Andy Warhol Now

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) cap­ti­vat­ed and po­larized peo­ple with his per­so­n­al­i­ty, and his art shaped an en­tire era. His mul­ti­facet­ed work re­defined the boun­daries of paint­ing, sculp­ture, film, and mu­sic. As a shy young man from a re­li­gious, work­ing-class mi­lieu, Warhol carved his own path in­to the art world, which was still dom­i­nat­ed by Ab­s­tract Ex­pres­sion­ism. In his ear­ly work, per­so­n­al, of­ten ho­moerot­ic draw­in­gs stood along­side com­mis­sions as a suc­cess­ful ad­ver­tis­ing il­lus­tra­tor, while his un­mis­tak­able screen prints made him the epi­t­ome of the new Pop Art move­ment. He had a life­long fas­ci­na­tion for pop­u­lar cul­ture. But just as his cele­bri­ty por­traits and Co­ca-Co­la bot­tles held a mir­ror to Amer­i­can so­ci­e­ty, Warhol stands for a di­verse, queer coun­ter­cul­ture that found its ex­pres­sion not least in his New York stu­dio, the Fac­to­ry. This ma­jor ex­hi­bi­tion il­lu­mi­nates Warhol’s ex­pand­ed ar­tis­tic prac­tice against the back­drop of press­ing so­cial is­sues with over 100 works. Key works such as the Elvis Pres­ley se­ries and col­or­ful vari­a­tions of an elec­tric chair are rep­re­sent­ed as well as less well-known as­pects, which al­low for a cur­rent view of this artist of the cen­tu­ry in a time of po­lit­i­cal and cul­tu­r­al up­hea­vals. It al­so il­lu­mi­nates his de­vel­op­ment as the son of Rus­sian im­mi­grants in Pitts­burgh, which is re­flect­ed in a com­plex pro­cess­ing of re­li­gious themes and sub­jects, among other things.