2 December 2015
On the walls of the Musée of Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, where they have arrived from the Dia Art Foundation in New York, it is possible to admire 102 canvases silkscreened in 17 different colors, Andy Warhol’s celebrated Shadows (1978-79). Shown all together for the first time in Europe, they are accompanied by other famous series: Jackies (1964), Electric Chairs (1964-71), Flowers (1964-65) and Maos (1972-73). Resistant to any attempt at categorization, Andy Warhol’s work does have in common the tendency of the image to break out its support and take possession of its surroundings: calling out to be lived, experienced. As we are told in the introduction to the exhibition: “Saturating space, mixing genres, disrupting hierarchies, walking the line between too much and not enough—these were all ways the artist used to challenge both the institution and the visitor” (Hervé Vanel). One, none and a hundred thousand are the variations of an outsize account that, in its repetition of the same motif, dilates the line of the horizon. As frames on a human scale, the Shadows represent the passing of time. Seriality is also explored in the study of the graphic evolution of a trademark, as happens in Campbell’s Soup II (1969), and involves the artist himself, who multiplies his self-portrait with the same detachment as he did with the can of soup. The reflection on the production of artifacts in series returns in the “filmed portraits,” which operate on the principle of departure from the original dimension of the work: fascinated by the physicality of a reel of 16-mm film and its imperfections, the artist chose to preserve the less perfect frames. And again: the importance of the role played by advertising and the media in events like the tragedy of Jackie Kennedy, and the dissolution of the cult of personality in the faces of Mao. Finally, the glinting reflections of Silver Clouds break up the surroundings in the manner of the architectural utopias of the sixties, which favored spaces that could be modulated over the permanence of heavy structures. “Ideally hovering in midspace, the clouds mark a threshold: barely tangible, they were intended—before disappearing—to celebrate the end of art as object” (Vanel again).
Warhol Unlimited
Musée d’Art Modern de la Ville de Paris
A cura di Sébastien Gokalp e Hervé Vanel
Parigi
2 ottobre 2015 > 7 febbraio 2016
Photo: Pierre Antoine
Andy Warhol (1928-1987), Electric Chairs, 1964-71. Warhol Unlimited, Installation view. © Courtesy Dia Art Foundation, New York. © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / ADAGP, Paris 2015. Photo: © Pierre Antoine.
Andy Warhol (1928-1987), Electric Chairs, 1964-71. Warhol Unlimited, Installation view. © Courtesy Dia Art Foundation, New York. © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / ADAGP, Paris 2015. Photo: © Pierre Antoine.
Andy Warhol (1928-1987), Shadows, 1978-79. Warhol Unlimited, Installation view. © Courtesy Dia Art Foundation, New York. © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / ADAGP, Paris 2015. Photo: © Pierre Antoine.
Andy Warhol (1928-1987), Shadows, 1978-79. Warhol Unlimited, Installation view. © Courtesy Dia Art Foundation, New York. © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / ADAGP, Paris 2015. Photo: © Pierre Antoine.
Andy Warhol (1928-1987), Shadows, 1978-79. Warhol Unlimited, Installation view. © Courtesy Dia Art Foundation, New York. © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / ADAGP, Paris 2015. Photo: © Pierre Antoine.
Andy Warhol (1928-1987), Silver Clouds, 1978-79. Warhol Unlimited, Installation view. © Courtesy Dia Art Foundation, New York. © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / ADAGP, Paris 2015. Photo: © Pierre Antoine.
Andy Warhol (1928-1987), Silver Clouds, 1978-79. Warhol Unlimited, Installation view. © Courtesy Dia Art Foundation, New York. © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / ADAGP, Paris 2015. Photo: © Pierre Antoine.
Andy Warhol (1928-1987) devant les Shadows à la Heiner Friedrich Gallery, New York, 1979. © Arthur Tress. © Courtesy Dia Art Foundation, New York © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / ADAGP, Paris 2015.
Andy Warhol (1928-1987), Big Electric Chair, 1967. © The Menil Collection, Houston. Photo by Hickey-Robertson, Houston. © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / ADAGP, Paris 2015.
Andy Warhol (1928-1987), Flowers, 1965. © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / ADAGP, Paris 2015.
Andy Warhol (1928-1987), Jackie (Gold), 1964. © The Sonnabend Collection. © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / ADAGP, Paris 2015.
Andy Warhol (1928-1987), Sous Silver Cloud, Ferus Gallery, Los Angeles, 1965. © Steve Schapiro/Corbis. © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / ADAGP, Paris 2015.