UNTIL SUNDAY 29/1
MERCANTILE ATENEO. Pl. town hall, 18
Seeing iconic pieces of contemporary art such as Campbell's soup cans or colored silkscreens of Marilyn Monroe in person is a good boost to paying the ticket. (12€) of Superpop con Warhol at the Mercantile Athenaeum, But the most interesting thing is to broaden the horizon regarding this controversial artist who has been branded as a publicist for himself., of profit and commercial, flat and provocative, of a business machine that limited itself to reworking and repeating images of industrial consumer goods and icons of popular culture. “Being good at business is the most fascinating form of art.”, I would say. It seems that there is some truth but it is also true that He had the courage to break with the abstract expressionism of the moment that dominated as king and lord of the kingdom., and who proposed a figurative art that moved away from the elite by becoming accessible (conceptually) to the masses, popular, pop. Using, besides, techniques such as screen printing and photography that allowed mass production, which facilitated the completion of the works and reduced production times.
In the sixties he began to transform consumerism into art (here are the soup cans) in a friendly way and with very bright colors - he rarely used more than three -, But during that decade and the next he also dealt with dark and gruesome topics such as the death penalty or murders.. In the Valencia exhibition you can see a piece from his series of 1964 dedicated to electric chairs and part of the mural (censored) 13 most wanted men composed of lithographs of mugshots of the most wanted criminals of the moment. The theme of death and how to distance oneself from its impact is omnipresent in the artist's work.. In the seventies he began to receive many commissions to portray celebrities and that became his main source of income.. From the mythical The Factory, the funny and bizarre characters disappeared and men in suits and ties appeared looking to do business.. One of the artist's muses tells it in a video, Holly Woodlawn (which Lou Reed refers to in the song “Walk on the wild side”), He says that in the sixties, before Valerie Solanas tried to murder the artist, The Factory was all fun, then it turned gray, bland and boring.
Warhol portrayed the most chic society (Marylin Monroe, Mick Jagger, Liz Taylor, Giorgio Armani, Jean Cocteau, Muhammad Ali…) but also to the neglected, the marginalized and the New York transsexual community, in the series Ladies & Gentlemen on display at the athenaeum. Perhaps it is one of the most interesting that can be seen.. Over time he became an entrepreneur for himself and for others., producer of films and music bands such as The Velvet Undergroung, for which he designed the legendary banana cover that hangs in the exhibition. Along with that of Sticky Fingers by The Rolling Stones or that of (¡ojo!) Fuego by Miguel Bose. He also founded, in 1969, the magazine Interview, that was placed on the cover, with visible design warholiano, the faces of the moment and semi-unknown figures who would become famous some time later. A true visionary! And for better or worse, one of the most representative artists of the second half of the 20th century. S.M.
