Pop Art in the Valley
On a recent mission, I viewed the exhibition Andy Warhol: Portraits before it opens at the Phoenix Art Museum on March 4th. Organized by and featuring original works from The Andy Warhol Museum, the collection has a diverse array of works spanning four decades and running the gamut from his signature portraits and photography to his filmmaking. Warhol, who famously stated “In the future everybody will be famous for 15 minutes,” was a leader in the Pop Art Movement.
Warhol’s works are unmistakeable for their vibrant collage of color, featuring images of iconic people and brands. He was a magazine publisher, photographer, filmmaker – an all around creative and in many ways, a visionary. He foresaw that our culture would one day be pop culture driven and expressed this through his art with portraits of celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe and Grace Jones. One can only imagine how Warhol would depict today’s culture icons such as Lady Gaga and Kim Kardashian. He’d surely find humor and inspiration in Jeremy Scott’s Pop Art-influenced fashion designs for Moschino.
“This is a great opportunity to explore a single aspect of Warhol’s art, that spans the entirety of the artist’s career,” said Phoenix Art Museum Curator Jerry Smith, in a release.
I explored the video display where visitors can sit in front of a vintage camera display, similar to Warhol’s “Screen Tests” from the 1960s when he filmed more than 400, 3-minute silent black and white films of visitors to his factory. He played the videos back at a slower speed and considered them “portraits that move.” Other video footage in the exhibition include a nearly 6-hour film of a subject sleeping. Warhol could quite possibly be the father of reality TV.
As part of the exhibition at the Museum, there is an interactive station where visitors can create a screen test and we decided to give it a try. Visit the Phoenix Art Museum March 4th through June 21st in the Marley Foundation Gallery, to create your own!
