ASPEN ART MUSEUM
DEC 03 2021 – MAR 27 2022
21
Warhol in Private
Opposite Alex Petalas in the library at The Perimeter, London, September 2020, holding Sarah Lucas’s Tit Teddy (2012).
All photographs: Kuba Ryniewicz
American society and American culture change. MM That’s true. SK And it’s curious because 1968, 1969, those years of such dramatic global shifting—it’s this moment in history that he’s mirroring. MM That’s so true. US Senator Robert Kennedy was killed three days after Warhol was shot. The 1960s, ’70s and ’80s were so wildly di ! erent to one another in terms of culture, and I might even say in terms of celebrity. The product endorsement—no one held a candle to Warhol regarding exploiting that opening. He became the quintessential artist in mainstream American culture. It was as if he became a network. SK Do you think it was transgressive that he straddled so many di # erent worlds: true mainstream pop culture, a television show like The Love Boat [1977–90], advertising? MM I think it’s unusual for an artist to take on the kind of authority that he gave himself. That’s a radical and transgressive thing to do. To produce content for mass consumption is not usually how artists imagine their role in society; I think artists imagine them- selves as critics of a larger culture. SK Also to have no limits. MM And have no limits, exactly. To imagine that a very idiosyncratic vision might be understood by many people or should be a part of daily popular culture. That’s a fascinating approach. When you watch Warhol TV, you see how di ! erent his version of cable television might be
from the average cable show or mainstream television.
Above and opposite Exhibition planning and archival material in Monica Majoli’s studio, Los Angeles, October 2021
SK So many of the things Warhol did as an artist are de " ning features of American culture: how he saw the world, how he used pop culture as his medium. It’s impossible to decouple popular culture from Warhol’s interpretation of it. For you, is this a challenge, a curse or helpful? How did you approach this in your reconceptualization and reimagining of all of the exhibition material? MM It is all of the above. The thing about Andy Warhol is, he’s too much to wrap your brain around. His impact has been so enormous, so dispersed. He rede " ned the way we see reality. How many times a day do you hear the quote about everyone being famous for 15 minutes? Even though that may be a quotation from someone else attrib- uted to him, he decided to make it his own. An interesting thing about Warhol is how he gave himself enormous author- ity and, at the same time, he also wasn’t very particular about authorship. So, when you ask if it is a curse, I would say that it’s hard to get your bearings within an exhibition of this magnitude and with an artist of this magnitude. It’s almost like his in # uence has sunk into the soil of our country. Things have grown out of it. He has in " l- trated various ways in which we think about the country so thoroughly that it’s hard to separate out American culture from Warhol. It’s hard to separate the 1950s from Warhol and how we
“It’s hard to get your bearings within an exhibition of this magnitude and with an artist of this magnitude. It’s almost like his influence has sunk into the soil of our country. It’s hard to separate out American culture from Warhol.”
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