Andy Warhol :: Visual Arts Paintings Art

Andy WarholPaintings are too hard. The things I want to show are mechanical.Machines have slight problems. Id like to be a machine, wouldnt you?Andy Warhol, 1963Warhol was a modest artist and at time could be annoyingly blastowards his art. With a cheeky nature, Warhol is considered to be themost influential American artist of the second half of the 20thcentury. He has a signature style which he uses repeatedly inartworks, by using commercialised silk-screening techniques to createidentical, mass produced images on canvas then varying the color andtone to make each edition look different.Warhol was fascinated by Hollywood, behavior and style. He transferredthis interest to his artwork, claiming not to see the difference among a museum and a department instal. Blurring the distinctionbetween art and life, he believed art could be fashion, decoration,and politics. Like his contemporaries Jasper Johns and RobertRauschenberg, he borrowed images from popular culture for his artwork.He was also influenced by Marcel Duchamp, who took ordinary objectsand displayed them as readymade works of art.His works also radically challenged high modernist ideas associatedwith the concept of originality and the role of the artist as anindividual. Through this and through his obsession with money, fame,commercialism and mass culture he challenged high art, blurring thedistinction between it and popular culture.He first applied his silk-screen techniques as a commercial artist inthe 1950s when a 5th avenue department store displayed his comic booksuperhero images. His initial entrance into Pop Art was in the early60s with his Coca-Cola Bottles and then sculpture of the brillo boxeswhich he replicated onto plywood boxes. By the completion of these 2artworks one would establish that Warhol was challenging traditionalnotions of art by mechanically repeating a single image, mimicking themanufacturing industry and parodying mass consumption.Warhols subject matter went from one extrem e to the other, one beinga series titled Jews of the 20th century, which is guess was Andyrecognizing a repressed sort out and creating completely unassuming artabout them. The other extreme being a series titled Cowboys andIndians which yet again displays Andys childlike and unimpeachable themes