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  • Faust
    kitsch killer
    • Sep 2006
    • 37852

    Andy Warhol



    This NYTimes article prompted me to start the thread. This is not art, and that is all I have to say about that at the moment. I never liked Warhol. Prostitution ans pousership (&quot;look, it&#39;s this commercial culture that made me like that&quot;) &lt;&gt; art. And, if I hear another pseudo-intellectual, pseudo-artistic, pseudo-glamorous musing out of Simon Doonan, I swear, I&#39;m going to hang him as a prop in a Barneys window. He is such an ostenatious puppet.</p><h1>
    The Selling of St. Andy
    </h1>

    <div class="byline">By RUTH LA FERLA</div>






    Correction Appended</p>


    IN 1968 Andy Warhol
    placed an advertisement in The Village Voice: &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll endorse with my
    name any of the following: clothing, AC-DC, cigarettes, small tapes,
    sound equipment, ROCK &rsquo;N&rsquo; ROLL RECORDS, anything, film and film
    equipment, Food, Helium, Whips, MONEY!! love and kisses ANDY WARHOL. EL
    5-9941.&rdquo;</p>


    Warhol was not being coy. He was firming up his position as a
    sociocultural commercial institution, an artist who churned out
    silk-screen prints with assembly-line efficiency, a magazine publisher,
    a television personality, a filmmaker, social gadabout and self-styled
    prophet, who saw the erosion of the line between art and commerce. He
    was intent on turning his name and mystique into a brand. </p>


    &ldquo;Being good in business,&rdquo; he wrote in &ldquo;The Philosophy of Andy Warhol
    (From A to B and Back Again),&rdquo; newly republished by Harcourt, is &ldquo;the
    most fascinating kind of art.&rdquo; </p>


    But even the seer in Warhol could not have envisioned the degree to
    which he has become commercialized. In time for the holiday season,
    nearly 20 years after his death in February 1987, the marketing of Andy
    Warhol is in full flood. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re seeing Warhol energy peeking out from
    everywhere,&rdquo; said Robert Lee Morris, the jewelry designer and a former
    member of the artist&rsquo;s circle, who has brought out a line of jewelry
    with Warhol motifs like the dollar sign and the Brillo logo. &ldquo;We are
    witnessing all the ways that his reach has extended into the moment.&rdquo; </p>


    Warhol&rsquo;s mercantile essence, both high and low, is distilled in
    carpets and coffee mugs, calendars and greeting cards, T-shirts, tote
    bags and a style of Levi&rsquo;s wax-coated jeans called Warhol Factory X,
    for $185. To judge by all the merchandise, Warhol is being positioned
    as the next Hello Kitty. There will even be a Warhol Pez dispenser.
    Imagine his jaw popping open to disgorge a mint. </p>


    It is &ldquo;the fulfillment of Andy&rsquo;s fantasy about business art&rdquo; said
    Jeffrey Deitch, the art dealer and former Warhol associate. &ldquo;I think he
    would have been amazed to see what has developed.&rdquo; </p>


    Warhol-inspired wares are being sold in stores like Macy&rsquo;s and
    Nordstrom and in youth-oriented chains like Urban Outfitters and
    high-end fashion boutiques like Fred Segal in Los Angeles. This month
    Barneys New York will roll out a holiday marketing campaign around the
    artist, including shopping bags with Warhol-like doodles, four store
    windows and a limited edition of Campbell&rsquo;s soup cans. </p>


    &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a good moment for Andy Warhol,&rdquo; said Charlotte Abbott, a
    senior editor at Publishers Weekly, noting the many recent Warhol
    books. &ldquo;Culturally, he is still on top,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;There is more of a
    rebellious New Yorky underground feeling coming back into the zeitgeist
    &mdash; or maybe it&rsquo;s just a nostalgia for all that.&rdquo;</p>


    Warholiana is being pitched ever younger. People in their late teens
    and early 20&rsquo;s are apt to identify not just with the cool, affectless
    Warhol persona, said Irma Zandl, a youth trend forecaster, but also
    with Warhol the entrepreneurial go-getter. </p>


    Among the new books are &ldquo;Edie Factory Girl&rdquo; (VH1 Press), a photo
    chronicle of the artist&rsquo;s relationship with his socialite muse Edie
    Sedgwick, and &ldquo;The Day the Factory Died&rdquo; (Empire), pictures from
    Warhol&rsquo;s memorial service at St. Patrick&rsquo;s Cathedral by Christophe von
    Hohenberg, with text on the Warhol circle by Charlie Scheips. There is
    also &ldquo;Andy Warhol &lsquo;Giant&rsquo; Size&rdquo; (Phaidon), a coffee-table tribute to
    the artist, packed scrapbook style with 2,000 images and documents. </p>


    Why Warhol, and why now? Those thrusting him back to the cultural
    and commercial forefront &mdash; if he ever left it &mdash; offer several
    explanations. &ldquo;There is a longing for that era in Manhattan of
    self-invention and discovery, of cultural questioning,&rdquo; said Simon
    Doonan, the creative director of Barneys, who is orchestrating the
    store&rsquo;s many-pronged Warhol holiday marketing. </p>


    He described the present moment as one of &ldquo;trompe l&rsquo;oeil grooviness, all ironed blond hair and girls wearing Blahniks.&rdquo; </p>


    &ldquo;But Andy wasn&rsquo;t pseudohip,&rdquo; Mr. Doonan said. &ldquo;He is the primordial mulch from which all cool in Manhattan sprang.&rdquo;</p>


    In a celebrity-fixated society, which often equates style with
    substance, Warhol&rsquo;s canny exploitation of fame and image are
    particularly resonant. &ldquo;He understood celebrity and branding,&rdquo; said
    Tobias Meyer, the worldwide head of contemporary art at Sotheby&rsquo;s. &ldquo;He
    came from a commercial world and made it part of his art. That is why
    he is so relevant.&rdquo; </p>


    Warhol is also the subject of &ldquo;Andy Warhol: A Documentary Film&rdquo; by Ric Burns, an exploration of the artist&rsquo;s life broadcast on PBS last month. He is a looming presence in &ldquo;Factory Girl,&rdquo; the much anticipated Weinstein Company film starring Sienna Miller as Ms. Sedgwick, which is expected in theaters next spring. </p>


    It is hardly surprising that Warhol, a graphic artist who first drew
    notice for his wispy illustrations of rose-color court shoes and who
    worked as a window dresser for Bonwit Teller in Manhattan, is the
    inspiration as well for a proliferation of fashions and accessory
    lines. Besides the Levi&rsquo;s jeans, which are printed or embroidered with
    famous Warhol art images, they include shoes by Royal Elastic and a
    collection of plastic Day-Glo colored watches by Seiko.</p>


    The candy-color Warhol aesthetic has spawned a makeup collection by
    MAC. Introduced last August, it is inspired by Ms. Sedgwick, whose
    gamine look was defined by spiky lashes, white lids, pink lips and
    translucent skin.</p>


    The artist&rsquo;s hold on the popular imagination also stems partly from
    his carefully cultivated bad boy pose. Gaunt and chalky, he disdained
    the wholesomely conventional, not troubling to hide his pursuit of
    young men, persistent club-crawling or pill-popping. &ldquo;He was
    subversive, the real thing,&rdquo; Mr. Doonan said, adding, &ldquo;Subversive now
    is to be a hedge fund manager who owns a Warhol.&rdquo; </p>


    Mr. Doonan professes a special affinity with the artist, whom he
    calls &ldquo;the patron saint of retail,&rdquo; a name that finds its way into the
    Barneys holiday catalog, &ldquo;Happy Andy Warholidays.&rdquo; The store&rsquo;s
    Warhol-theme holiday marketing includes shopping bags covered in
    Warhol-like doodles of shoes, doves and tree ornaments. </p>


    &ldquo;This is a huge deal for us,&rdquo; Mr. Doonan said, pointing to a series
    of Warhol windows being mocked up last week at a studio in Midtown.
    They depicted periods in the artist&rsquo;s life: his fashion illustrator
    years, the Factory period with Ms. Sedgwick, Warhol as social butterfly
    in the 1970&rsquo;s and 80&rsquo;s &mdash; &ldquo;from Liza to Basquiat,&rdquo; as Mr. Doonan put it,
    &ldquo;and from Studio 54 to Area.&rdquo; </p>


    Warhol&rsquo;s compulsive collecting is represented by an enormous
    shelving unit in the shape of his head. &ldquo;It will be packed with the
    detritus of his extreme hunting and gathering,&rdquo; Mr. Doonan said.
    &ldquo;Everything from button-filled jars to soup cans.&rdquo; </p>


    Barneys wares, licensed by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual
    Arts, include a denim trucker jacket with a Warhol portrait on the back
    ($275), a hooded sweatshirt with a banana print ($176) and limited
    edition Campbell&rsquo;s soup cans with reproductions of Warhol labels.</p>


    Joel Wachs, the president of the foundation, said revenues from some
    40 licensees have quadrupled in the last five years, generating about
    $2.25 million in royalties in the current fiscal year. Proceeds go to
    the Warhol endowment, which supports the arts.</p>


    Retail sales of licensed merchandise in the United states are
    between $40 million and $50 million, said Michael Stone, the chief
    executive of the Beanstalk Group, the licensing agency for the Warhol
    Foundation.</p>


    Tricked out in a silver wig and signature red-rim glasses, Warhol
    turned himself into a recognizable product, paving the way for other
    artist brands. Art world figures like Mr. Deitch point to the success
    of Damien Hirst, whose London restaurant Pharmacy reproduced his
    well-known installation of the same name, and on a populist level to
    Thomas Kinkade, whose charm bracelets, candles, gaudy greeting cards
    and calendars are sought as collectibles. </p>


    But Warhol&rsquo;s chameleon personality may well make him the ideal
    candidate for branding. &ldquo;Licensing is all about creating a perception
    and leveraging that,&rdquo; said Martin Brochstein, who writes The Licensing
    Letter, a trade publication. In Warhol&rsquo;s case, there is so much to
    chose from. &ldquo;Some people see a silver-haired guy, others the Campbell&rsquo;s
    soup can or Andy the bon vivant,&rdquo; Mr. Brochstein said. &ldquo;If you play
    into enough of those facets, then there is a market.&rdquo; </p>


    Warhol also speaks to a new generation of artists, who invoke his
    spirit, marketing raincoats and sneakers as artworks. Those in Mr.
    Deitch&rsquo;s stable, for instance, sell skateboards, wallpaper and
    figurines, most tagged at under $100. </p>


    Last June, Mr. Stone of the Beanstalk Group attended a licensing
    trade show in New York. Some 300 artists were represented, he recalled.
    &ldquo;I guess there are a lot of people looking for that pot at the end of
    the rainbow.&rdquo; </p>

    </p>

    </p>
    Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde

    StyleZeitgeist Magazine
  • dontbecruel
    Senior Member
    • Sep 2006
    • 494

    #2
    Re: Andy Warhol

    I&#39;m sure you&#39;re right Faust. And I know I shouldn&#39;t but... I have a thing about Andy Warhol&#39;s photography (not his paintings so much). I&#39;m quite partial to the blank, semi-automatic voice of his diaries too. There&#39;s something about that whole aesthetic that appeals to me. Not the concept, just the feel. Andy&#39;s best work is beautiful like a gaudily coloured t-shirt that&#39;s faded in the wash, or an overripe fruit. A tainted simple pleasure.

    Comment

    • Faust
      kitsch killer
      • Sep 2006
      • 37852

      #3
      Re: Andy Warhol

      Thanks, dontbecruel. I would like to hear more from others.
      Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde

      StyleZeitgeist Magazine

      Comment

      • Fuuma
        Senior Member
        • Sep 2006
        • 4050

        #4
        Re: Andy Warhol



        Kitsch is the stopover between being and oblivion. -Kundera
        </p>
        Selling CCP, Harnden, Raf, Rick etc.
        http://www.stylezeitgeist.com/forums...me-other-stuff

        Comment

        • fixoid
          Junior Member
          • Sep 2006
          • 17

          #5
          Re: Andy Warhol

          fuck art, lets move to Manhattan and manage hedge funds

          Comment

          • Servo2000
            Senior Member
            • Oct 2006
            • 2183

            #6
            Re: Andy Warhol

            [quote user=&quot;fixoid&quot;]fuck art, lets move to Manhattan and manage hedge funds
            [/quote]
            <div><br class="khtml-block-placeholder" /></div><div>I&#39;m in.</div>
            WTB: Rick Owens Padded MA-1 Bomber XS (LIMO / MOUNTAIN)

            Comment

            • Faust
              kitsch killer
              • Sep 2006
              • 37852

              #7
              Re: Andy Warhol



              [quote user=&quot;fixoid&quot;]fuck art, lets move to Manhattan and manage hedge funds
              [/quote]</p>

              fuck cliches, let&#39;s say something intellgient, shall we?</p>
              Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde

              StyleZeitgeist Magazine

              Comment

              • Servo2000
                Senior Member
                • Oct 2006
                • 2183

                #8
                Re: Andy Warhol

                [quote user=&quot;Faust&quot;]

                fuck cliches, let&#39;s say something intellgient, shall we?[/quote]</p><div>I&#39;m in.</div><div><br class="khtml-block-placeholder" /></div><div><br class="khtml-block-placeholder" /></div><div><br class="khtml-block-placeholder" /></div><div>sorry, couldn&#39;t resist</div>
                WTB: Rick Owens Padded MA-1 Bomber XS (LIMO / MOUNTAIN)

                Comment

                • fixoid
                  Junior Member
                  • Sep 2006
                  • 17

                  #9
                  Re: Andy Warhol



                  faust, i don&#39;t think a person who started a thread about andy warhol should be complaining about cliches. Warhol is one of the most cliched people in art history, to speak of him is to invite cliche into your soul. [:P]
                  </p>

                  (i hoped to avoid any veil)
                  </p>

                  Comment

                  • Servo2000
                    Senior Member
                    • Oct 2006
                    • 2183

                    #10
                    Re: Andy Warhol

                    [quote user=&quot;fixoid&quot;]i don&#39;t think a person who started a thread about andy warhol should be complaining about cliches.
                    [/quote]<div><br class="khtml-block-placeholder" /></div><div>Not to start a flamewar, but why don&#39;t you try actually writing a critical complaint rather than making a thinly veiled personal assault? It&#39;s apparent you disagree with some part of this thread. Rather than just stir up trouble you could try and contribute to some sort of discussion by addressing Faust or whoever with a question about why he holds certain views in an attempt to gain some sort of insight?</div><div><br class="khtml-block-placeholder" /></div><div>Who knows, you might learn something, or we might learn something from you.</div><div><br class="khtml-block-placeholder" /></div><div>Keep it clean, folks.</div>
                    WTB: Rick Owens Padded MA-1 Bomber XS (LIMO / MOUNTAIN)

                    Comment

                    • Honey~Blade
                      Senior Member
                      • Sep 2006
                      • 118

                      #11
                      Re: Andy Warhol

                      Sadly I admit to liking the oversized banana print cushion. Either then that I&#39;ve never been fascinated by Warhol, the artist. However one of my art teachers mentioned to me before that her husband stumbled upon one of Warhols sketches of when he was a student and he said they were really something.

                      Comment

                      • laika
                        moderator
                        • Sep 2006
                        • 3787

                        #12
                        Re: Andy Warhol



                        [quote user=&quot;dontbecruel&quot;]I&#39;m sure you&#39;re right Faust. And I know I shouldn&#39;t but... I have a thing about Andy Warhol&#39;s photography (not his paintings so much). I&#39;m quite partial to the blank, semi-automatic voice of his diaries too. There&#39;s something about that whole aesthetic that appeals to me. Not the concept, just the feel. Andy&#39;s best work is beautiful like a gaudily coloured t-shirt that&#39;s faded in the wash, or an overripe fruit. A tainted simple pleasure.
                        [/quote]</p>

                        I know what you mean. Very eloquently said too. </p>

                        Faust, thanks for posting the article. These kinds of things always make me wonder, why this? Why now? I remember making the same observation--about Warhol commercial paraphanelia and how happy it would have made him--when I was in college in the late 90&#39;s. This is basically the same thing, taken to a new level of excess. </p>

                        Commercially, I think it&#39;s the Marie Antoinette syndrome--movie comes out, books will come out, kitschy commodities will come out, and Simon Doonan will do a Barney&#39;s window (he did Marie Antoinette last Christmas, btw). </p>

                        Culturally, its also the MA syndrome, but on a different register altogether. Blind prizing of style over substance, without any consideration of where style comes from or how it comes about. That seems to be the mark of our age (and we&#39;ve just started a new one! )</p>

                        BTW, WTF is this nonsese about a &quot;new generation of artists, who invoke his spirit, marketing raincoats and sneakers as artworks&quot;? What exactly is new about this? How is it possible that people are still so fascinated by what is essentially Duchamp&#39;s critique of art? </p>

                        Sorry for all the half-formed thoughts--not feeling very articulate this morning.
                        </p>

                        </p>
                        ...I mean the ephemeral, the fugitive, the contingent, the half of art whose other half is the eternal and the immutable.

                        Comment

                        • Faust
                          kitsch killer
                          • Sep 2006
                          • 37852

                          #13
                          Re: Andy Warhol

                          [quote user=&quot;laika&quot;]

                          [quote user=&quot;dontbecruel&quot;]I&#39;m sure you&#39;re right Faust. And I know I shouldn&#39;t but... I have a thing about Andy Warhol&#39;s photography (not his paintings so much). I&#39;m quite partial to the blank, semi-automatic voice of his diaries too. There&#39;s something about that whole aesthetic that appeals to me. Not the concept, just the feel. Andy&#39;s best work is beautiful like a gaudily coloured t-shirt that&#39;s faded in the wash, or an overripe fruit. A tainted simple pleasure.
                          [/quote]</p>

                          I know what you mean. Very eloquently said too. </p>

                          Faust, thanks for posting the article. These kinds of things always make me wonder, why this? Why now? I remember making the same observation--about Warhol commercial paraphanelia and how happy it would have made him--when I was in college in the late 90&#39;s. This is basically the same thing, taken to a new level of excess. </p>

                          Commercially, I think it&#39;s the Marie Antoinette syndrome--movie comes out, books will come out, kitschy commodities will come out, and Simon Doonan will do a Barney&#39;s window (he did Marie Antoinette last Christmas, btw). </p>

                          Culturally, its also the MA syndrome, but on a different register altogether. Blind prizing of style over substance, without any consideration of where style comes from or how it comes about. That seems to be the mark of our age (and we&#39;ve just started a new one! )</p>

                          BTW, WTF is this nonsese about a &quot;new generation of artists, who invoke his spirit, marketing raincoats and sneakers as artworks&quot;? What exactly is new about this? How is it possible that people are still so fascinated by what is essentially Duchamp&#39;s critique of art? </p>

                          Sorry for all the half-formed thoughts--not feeling very articulate this morning.
                          </p>

                          [/quote]</p>

                          Nonsense is the adage of our age. Academic writing is in part responsible for this, but art &quot;critics&quot; take the cake for vacuous, fabricated writing. They write without thinking, hiding behind vague phrases when they really have nothing to say. I am reading Culture of Complaint, and the examples of such writing that Robert Hughes gives just make you laugh (because it&#39;s so bad) and cry (because people take it seriously) at the same time. </p>

                          Duchamp must be rolling in his grave laughing that his piss-bowl was named the greates piece of 20th Century art. What a guy! What insight he had into the stupidity of the art world.
                          </p>
                          Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde

                          StyleZeitgeist Magazine

                          Comment

                          • laika
                            moderator
                            • Sep 2006
                            • 3787

                            #14
                            Re: Andy Warhol



                            What constantly amazes me, is that people fail to see that Duchamp (and even Warhol, at times) were CRITIQUING the institution of art.</p>

                            Hence all the literal appropriations and endless repetitions.....It&#39;s amazing how influencial Duchamp has been, especially in America. The piss-pot is just that, but I&#39;m afraid it&#39;s going to wind up being the work of art that this generation deserves. [:(]</p>

                            Completely agree with you about art critics--it&#39;s so much worse than academic writing. Talk about style over substance! I&#39;ve got to read that Hughes book. </p>
                            ...I mean the ephemeral, the fugitive, the contingent, the half of art whose other half is the eternal and the immutable.

                            Comment

                            • butbeautiful
                              Junior Member
                              • Sep 2006
                              • 22

                              #15
                              Re: Andy Warhol

                              seriously i think everyone should go try and read his book of philosophy. it&#39;s funny on how the way he writes and thinks.

                              and occassionally it&#39;s the book that make me want to do my work and just like start working. there&#39;s just something beyond it i guess.

                              anyway what appeals me the most is his mao&#39;s art. his canvas might look simply done but it&#39;s hard lots of something when you look at the original canvas blow-up.

                              Comment

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