8/13/2019 Blake Gopnik on Warhol the salesman and performer. Newsweek, Oct. 3, 2011.

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THE MOST IMPORTANT figure in contemporary art may be

a guy named Andy Warhol. Not the Andy Warhol who gave

us Campbells soup cans and Marilyns. Tat Warhol died in

1987 and now counts only as an Old Master of pop art. Te

other Andy Warhol is the one who appeared on Te Love

Boat and made paintings by peeing, whose movies could

be absolutely static but whose sold-out life was as buzzy as

could be. Tat Warhol died in 87, too, but his influence liveson as though he never left the scene.

Fifty years ago this autumn, Warhol made his switch from

commercial illustrator to fine artist. Since then, hes had the

same all-consuming influence that Picasso had on the half-

century before. Except that where Picasso shattered what art

looked like, Warhol transformed what it could be.

o my mind, Warhols everywhere . . . there are a zillion

people who resonate with his example in some way, says

curator and writer Jack Bankowsky. In 2009 he helped orga-

nize a big exhibition called Pop Lifethat paired Warhol with

Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst and his other heirsand that

billed the Love Boat appearance as one of Warhols more

notable works. Warhol, Bankowsky wrote in his essay forthe show, crafted a next step after art in which social

climbing, shopping, cruising, and collecting are bound up

in a roving social sculpture held together by artwhich is to

say business.

Tis Warhol set an example for all the artists who now do

more than paint and sculptwho appear in the tabloids and

on V, who design for Louis Vuitton and star in luxury ads,

whose price tags matter as much as the diamond skulls they

get stuck to. [Warhols] trick is that he somehow brought all

that stuff under the sign of art, says Bankowsky. Weve got-

ten to the point where that larger Warhol is catching up to

the pop Warhol.

Over the weekend in Washington, this larger Warhol

CULTURE ART

The OtherAndyForget Campbells Soup and Marilynthe Warholthat matters is the freak who sold out to TV.Todays artists love him.BY BLAKE GOPNIK

Warhols work with video and in advertisements,

like this still from a 1983 ad for TDK videotape,

remains powerful today.

8/13/2019 Blake Gopnik on Warhol the salesman and performer. Newsweek, Oct. 3, 2011.

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went on display at the National Gallery, in an extensive exhi-

bition of pieces the artist built around the tabloid press. i-

tled Warhol: Headlines, the show includes works in video

and film that still shape those art forms today. Across the

Mall at the Smithsonians Hirshhorn Museum, curators just

launched the first display of all 102 of the Shadow Paintings,

which Warhol finished in 1979. Tey all show one version or

another of the same unintelligible imagea bit of shadow in

a studio cornerbut silkscreened in a huge range of colors.

Tey have the ironic opacity youd expect from an art-school

student today, along with the same slacker wink. Te open-

ing party had disco. I guess that makes them disco dcor,

Warhol said, when asked if the Shad-

owswere art.

Like museums, the market has also

come to embrace an enlarged view of

Warhol. Amy Cappellazzo, in charge of

postwar and contemporary art at Chris-

ties auction house, says that although

bidders would just go bananas for a

great early Marilyn, over the last five

years or so they have come to settle quite

nicely for much later workssuch as the

1986 fright-wig self-portrait that sold

for more than $27 million last spring. Yet

Cappellazzo acknowledges that there

are parts of Andy Warhol that no one

can ownthat the market simply hasno way to get its grips on Warhol the

filmmaker, public figure, and mass-

media machine.

Te serious art world once wanted

no part of that Warhol. In his own day,

Warhol the V star and painter of ce-

lebrities could look like a clear falling-

off from, and selling out of, the great

Warhol of classic pop art. A lot of peo-

ple had diffi culty with him moving

between the art world and fashion, re-

members John Hanhardt, a veteran

film curator who knew him. (Tefilms are the great body of workthey

are simply breathtaking, Hanhardt

adds. Many artists now feel the same.)

Warhols critics werent wrong to say

he sold out. Works like his Shadow

Paintingsor the metal surfaces he peed

on, let alone his Love Boatcameo, dont

register as unique works of genius, as

his early works do. But thats because

Warhol had moved on to making un-

unique art that tested what selling out

might be about, in an America where

selling more matters most. When War-hol churned out 102 almost illegible

canvases, different only in their colorways, it was partly to ex-

plore the power of his brand and the mass production of the

Warhol product. I always think that quantity is the best

gauge on anything, Warhol once said, and that maxim came

to govern his art. When rich collectors pay through the nose

for a single shadow painting, as though it were a Rembrandt,

they arent understanding what Warhols products mean. But

they are proving his point, anyway.

If we are going to be honest about what were taking from

Warhol, we have to accept the business/art network as what

hes about, says Bankowsky, the Pop Lifecurator. Te de-

based Warhol is actually the pure Warhol.

Like much of his work, WarholsDollar Signpaintings from 1982 were about selling out.