Andy Warhol
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Andy Warhol (August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American painter, filmmaker, publisher, actor, and a major figure in the Pop Art movement.
Warhol was born as Andrew Warhola in Forest City, Pennsylvania. His parents, Ondrej (Andrew) Warhola (original surname was Varchola, he changed it after coming to US) and Júlia Zavacká, were working class immigrants of Ruthenian ethnicity from Miková, in northeast Slovakia; his father worked in the coal mines of Pennsylvania. The family was Catholic. In the third grade, he came down with a disease called St. Vitus' dance, which is caused by a virus that affects nerves and is thought to be a complication of scarlet fever. This disease changed his looks, and his life, forever.
Warhol showed early artistic talent and studied commercial art at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. In 1949, he moved to New York City and began a successful career in magazine illustration and advertising. He became well-known mainly for his whimsical ink drawings of shoes done in a loose, blotted style.
In the 1960s, Warhol began to make paintings of famous American products such as Campbell's soup cans and Coca-Cola. He switched to silkscreen prints, seeking not only to make art of mass produced items, but to mass produce the art itself. He said that he wanted to be like a robot. He hired and supervised "art workers" engaged in making prints, shoes, films, books and other items at his studio, The Factory, located on Union Square in New York City. Warhol's body of work furthermore includes commissioned portraits and commercials.
A lot of Warhol's works revolve around the concept of Americana and American culture. He painted money, food, women's shoes, celebrities, newspaper clippings, and everyday objects. To him, these subjects represented American cultural values. For instance, Coca-Cola represented democratic equality because, quote: "What’s great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it."
He used popular imagery and methods to visualize the American cultural identity of the 20th century. This popular redefinition of American culture is a theme and result of Warhol's art. Because American culture has had great international influence, Warhol did, as well.
Outside of the art world, Andy Warhol is best known for the quote, "In the future everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes." He later told reporters, humorously, "My new line is, 'In fifteen minutes, everybody will be famous.'"
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Andy Warhol".
Back to pop.midia
Back to pop.artz
Keith Haring
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Keith Haring (May 4, 1958 - February 16, 1990) was a pre-eminent artist and social activist whose work responded to the New York street culture of the 1980s.
He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania but grew up in Kutztown and was interested in art from an early age. From 1976 to 1978 he studied graphic design at a commercial art school in Pittsburgh. After coming out, he quit school to move to New York City. There he was greatly inspired by the graffiti art, and additionally studied at the School of Visual Arts. Many of his works as a pop artist show homoerotic themes.
He achieved his first public attention with his chalk drawings in the subways of New York (see public art). The exhibitions were put on film by the photographer Tseng Kwong Chi. At this time, "The Radiant Child" also became his symbol. Starting in 1980, he organized exhibitions in Club 57. He participated in the Times Square exhibition and drew for the first time animals and human faces. In 1981 he sketched his first chalk drawings on black paper and painted plastic, metal and found objects.
He contributed in the New York New Wave display. He met with the graffiti artist L.A. II (Angel Oritz). Following that, he had his first exclusive exhibition in the Tony Shafrzi Gallery. That same year, Haring took part of Documenta 7 in Kassel, Germany. He took part in the Whitney Biennial in 1983, as well as the Sao Saulo Biennial. He got to know Andy Warhol.
In 1984, he painted wall murals in Melbourne, Sydney, Rio de Janeiro, Minneapolis and Manhattan. In 1985 he began to paint canvas. Simultaneously, the Museum of Modern Art in Bordeaux opened an exhibition of his works, and he took part in the Paris Biennial. In 1986 Haring painted a murals in Amsterdam, Paris, Phoenix and in Berlin on the Berlin Wall at Checkpoint Charlie. He painted the body of Grace Jones for her video "I'm Not Perfect."
He had his own exhibitions in 1987 in Helsinki and Antwerpen, among others. He was also a tireless AIDS activist whose art often depicted AIDS in his own unique way. Despite his early death of AIDS on February 16, 1990 at the age of 31, Haring's imagery has become a universally recognized visual language of the 20th century. The Keith Haring Foundation, established in 1989, continues Keith's legacy of giving to children's organizations.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Keith Haring".
Back to pop.midia
Back to pop.artz
