By Cyn Rene’ Whitfield
The
International Council of Museums (n.d.). To understand how a culture can be
examined through art the essence of cultures lies within the walls of more than
17,500 art museums in the United States according to the American Association
of Museums (2010) and more recently, virtually the number of museum websites in
the United States may be greater than the combined number of museum websites in
the rest of the world, according to is
important to know the definition of the medium. Art is a combination of
interpretation, skill, training, and observation that capture influences of
class, gender, race, economic status and ideas of truth (Stokstad, 2008). The manner of representation, realism verses
surrealism, are artistic expression of these influences and have been preserved
in the works of artists like Leonardo DaVinci, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso and
Vincent van Gough. Although the more hallucinatory Picasso expresses a warped
superior view of reality through expressionism (Caws, 2004) he is still
representative of a culture. Van Gogh in his portal of Starry Night (1889) was
said to have believed as a socialist that modern life with all it’s social
change and focus on progress alienated people from each others and themselves
(Walther & Metzger (n.d.). Starry Night was said to be a communication of
the emotional state of a time.
Art
produces a greater emic perspective of a culture that relies on that culture to
participate (Garland, 2010). Both the
artist and the viewer interpret and attach characteristics from within to
define their meaningfulness. Conclusions through generalizations have less
cultural dimensions according to Dutch psychologist, Geert Hofstede, (Varmer
& Beamer, 2008). It is this reason
art serves as window to culture. Twentieth century pop artist Andy Warhol is
once such portal. In the fall of 1962,
his exhibition at the Stable Gallery in New York sold out. His silkscreen
paintings of Marilyn Monroe, Campbell soup cans, dollar bills and Coke bottles
established him as the ‘New Realist” in modern art. In an interview with Art
Voices in December 1962 (Goldsmith, 2004), Warhol explained the strategies of
elusiveness, passivity and mirroring that would serve him well in his art over
the following twenty-five years. It is Warhol’s mirroring of American culture
in the 1960’s, 70’s and 80’s that not only preserves a culture but it also is
representative of how other cultures view us.
The
1960’s were turbulent times in American history from the civil rights movement,
to the space race, to the assassination of a President. As we moved away from
the conservative attitudes of the fifties a more youthful generation comprised
of approximately seventy million children from the post-war baby boomers became
teenagers and young adults (Lone Star College- Kingwood Library (1999). We
began to experience art in colorful fashion, twentieth century surrealism
wearable art (Baudot, 2001) and in architecture with the PanAm Building (now
called the Met Life Building) and the completion of the Memorial Arch in Saint
Louis. (Lone Star College- Kingwood Library 1999). More evident of the changing
youthful times of the 60’s was seen in the new, young, Kennedy administration.
The President and First Lady were a starch contrast to the Dwight and Mimi
Eisenhower administration. John F. Kennedy was the youngest president ever
elected in the United States. His charisma and fashionable glamorous wife,
Jackie, quickly became American icons, a breath of fresh air, and a new
beginning. But it wasn’t until after the assassination of her husband did
Warhol produce the Jackie series. Warhol began his monotone silk-screened
acrylic paintings in 1966 from images obtained from eight separate wire-service
photos taken of Jacqueline Kennedy over the course of the November 22-25, 1963
(Lubin, D (2003). Warhol’s isolation and repetition of Jackie’s image in a comic-book
like patchwork layout suggest both the solitary and collective experience of
widow and witnessing nation. In Warhol’s own words…
“When President Kennedy was shot that
fall, I heard the news over the radio while I was alone painting in my studio…
I’d been thrilled having Kennedy as president; he was handsome, young, smart –
but it didn’t bother me that much that he was dead. What bothered me was the
way the television and radios were programming everybody to feel so sad… It
seemed like no matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t get away from the
thing.” - Andy Warhol Exposures (1980
p. 60)
Art
critiques interpret Warhol’s Jackie Collection as a repetitive reenactment of
the assassination as viewers watched it unfold in the media. It was the first
time that television had become a unifying force of a culture with viewers
glued to their television sets. His style of mechanistic production and
proliferation of an image was to show the dehumanizing effects of the media
through parody (Bolinger, 2010) as it erodes the meaning and value of the
subject matter. Warhol recalls that even after the Jackie Collection was
displayed around the world viewers not only immediately recognized her in his
prints they made sure not to come too close. “It was a telling portrayal of awe
and respect for her”. (Warhol 1980 p. 82)
It is no wonder Warhol chose Jackie as a pop art subject matter. The
term Pop Art comes from the term popular culture (Pixell77 2011) and Jackie
Kennedy was indeed a persona.
Warhol
chose another famous icon to make a similar statement about the media and times
of the 1960’s with his most famous piece of Marilyn Monroe. His mechanistic
reproduction of Monroe, like Jackie, and later those of Elvis, Michael Jackson,
and Mao Tse-Tung, were statements of destruction by the machine of the
media.
His
most identifiable series, The Campbell’s Soup Cans, are yet another approach to
the same issue. Although the series
appears to be a replication of the same soup can he altered each one in such a
subtle way that they must be examined in depth to see the differences. He would
later use this same technique on dollar bills and images of Coke bottles. His statement about American culture at the
time was, “I just paint things I always thought were beautiful . . . things you
use every day and never think about.” (Bockirs, V. 1997)
Although
Warhol himself admits that most people in America think “Art” is a man’s name,
art can be a portal for understanding and exploring a culture. The works of Leonardo DaVinci, Claude Monet,
Pablo Picasso and Vincent van Gough, to name just a few, provide snapshots of a
time realized. American culture has also
been conceptualized by artists of the times, like Norman Rockwell, Thomas
Kincaid and Georgia O’Keeffe. But the
cultural subjective frame presented in the works of modern graphic artist Andy
Warhol serve as a chronological timeline of American which carried a
significant impact on the global workplace. His creations in the print, film
and commercial venues immortalized American culture through four decades
beginning in the 1960’s. Throughout his
career he captured the essence of American cultural icons and the mood of the
times through vivid use of color and the subject matter he chose. American culture is very diverse, but Warhol
had a way of capturing a very representative sample of who we are and what we
are during certain times.
REFERENCES
American Association of Museums (2010) Retrieved September 23, 2011 from http://www.aam-us.org/aboutmuseums/abc.cfm#how_many
Baudot, F. (2001) Fashion & Surrealism. Assouline Publishing. New York , NY
Bockris, V. (1997) Warhol; The Biography 75th Anniversary Edition. Da Capo Press. Cambridge , MA
Bolinger, Renee (2010) The Evangelical Post When Pop Art Gets Critical – Andy Warhol. Retrieved September 24, 2011 from http://evangelicaloutpost.com/archives/2010/09/when-pop-art-gets-critical-andy-warhol.html
Caws, M.A. (2004) Surrealism. Phaidon Press. London
Goldsmith, K. (2004) I’ll Be Your Mirror; The Selected Andy Warhol Interviews. Carroll & Graf Publishers. New York , NY
International Council of Museums. Virtual Library (n.d.). Retrieved September 23, 2011 from http://museumca.org/usa/
Lone Star College- Kingwood Library (1999) American Cultural History. Retrieved September 24, 2011 from http://kclibrary.lonestar.edu/decade60.html
Lubin, D (2003) Andy Warhol's Jackie II 1966 (Issue 4). The Berkeley Electronic Press. Retrieved September 24, 2011 from http://digitalcommons.colby.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3429&context=cq&sei-redir=1#search=%22warhol%20jackie%20year%22
Pixell77 (2011). The Influence of Art History on Modern Design – Pop Art. Retrieved September 24, 2011 from http://www.pixel77.com/the-influence-of-art-history-on-modern-design-pop-art/
Stokstad, M. (2008) Art History Volume Two (3rd ed.). Pearson.Upper Saddle River , NJ
Varner, I. and Beamer, L. (2008) Intercultural Communication in the Global Workplace (5th ed) McGraw Hil. New York , NY
Walther, I.F. & Metzger, R. (n.d.) Van Gogh; The Complete Paintings, Part I Etten, April 1881 – Paris, February 1888. Taschen America . Los Angeles , CA
Warhol, A. (1980) Exposures. Putnam Publishing Group. Kirkwood , NY
Warhol, A. (2005) Supernova; Stars, Deaths, and Disasters 1962-1964. Walker Art Center . Minneapolis , MN
ie Paintings. Retrieved September 24, 2011 from http://edu.warhol.org/aract_flashb.html
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