Andy Warhol: Social Commentary On The 1960s
By Toshiko Frederiksens. Art History 115: Global Art Histories. Semester 1, 2018. Grade: A+
Focusing on the work of ONE artist, discuss the ways that art became a vehicle for social commentary and critique.
It has been noted that Andy Warhol used his artwork as a means through which he was able to hold up a mirror to modern life.[1] Despite proclaiming that his artwork and personal character were profoundly superficial, an exploration of three of Warhol’s key artworks from the 1960s reveals the way in which his art can be interpreted as a vehicle for social commentary and critique.[2] Warhol was deeply ambivalent about the meanings he bestowed upon his artworks, thus leaving their significance open to interpretation by viewers. By examining Gold Marilyn, Campbell’s Soup Cans and Race Riot, we are able to understand the way in which Warhol’s artworks articulate a form of social commentary and critique, which may or may not have been intentionally invested in the artworks by the artist.
Figure 1. Andy Warhol, Gold Marilyn, 1962, (silkscreen ink and synthetic polymer paint on canvas, 2.11 x 1.45m), New York, Museum of Modern Art.
The way in which art functions as a vehicle for social commentary is made evident in Warhol’s Gold Marilyn (see figure 1) Completed in 1962, following the death of pop culture icon and actress Marilyn Monroe, this painting allows the artist to make a statement about American culture and the way in which it worships celebrity icons. Monroe’s head has been placed in the centre of the composition, acting as a clear focal point within a field of gold. This effectively “recalls the religious icons of Christian art history,”[3] which employed the use of gold in order to evoke a sense of the divine.[4] By replicating this use of colour, Warhol is creating parallels between the roles of Monroe and that of the Virgin Mary in a Byzantine painting. This allows him to comment on the value that American society placed on fame and celebrity during the mid-twentieth century, and the way in which this admiration can be likened to the worship of a religious icon. Art historian Marilyn Stokstad notes that fame “confers, like holiness for a saint, a kind of immortality.”[5] This reinforces the idea of celebrity worship as presented in Warhol’s Gold Marilyn and the way in which contemporary society has crafted a secular form of worship surrounding Hollywood celebrities.
Warhol’s decision to use a media photograph as the source for the imagery in Gold Marilyn denies both the artwork and Monroe’s character of a sense of originality, providing the artwork with a platform from which it is able to comment on modern American society’s fixation with consumption.[6] This image of Monroe was a “publicity still from the 1953 film Niagara,” and consequently had been viewed by a multitude of audiences prior to Warhol’s appropriation of it into Gold Marilyn.[7] This results in a portrait that does not explore the uniqueness of Monroe’s personality, but instead “reveals her public image as a carefully structured illusion,” presenting Monroe as an icon.[8] This indicates the way in which Warhol utilises this media photograph as a vehicle through which he is able to offer social commentary on the way in which American society of the 1950s and 60s was comprised of a culture “in which adoration results in a kind of consumption.”[9] However pop culture typically celebrates consumer culture and media icons, suggesting that Warhol was not offering a critique of this “consumption” of Marilyn’s persona, but merely a commentary on the nature of American society to consume people as they would commodities.[10] Curator Douglas Fogle notes that, “we devour and discard the icons that we love through a media environment,”[11] and Monroe effectively becomes an icon of pop culture consumed by a mass marketing, commercial society preoccupied with excess.
Figure 2. Andy Warhol, Campbell’s Soup Cans, 1962, (synthetic polymer paint on canvas, 51 x 41cm), New York, Museum of Modern Art.
Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans (see figure 2) also completed in 1962, serves as another example of the way in which art is used as a vehicle for social commentary and critique. This installation consists of 32 hand painted canvases depicting various flavours of Campbell’s Soup, a supermarket commodity of the mid-twentieth century.[12] By selecting subject matter that has its origins in the realm of advertising, Warhol is commenting on the visual iconography that was authentic to postwar American society. The culture of mass media that developed in the aftermath of World War II provided a platform from which consumer culture was able to thrive, creating an emphasis on logos and brands being recognisable.[13] Warhol is effectively drawing from this source of imagery, appropriating banal subject matter in order to comment on the visual saturation of 1950s and 60s American society. Fogle notes that this work was created out of imagery that had been viewed so frequently by American society that the icons become in a sense, invisible, until Warhol refocused audience attention to the ordinary – in this case, Campbell’s soup cans.[14]
By selecting subject matter that is so accessible within American society, Warhol is also commenting on the nature of commodity as being “for the masses.” He famously noted that:
“America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest… you can know the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking.[15]”
As a Pop artist, Warhol sought to react against the elitist qualities of 1940s and 50s Abstract Expressionist art, which had pursued a genuine expression of inner emotion, in order to transcend the turbulent political climate of the time. Warhol successfully used Campbell’s Soup Cans as a vehicle through which he could elevate banal, consumer products that were typically found on the shelves of grocery stores to the status of “high art” by displaying them in a gallery. This allowed him to challenge conventional artistic hierarchies and argue that art, like commodities produced by mass production, was for all of American society regardless of socioeconomic status and class.[16]
Figure 3. Andy Warhol, Race Riot, 1964, (acrylic and silkscreen on canvas, 150 x 170cm), New York, Gagosian Gallery.
Warhol’s painting Race Riot (see figure 3) both reinforces and challenges the idea that he was using art as a vehicle for social commentary and critique. This artwork emerged out of the context of the Civil Rights movement which gripped America in the mid twentieth century, specifically the Birmingham Race Riots of 1963. Life magazine featured an eleven page spread covering the events of this political upheaval, with graphic photographs by Charles Moore (see figures 4 and 5) depicting police dogs ripping into the clothing of protestors, and firemen directing the violent force of hoses onto young men, women and children as they cower against the pavement.[17] These images scandalised the nation, becoming “etched into the American psyche as the strongest symbols of the struggle for racial equality and civil liberties.”[18] Warhol’s Race Riot appropriates one of these photographs that depicts a police dog midway through reaching to attack a civil rights protestor, and screen-prints it four times onto a square composition, creating a repetitive pattern of red, white and blue.
Figure 4. Charles Moore, Birmingham, Alabama, 1963.
Figure 5. Charles Moore, Birmingham, Alabama, 1963
Tension is created within this work between the highly politically charged nature of the images and Warhol’s self-proclaimed superficiality. Warhol once stated, “if you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface: of my paintings and films and me… there’s nothing behind it.”[19] Considering this statement in relation to the desensitising repetition of the photograph in Race Riot suggests that despite the fact that Warhol was mirroring back to American society the “glaring social inequality that were daily fare in the Information Age,”[20] the artist’s intention was not to use this painting as a vehicle for social commentary and critique. Rather, he creates distance through his screen print process which simultaneously removes the authenticity of the artist’s hand and strips the image of its value by reproducing it using a commercial process. This technique is characteristic of Warhol, used in prior works to render celebrities and car crashes. By using this same technique to reproduce this political imagery, Warhol is imbuing these photographs with the same value he would a portrait of Elvis Presley. This allows us to understand the way in which Warhol approached his work with a degree of superficiality. Similarly, the repetition of the same image across the canvas dissolves the power of the image and reveals it to be a two dimensional surface devoid of meaning. However it has been noted that “so provocative is this image that it is nigh on impossible to view Warhol’s Race Riot paintings objectively, to see its repeated imagery without engaging with its subject matter.”[21] Warhol’s use of colour is evocative of the American flag, a subtle suggestion that this painting reflects the dark face of the American experience, and perhaps that the artist was aware of the political implications this would have on audience interpretations of Race Riot.[22] The tension between Warhol’s superficiality and political subject matter in this artwork prevent us from drawing conclusions regarding the artist’s intentions in terms of social commentary and critique, however it is clear that a comment on the political climate of the time can be interpreted through Warhol’s manipulation of colour and subject matter.
The examination of three of Andy Warhol’s key works from the early 1960s demonstrates the way in which his art provided a basis from which social commentary and critique could both be conveyed and interpreted. This allows us to deepen our understanding of the way in which formal elements of artworks can have a significant impact on the response audiences have, regardless of the intended messages the artist wished to convey. In order to enhance our comprehension of Andy Warhol’s works as vehicles for social commentary and critique, it could perhaps be useful to explore a wider range of works ranging from the 1950s to Warhol’s late career.
[1] Keith Hartley, Andy Warhol: A Celebration of Life… and Death, Edinburgh, 2007, p.15.
[2] Paul Mattick, ‘The Andy Warhol of Philosophy and the Philosophy of Andy Warhol’, The University of Chicago Press, 24, 4, 1998, p.965.
[3] The Museum of Modern Art, MoMA Highlights: 350 Works from the Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York, 2013, p.211.
[4] Dr. Ellen Hurst, A Beginner’s Guide to Byzantine Art, khanacademy.org. https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-art-history/early-europe-and-colonial-americas/medieval-europe-islamic-world/a/byzantine-artintro (accessed September 17, 2018).
[5] Marilyn Stokstad, Art History, New York, 1995, p.1130.
[6] MoMA Highlights, p.211.
[7] The Museum of Modern Art, Gold Marilyn Monroe, moma.org. https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/andy-warhol-gold-marilyn-monroe-1962 (accessed September 17, 2018).
[8] MoMA Highlights, p.211.
[9] Douglas Fogle, Andy Warhol: Dark Star, New York, 2017, p.130.
[10] Jonathan Fineberg, Art Since 1940, Strategies of Being, London, 1995, p.246.
[11] Ibid.
[12] The Museum of Modern Art, Campbell’s Soup Cans, moma.org.
https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/andy-warhol-campbells-soup-cans-1962 (accessed September 17, 2018).
[13] American Experience, The Rise of American Consumerism, pbs.org.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/tupperware-consumer/ (accessed September 17, 2018).
[14] Douglas Fogle, Andy Warhol: Dark Star, p.148.
[15] Andy Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (from A to B and Back Again), New York, 1975, pp.100-1.
[16] Martin Dean, The Story of Andy Warhol’s ‘Campbell’s Soup Cans,’ sothebys.com https://www.sothebys.com/en/articles/the-story-of-andy-warhols-campbells-soup-cans (accessed September 18, 2018).
[17] James Smalls, Signs of Separation: The Socio-Political Climate of Andy Warhol’s Race Riot Works (1963).
[18] Ibid.
[19] Paul Mattick, ‘The Andy Warhol of Philosophy and the Philosophy of Andy Warhol’, p.965.
[20] Trevor Fairbrother, Warhol, Death and Disaster, New York, 2004.
[21] Christies, Andy Warhol: Mustard Race Riot, christies.com. https://www.christies.com/lotfinder/Lot/andy-warhol-1928-1987-mustard-race-riot-4387786-details.aspx (accessed September 18, 2018).
[22] Douglas Fogle, Andy Warhol: Dark Star, p.131.
Bibliography:
American Experience, The Rise of American Consumerism, pbs.org. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/tupperware-consumer/ (accessed September 17, 2018).
Christies, Andy Warhol: Mustard Race Riot, christies.com. https://www.christies.com/lotfinder/Lot/andy-warhol-1928-1987-mustard-race-riot-4387786-details.aspx (accessed September 18, 2018).
Dean, Martin, The Story of Andy Warhol’s ‘Campbell’s Soup Cans,’ sothebys.com. https://www.sothebys.com/en/articles/the-story-of-andy-warhols-campbells-soup-cans (accessed September 18, 2018).
Fairbrother, Trevor, Warhol, Death and Disaster, New York, 2004.
Fineberg, Jonathan, Art Since 1940, Strategies of Being, London, 1995.
Fogle, Douglas, Andy Warhol: Dark Star, New York, 2017.
Hartley, Keith, Andy Warhol: A Celebration of Life… and Death, Edinburgh, 2007.
Hurst, Dr Ellen, A Beginner’s Guide to Byzantine Art, khanacademy.org. https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-art-history/early-europe-and-colonial-americas/medieval-europe-islamic-world/a/byzantine-artintro (accessed September 17, 2018).
Mattick, Paul, ‘The Andy Warhol of Philosophy and the Philosophy of Andy Warhol’, The University of Chicago Press, 24, 4, 1998, p.965.
Smalls, James, Signs of Separation: The Socio-Political Climate of Andy Warhol’s Race Riot Works (1963).
Stokstad, Marilyn, Art History, New York, 1995.
The Museum of Modern Art, Campbell’s Soup Cans, moma.org. https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/andy-warhol-campbells-soup-cans-1962 (accessed September 17, 2018).
The Museum of Modern Art, Gold Marilyn Monroe, moma.org. https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/andy-warhol-gold-marilyn-monroe-1962 (accessed September 17, 2018).
The Museum of Modern Art, MoMA Highlights: 350 Works from the Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York, 2013.
Warhol, Andy, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (from A to B and Back Again), New York, 1975.
About the Author:
Toshi is a third year BA student majoring in Art History and Anthropology. She is the current President of the Art History Society.
