jeff Koons and Shepard Fairey, who explore the intersection of art, commerce, and pop culture.