Very O.T.!!! Warhol?????

 
Hahaahaha, he was a freak Hoss, thats why he could make paintings of a can of Campbell's Soup and sell them for $1500. I'd hate to guess what the stupid things are worth today! He made pop art out of anything and made a fortune at it. It was his genius. Reminds me of an individual we have around here that has the greenest thumb I ever did see and puts up and preserves anything and everything but the kitchen sink. He's a little freaky in that way too but that is his genius! He may not have Mr. Warhol's fame and fortune but he's rich in a more important thing . . . friends! No matter, we love him like a brutha! Maybe he's the Andy Warhol of the pepper patch.

Good night Hoss,

Blair


 

Never met Mr. Warhol, but he did seem to have a fair number of peculiarities. That aside, one part of his work is that it was not produced at a "studio," but at a "factory." I guess his point was that most everything comes out of a factory, so why not art? And, as a whole, we spend lots of time looking at celebrities, so he spent lots of time cultivating the same sort of glamor. A few generations before, the goal was art for art's sake. Mr Warhol seems to me to have practiced fame for fame's sake.

And, for what its worth, some of his color choices were pretty nice.

I like it Don!

true, definitely true

art isn't something you can explain.

and so here's an explanation (that's a joke, i can't explain it any better than a scholar could, and they can't)

one thing that generally holds true about artists... the most famous ones tend to have been the very first to do something, or (and this is the gist of it) to come up with something that was sitting there all the time waiting to happen, something simple, even obvious, and yet no one had ever (ever) really done it before.

imagine how difficult that is. that's what 'genius' is. it doesn't need to be something everyone likes, either.

i would dare say a greater question is why would Thomas Kincaid be collectible?

Taste making always seems elitist, it always seems as though those in the 'art' field are snobby, overindulgent, over educated, and posturing. and that may be the case, but the "art world" is almost always correct, too. in short, it literally "is what it is". The fact that the majority of people may not agree means virtually nothing. it may in fact even help power it. you can't be at the cutting dge of something if everyone in the world is in utter agreement with you on it.

this is a documentary that might shed some light on one concept of what 'art' is to someone.

http://www.novamov.com/video/u27uvba3pmg48

two people, a teacher and a postman. saved EVERY bit of money to buy things they liked, not which other people liked. at the end of their lives, it turns out they have perhaps the greatest collection of conceptual art, too large for the national gallery to accept in its entirety. they gave it away, and it was likely worth a billion or so. they livde in near poverty to support their collecting, buying from 'unknowns' like chuck close when he was starting out, misunderstood, and in need of cash himself. his stuff sells in the milliom or two million level now. they paid a hundred bucks, and he got to pay his rent. without them, the chuck closes of the world (like van gogh), sink into obscurity.

http://www.novamov.com/video/u27uvba3pmg48

anyway, art is never what you or i think it is. there is no 'vote' as to whether something is art. and in one of the great paradoxes... i good litmus test for whether something is art is whether people are debating whether it is. no one debates whether a trash can on the side of the road is art, but the mere act of taking that very trash can and putting it on a pedestal, in a white room, perfectly lit, begins to steer it more toward art than away from it. and the minute a group gathers around it to debate it, it is becoming art. great art? who knows, that's not the point. but if it (or warhol) get you TALKING about art, debating what fits, what isn't, who is... THAT is what describes art as a whole.

warhol was among the first to do more than a few original things in the art world. i too have 'issues' with the concept behind some of his work (a factory of people silk screening new works he himself never 'created' per se). but at the same time, some things are very obviusly (now, with hindsight) 'art'. the soup can? undeniably. but of course when you do it first, it looks awful stupid. a frigging "soup can"? yes. why not? and if not, then why not sooner? why did it take until that moment for someone to do it? and what does the image of that can do?

you could debate it forever almost. and again, that very debate goes a long way to what makes something 'art'.

if it was so simple and obvious and trite? well, why didn't someone do it?

mona lisa? what's the big deal? well, in the renaissance, you did a portrait in profile, rigid. that just HOW YOU PAINT A PORTRAIT. so some whippersnapper has the woman turn to the viewer and, worse, look over his shoulder. what the hell is this frigging crazy painter doing? and why is her hair placed so 'slutty'? damn racy (for its time). what's with the asymmetrical smile? etc.

it may be the very first 'psychological' portrait. anyone (anyone) can paint a portrait of someone. can you capture something more than that? the mona lisa is a middle class, pregnant, 'outsider' in the world of prtraiture at the time. and da vinci needed the money, frankly. painting housewives and not noblewomen? loser.

so what does he do with it? he transforms in one painting the idea of what a portrait is, and creates an entirely new understanding and possibility. just that.

your question about "warhol?" specifically is not about warhol at all. it's about art. and EVERY. SINGLE. ADVANCEMENT. in art is met with fury and skepticism and even disgust. even sometimes by connoisseurs. thankfully, that is why we do not have a definintion of art. th 'art crowd' may hate something initially, and in a hundred year's time, it is seen as a defining genius.

again. van gogh. i made more money yesterday drawing a picture of a building than vincent van gogh made in his entire life. he sold one painting. my work in my lifetime is far more popular than his was in his lifetime. that does not make me an artist. nor does any person even telling me politely that they think i'm an artist. i am not, i am an illustrator. van gogh was an artist. and he didn't need money, or popularity, or your (my) or anyone else's approval. he simply needed to do something that had really never been done before, and wait a hundred years til the world caught on.

that's a lot harder than painting a pretty picture.

any idiot can paint a pretty picture (i have a bill to send out today for a bunch of pretty pictures i painted). very few of us are actual artists.

i liked the soup can cause tomato is my favorite :laugh:

for the vast majority of us, that's what art is, my friend.

i submit that your toilet, placed in the living room next to the woodstove, is a challenge to the generally understood expectations we have about privacy, bodily function, technology, and the general tendency for man to deny his most base aspects. you have, by placing the 'act' front and center, elevated man's basic needs to a level of worship and adulation, restored it to its rightful place as a true daily ritual. you have in fact RITUALIZED the ritual itself. very Joycean. There is nothing offensive about man's physical processes. You have taken something that has been hidden for hundreds of years, under a false, even dishonest sense of 'decorum', and returned it to its rightful place at the very center of our daily existence. if food is here exalted, and fetishized, and celebrated, photographed, and hailed... and if the makers of food go up in our estimation by raising the very basic need of sustenance to a level of art, then why should we look the other way when one of us places his temporary toilet, his communal cloaca, in a place of like worship? why is it that the food on one end is art, and on the other end must remain unspoken? you have equated food and feces. that... THAT is art my friend.

too bad it is merely a derivative work... duchamp beat you to it some hundred years ago. his urinal on a pedestal is worth, now, inestimable millions.

So the question remains, do you still shut the door to the crapper when the family is gone from the house?

i don't shut it when they are there.

thanks cap'n. i have seen your art. you are an artist...

no small thing.

What Stike Said.........
I've had many friends or relatives who ARE artists. Each and every one of them was 'different' on a social level as well as a creative level. It's not something I could put my finger on, but they drive me nutty they're just so different. Not just painters but musicians, sculptors, etc... some, didn't even know it. One guy would be creating music from others work unaware of how 'talented' he was in that direction, and using strong drugs to tame the inspiration. He's a well respected DJ now. Not my cup o' tea but others love his creativity.

Bowie sings of Warhol

Hervorragend!!

it is supposed to make you wonder..

don't forget, the art MARKET is intertwined with, but still wholly separate from "whjat is art. i know that makes no sense... but a good example is that 'art' is one thing, 'valuable' is another.

chinese works have always been collected, and have always had great value (the stuff at the top of the market). but now that the upper classes of chinese are growing, and they are experiencing 'wealth' at a greater level than ever before, they are beginning to buy back a lot of chinese art. those prices are skyrocketing. much of the best stuff went west, and now the east wants it back. so, price is sometimes based on investment. some people buy art because if they buy the best (most recognized, most valued stuff), they have a good chance of selling it later on for more. it's buying at the "top of the market".

i learned my lesson with books and watches. i used to gasp at the prices charged for stellar examples, and was satisfied with lesser stuff. early on (pre wife and kids!) i would sooner have bought ten hundred dollar watches (for example) rather than one thousand dollar watch. but now, twenty years later, if i had to unload them, i might get $50 to $100 each for the hundred dollar watches, but the thousand dollar watch i declined to buy is now valued at $5000. people will (generally) always want what is seen by others as valuable.

many folks buying warhol are new to the market, dot-com dudes. which is utterly fine.

but the real story of appreciation can be seen in folks like herb and dorothy, who paid 100 bucks or so or (in the case of Christo), watched his CAT as a favor to him when he went on vacation, and got original artwork in return (probably a $200k piece now). they spent what they could for art they liked, which maybe wasn't valuable at the time. they just liked it. and their collecting helped found an entire branch of art. the collection in a way made them more valuable.

i collect a certain kind of book. no one else really is interested in my specific 'guy' (american bookbinder). but the mere fact that i have been asking around for 20 years, and buying his stuff, has raised the prices on his work. no one notices it until someone notices it. thankfully, it's still not terribly expensive. it's not like i own a boat :laugh:

maybe i could get a few hundred grand for it then :laugh: its a great conversation piece

Art is in the eye of the beholder.