Warhol’s America at the Whitney

By Sarah Balcombe

“Everybody has their own America, and then they have the pieces of a fantasy America that they think is out there but they can’t see…And you live in your dream America that you’ve custom-made from art and schmaltz and emotions just as much as you live in your real one.” — Andy Warhol, America, 1985

Flowers, soup cans and Brillo boxes are most commonly associated with Warhol and it is these ironic silkscreens, paintings and sculptures for which he is best known. Yet it is Warhol’s narrative of modern culture which is truly engaging and paradoxical. A product of the establishment and anti-establishment, Warhol strove to portray celebrity icons, and also those less celebrated.

With his effectual re-posting of Charles Moore’s photograph of Birmingham Alabama’s riots in Mustard Race Riot, 1963 above, his Ladies and Gentlemen series, 1975, below,

featuring trans-rights activists and his Jean-Michel Basquiat collaborations, see Paramount, 1984-5, below, Warhol acknowledged the less acknowledged, and fringe communities whilst continuing a preoccupation with capitalism and Hollywood.

Although Warhol continued to use repetition as an aesthetic device and a commentary on monetary value, he introduced a further element of abstraction, as shown in his Sixty-Three White Mona Lisa’s, 1979, above, a sophisticated adaption of his earlier Thirty Are Better Than One, 1963, below, utilizing pattern and paint to obscure content.

In Camouflage Last Supper 1986, below, 

Warhol similarly obscures another Leonardo da Vinci iconic painting, with the stronger fatigue pattern almost completely overwhelming the content. This obscurification can be seen as a more poignant expression of loss during the height of the AIDS crisis and shows a continuation of his fascination  with pattern, abstraction and material as demonstrated in his experimental Shadow (Diamond Dust) and Oxidation Paintings in the late 1970s. 

Shadow (Diamond Dust), 1979-9, above.

Oxidation Painting, 1978, Gold, metallic, pigment and urine on linen, below.

Visit Andy Warhol- From A to B and Back Again at the Whitney, before its closing on Sunday, to see another side of the artist. His work is so compelling and progressive that it bizarrely renders subsequent works by artists such as YBA’s Damien Hirst obsolete. The post-Warhol detached series of dots, butterflies, formaldehyde sharks and diamond encrusted skulls of the 1990s are a poor substitute to Warhol’s profound, yet obscured, expression of self, both in society and out of it.

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‘Tis the Winter of Our Discontent

By Sarah Balcombe

Just like nothing said summer like Alex Katz at the Neuberger, nothing says winter and particularly the winter of our discontent than Charles White- A Retrospective at MOMA.

With images such as Love Letter I 1971 (above) protesting the arrest of Black Panther activist Angela Davis and Birmingham Totem 1964  (below) referencing the 1963 Klu Klux Klan killing in Sixteenth St Baptist Church in Alabama, it is poignant to reflect on this year past, with so many racially motivated destructive acts carried out in places of worship across the United States.

White’s detailed illustrations and images of dignity, strength and suffering provided the narrative for many African Americans, empowering a social consciousness leading up to and during the Civil Rights Movement.

It possible that in his later years ,White was  influenced by artists such as Barkley L Hendricks whose Icon for My Superman 1969 (below) has a similar boldness and sense of irony to White’s Sound of Silence, 1978 (above).

Undoubtedly White’ s work paved the way for more recent artists, such as Kehinde Wiley whose decorative Alios Itzhak (The World Stage: Israel)

shows a remarkably similar palette, to White’s commemorative Banner for Willy J, 1976 (below).

During the cold snap be sure to catch the last few days of this stunning retrospective, listen to the accompanying soundtrack and podcasts by Harry Belafonte and Kerry James Marshall, then beat a hasty retreat downtown to the Whitney to check out Andy Warhol’s images of Mustard Race Riot, 1963 (below). It is no coincidence that this was the same year that Martin Luther King gave his “ I Have a Dream” speech.

A better tribute to Martin Luther King Day, I have yet to find.