There’s no accounting for taste.
I know you didn’t ask for my opinion, but I’m going to assert it anyway: Andy Warhol is a total sham. I realize his creative expressions presented something that previously hadn’t really existed, but that hardly constitutes artistic brilliance. Instead, I regard Andy Warhol as a cynical opportunist, a sourpuss oddball who’s artistic sensibilities essentially mirrored his own culinary tastes. Here’s a guy whose favorite foods were essentially bread and jam, and sweets and sweets and sweets.
That’s fine. Some people like football; some people like Lawrence Welk; some people like Andy Warhol. Rather than take this space to analyze his artistic relevance, however, there’s something else the mop-topped arriviste provokes. My distain for the dude has to do with a perception that he was contemptuous of the whole creative enterprise. The fact that he called his operation “The Factory“ is in itself a perfect expression. He pumped out confections for patrons who couldn’t tell the difference, for people who thought he was somehow hip by presenting Campbell soup cans.
Do 50 replications of a solarized publicity photograph of Marilyn Monroe — or an ordinary soup can —constitute art? Many culture critics and art historians think it does. I say, “Au contraire!” The original Marilyn image appearing in his…I suppose the word is “artwork”… isn’t even his own photograph! Certainly it’s fair to employ “fair use” and appropriate other creative works into one’s own—think of movies using familiar songs in their soundtracks to evoke precise feelings—but in this case, the image itself is the work, and the work isn’t really his. What rubs me wrong is the inherent cynicism underpinning the creative enterprise. I don’t mind angry art, I don’t mind sad art, I don’t mind disturbed art, or erotic art, or challenging pieces that ask me to pause and think. I don’t even mind “bad” art that I might choose to ignore. What bothers me are so-called artistic assertions that knowingly, consciously, conspicuously waste my time by pretending to be something more vital than they really are.
It’s worth noting here that The United States Supreme Court is about to offer an opinion relating to this subject basically any minute. A ruling is due in the case Warhol v. Goldsmith in the late spring of 2023. (SUPCO docket number 21-869.) In an ironic twist, the case itself describes the essential bones of what irks me about Warhol and those who emulate and celebrate him. At issue is whether the Warhol Foundation had a right to use a modified image of Prince captured by photographer Lynn Goldsmith beyond what she asserts was the term of an original license agreement. In many ways, the case provokes questions about what constitutes fair use of an image that’s already passed into public consciousness. Does an already published photo of a celebrity musician mean it’s fair game for anyone to adapt? Does that adaptation make it art? Does the original creator have a permanent influence on the original creation? No matter how this case resolves, it will have enormous influence on the creative firmament.
I don’t care about Andy Warhol, actually. This isn’t really about him or his soup cans or the pablum he pumped for the proletariat. It’s the proletariat penchant for sardonic irrelevance that has me exorcised.
Paraphrasing a classic, life moves quickly. When you wake up and you’re suddenly not as young as you used to be, you come to realize you’re on a train without any brakes. And guess what? The bridge is out, and we’re all heading straight for the ravine. What are you gonna do now?
That’s why I have limited patience for cynicism or triviality. Humor? Sure. I love to laugh, and good humor offers vital cultural circuit breakers. Whimsey and lightness? Show me something clever —not the same thing as humor, by the way— and I’m usually a happy man. But cynicism leaves me cold. Endless irony, the contemporary voice of the meme generation, eschews substance in favor of dismissive reductionism. Irony alone as a common theme erodes substance by investing energy and effort into the very act of trivializing something else. It neither spins new thread, nor weaves new tapestries from existing bolts.
To me that’s just like Warhol replicating photos of soup cans and calling it art.