Andy Warhol Essay Research Paper Every day

Andy Warhol Essay, Research Paper

Every day we are bombarded with Images we receive from television, movies, billboards and photography. It is impossible to pay equal attention to all of it so we tend to skim. The images that we remember are the ones that are simple, clear and repetitious. This overabundance of images is called celebrity , which replaces the Renaissance idea of fame. Fame was the reward for visible deeds, a social agreement about what was worth doing. Today, the celebrity is the famous image of a person or famous name brand and as Daniel Boorstin pointed out, is famous for being famous- nothing else; hence his willingness and disposability . The artist who understood this best was Andy Warhol. He constantly warned people not to look any deeper than the surface of his art and life and yet he consistently connected the two. Through his works we are constantly reminded of ourselves and society and we see images transformed into commercialized property that are repeatedly inflicted upon us, throwing us into a confusion of reading the images as just images or discovering the messages reflected within them. He made out that his work was superficial , but by definition the truly superficial are unaware of their actions, much less willing to acknowledge and embrace as Warhol did. Andy Warhol s contributions to the history of art was one of profound influence and magnitude. Never before had an artist promoted such indifference to his work style and captured such public opinion.

Warhol exuded an indifferent anti-establishment attitude, and believed that you do not have to act crazy, you can let others do that for you. No matter what his chosen medium, the works of Andy Warhol generally shocked, outraged, and influenced public opinion like that of no other cultural figure in America. This attitude that Warhol became well known for, seemed to have been derived from the national attitude of withdrawal from any political actions. At this point in time there was widespread rumour of Soviet threat brought about by the Cold War, generating a political climate that frowned upon any form of disagreement. This political restlessness reached a climax in the early 1950s . On the one hand, the standard of living seemed to have improved, but on the other hand there was nothing that protests could do. These feelings of individual powerlessness and increased well-being developed a distanced, emotionless acceptance of all that might come. In art, Pop Art emerged as a reaction against the nonfigurative and egocentric character of Abstract Expressionism . Abstract Expressionism was a period of art whose style was characterized by a strong dependence on chance and accident and there was no effort made to represent subject matter. It has been suggested that Abstract Expressionism reduced to a minimum the difference between creator and creation and that Pop reduced to a minimum the difference between ready made and hand made . If this is true, then Warhol is a perfect example of Pop artistry.

Pop Art focused its attentions upon familiar images of the popular culture. One aspect that set Pop Art apart from the recognized conventions in art was the tedious character of the object selected and thus, many regarded the movement as an assault on the accepted norms. All through the 1950s, a person s identity was linked to consumption as it had never been before, but at least people were given the freedom to purchase as they desired. In an ocean of identical looking houses in identical neighborhoods, the selection of a particular couch or rug offered a reassuring statement of individuality and self-possession. However, in Warhol s hands, repeated images of mass-marketed goods implied that even consumption is manipulated and controlled by a force larger than the individual.

Andy Warhol was born Andrew Warhola on August 6th, 1927 in Pittsburg to Czechoslovakian parents. He grew up in a poor working class neighborhood. He was the only member of his family to attend college, graduating from the Carnegie Institute of Technology with a degree in design in 1949. In 1952 he moved to New York to try his hand at commercial illustration. Commissions came fairly readily, Warhol taking up small jobs such as a job with a shoe company drawing shoes. In 1955, he had an exhibition of shoe portraits painted in gold , each shoe named after a star of show business. The shoe drawings attempted to capture celebrities personas through the image of their shoes and included figures as diverse as Kate Smith, Elvis Presley, and Christine Jorgenson , the famous transsexual. These drawings initiated a pattern that would become quite familiar in Warhol s works, allowing him to associate his art with celebrities, taking advantage of other s fame to boost his own. He did various other jobs as a commercial artist producing greeting cards and displays on windows of department stores. Within a few years, he became a commercial success, one of the leading fashion illustrators in New York and winner of a number of design industry awards. In 1959, he began making paintings that depicted enlarged comic strip images, and in 1961 his paintings of Dick Tracy appeared in a window display for Lord and Taylor s . Although this type of expression was a reasonably straightforward imitation of comic strips, it had the same mistakes : dripped paint and unfinished parts. In terms of Abstract Expressionism, it became art. It wa