This has been National Warhol Week. The notorious American wonder boy of Pop, whose painting of a tin of soup fetched £25,000 at a recent auction, has moved in on London in a typical blaze of stealthy publicity.
Not only is there a full-scale exhibition of paintings at the Tate Gallery; there are early (and hitherto almost unknown) drawings at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, prints at the Mayfair, and even a set of snapshot souvenirs at the Photographers’ Gallery. Only the films are missing. Now, if ever, is the moment to make up our minds. Is he sublime or ridiculous? Or, a worrying thought, perhaps both?
The lapse of time since his first appearance on the scene 10 years ago has made the question a bit easier to answer. The images which he slapped down then before the astonished public – the Campbell soup-cans, the tarted-up publicity photos of Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor, the lavender-tinted study of an electric chair – these looked like impudent gestures under the public’s nose. His appearance and manner as an ash-pale hermit surrounded by a halo of beautiful and amoral disciples, magnified the impression of manipulated glamour.
Exclusive and elusive, a secretive stylist who used mechanical techniques, a personality who courted anonymity, he was both deeply uncommitted and highly inarticulate. Yet he has stamped on his period an attitude strong enough to amount to a committed belief and his rare mumbled remarks have the sting of revelation:
“I think it would be terrific if everybody was alike.”
“I would like to be a machine.”
“To pretend something is real I’d have to fake it.”
“There’s nothing behind it.”
Extract from the article by Nigel Gosling
