|
Sample: "The Death and
Life of Andy Warhol " ( APA format )
Sample: "The Death and
Life of Andy Warhol " ( MLA )
The
Death and Life of Andy Warhol
(Chicago/Turabian Format) |
[Author's Name]
[Instructor's Name]
[Course Title]
[Date]
The Death and Life of Andy Warhol
This Book Life and Death of Andy Warhol were published
in 1989. This book can be termed as a gossipy version
of Andy Warhol's life with every seedy detail and sexual
nuance. Bockris has painstakingly researched Warhol's
life. The result is candid details from his Childhood
to the transformation of Andy to the Andy that we know.
A lot of facts are revealed that Warhol made special
efforts to obscure.
The American artist and filmmaker Andy Warhol was born
in Pittsburgh on August 6th, 1928. He is considered
a founder and major figure of the POP ART movement.
He graduated from the Carnegie Institute of Technology
in 1949 and later moved to New York City and gained
success as a commercial artist. He was first noticed
in August 1949, when Glamour Magazine asked him to illustrate
a feature entitled "Success is a Job in New York".
He continued doing commercial work and illustrations
and by 1955 he was the most successful and imitated
commercial artist in New York. In 1960 he produced the
first of his paintings depicting enlarged comic strip
images - such as Popeye and Superman - initially for
use in a window display. Warhol was the pioneer of the
process through which an enlarged photographic image
is transferred to a silk screen that is then placed
on a canvas and inked from the back. This was the technique
using which he produced the series of mass-media images
beginning in 1962.
The Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles showed his 32 Campbell's
Soup Cans, 1961-62. In the next six years Andy did some
of his best work, finishing in 1968, when he was shot.
All his work was focused on one central thought that
in a culture flooded with information, where opinions
are formed by the influence of television and radio.
In this era Andy felt that there was a place for meaningless
art and not all art had to have a deep meaning to it.
There didn't have to be a passionate feel to it. It
could be as cold as ice. Obviously this was not a popular
opinion about art and not everybody considered this
form of art as art anyways. And as a result this art
gave rise to a totally different kind of niche as pop
art. The market for Andy's product was the aspirant's
upper class. They were the educated, aware and arty
type. Mainly this section comprised of the youth. Andy
catered to the section of the market that were open
to ideas and were part of the swinging bohemian culture
of drugs and free living. Most importantly they had
the money for his work. They were the elite of their
era and from them Andy would get further image and career
advancement because that was what art was to him: a
career.
In all honesty his art did have a very deep meaning
to it. It was a reflection of the harshness, ambiguity
and banality of The American Culture.
Andy had the natural inclination towards this way of
life and thought but it would be untrue to say that
he was a pure artist at heart. He was a commercial artist
and made sure that his products were appealing to a
certain segment of buyers.
He was a mouthpiece for a sort of collective American
state of mind in which celebrity and brand had completely
replaced both sacredness and solidity.
Warhol's thirty-two soup cans are about the monotony
that this culture was breeding on: same brand, same
size, same paint surface, same fame as product. They
impersonate the condition of mass advertising, out of
which his receptiveness had grown. They are much more
expressionless than the object which may have partly
inspired them. This indifference, this fascinated and
yet unmoved take on the object, became the hallmark
of Wahl's work. Andy also painted the faces of stars
such as Liz, Marilyn. Jackie and the rest. He felt that
they were also strong emblems of the culture that was
defined by pop icons. Andy's consumers were
Fascinated in real life by all that he painted. Even
his paintings show a certain detachment and repetition.
Warhol intensified this sense of indifference by using
silk screen, and not bothering to rectify the imperfections
of the print: those slips of the screen, uneven inklings
of the roller, and the unevenness. 1
The book continues till Andy's death in 1989 with every
titillating story the author could find along the way.
Most of the time the vivid details are embarrassing,
fraught with a sense of meaninglessness, as if the dark
and dismal side was all there was to the man.
Bockris is as coldly detached as Warhol supposedly was,
and the resulting double negative comes off as too inhumane.
Warhol comes across as a manipulative marketer who knew
the right buttons to press. We see that Andy was as
generous a man as he was mean. He was also very defensive
which showed a certain insecurity in the character of
the man. When he was in his defensive stance he could
actually rip apart the opponent. Warhol produced many
movies and was also part of the music scene. His movies
promoted explicit sex on the screen although and as
a result he once again 2was not catering to the mass
audience. Most of his films were experimental and had
great shock value.
Andy's social pace now included the suddenly fashionable
author of Slaves of New York, Tama Janowitz, the fashion
designer Stephen Sprouse, and the pop star Nick Rhodes
of Duran Duran. "I love him, I worship him,"
he told a reporter. "I masturbate to Duran Duran
videos." 2
Statements as these were used brilliantly by Andy to
arouse interest and curiosity about his persona. In
reality he made himself a brand.
Endnotes
1. Victor Bockris. "The Death and Life of Andy
Warhol". (1989) Bantam Books]
2. Victor Bockris. "The Death and Life of Andy
Warhol". (1989) Bantam Books
|
Quality
& clarity. 
