ANDY WARHOL: POP GOES ART
FUSING POPULAR AND HIGH CULTURE
Warhol’s enduring success was that he was able to remove the distinction between popular culture and high culture.
Andy Warhol represented all that was glittering, creative, and exciting in the world of art. His life was a nonstop, 24-hour creative frenzy. Warhol was able to churn out a seemingly endless parade of art, movies and photos which ultimately redefined the world of popular art and culture. Warhol’s enduring success was that he was able to remove the distinction between popular culture and high culture. He elevated the former without compromising on the latter.
In the process, the two fused and “culture’ itself became mainstream. Despite all the criticism of being a talentless manipulator, Warhol was among the most influential twentieth century artists. He changed New York City’s nightlife and culture for ever. Warhol began as a commercial illustrator, rather a silkscreen artist, and a very successful one, doing shoe ads for I.Miller. He first exhibited in an art gallery in 1962,when the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles showed his Campbell’s Soup Cans. From then on most of Warhol’s best works were done over a span of about six years, finishing in 1968, when he was shot and seriously injured by psychopath Valerie Solanas. Warhol was able to direct a group of artists in a series of off-beat shortfilms which launched him into New York’s high society. Warhol, although very sociable, was actually a shy and mysterious person.
He had many detractors, and some accused him of turning art into crass commercialism. Whether you liked his art or not, Warhol will be
remembered as a pioneer and one of the most influential and innovative artists of his era. Modest, witty, a serious artist and a one-man cultural phenomena, Warhol showed how an innovator’s mind and work can redefine culture and transform society.
