Eric Firestone Gallery Exhibition and Event Space opened its first major group show with “Warhol from Dylan to Duchamp,” a new exhibition of works by photographers who lived in and passed through Andy Warhol’s world, the epicenter of hip culture in New York from the 1960s to his death in 1987. The exhibition includes color and black and white prints by Nat Finkelstein, Bob Adelman, Cecil Beaton, Charlie Steiner, Santi Visalli, Micheal Tighe, Fred W. McDarrah, Robert Mapplethorpe, Peter Beard, Carl Fischer, Eric Kroll, Christopher Makos, Patrick McMullan, Billy Name, Anton Perich, Francesco Scavullo and Helmut Newton.
In the two decades since his death Warhol’s fame and auction records have soared. Major retrospectives were held at the Museum of Modern Art, New York in 1989 and MOCA Los Angeles in 2002. Two museums are dedicated to Warhol, while the appropriated images in his silkscreens and paintings have in turn been swiped by younger generations of artists.. Only recently has the focus shifted to also consider his photography and films. More importantly, Warhol’s role as fame-maker with his many Factory “superstars,” The Velvet Underground, and everyone interviewed in Interview, is no longer viewed as a distraction, but the heart of his endeavors.
Though Warhol was only one, and not the first, of many of the Pop Artists who toppled the hegemony of European painterly tradition, and its American Cousin, Abstract Expressionism with a sea of commercial—Pop—images lifted from soup cans, comic books and photos from the tabloids, for him it wasn’t so much the what but the where. And the where was not only where his imagery came from, but also where he wanted to be—in the papers, in the movies, on the TV. Warhol was so successful at reaching his destination, that today we, as they say, see through his “lens.” The world is Warholian, and the lens is not a metaphor but a camera lens.
Two decades after his death two images stick in the mind’s eye. One is a painting, or a silk-screen print; probably the soup can, but maybe Marilyn Monroe or the electric chair. The other is a self-photograph. Warhol’s pale face and that mop of hair, or wig. Maybe the photo was taken by someone else. It doesn’t matter—it’s still a Warhol, as the silk-screens and paintings done by his assistants are still Warhol’s. But he made everyone baby Warhols, too.
Eric Kroll, who curated the show with gallery owner Eric Firestone, was a photographer for Andy Warhol’s Interview, Vogue, Der Speigel and the New York Times. He published his first photo collection Fetish Girls with the book publisher Taschen in 1994, which led to a decade long stint editing for the art house. Kroll recalls bringing his young daughter along to an Interview photo shoot with artist Kenny Sharf and Andy Warhol in New York. His daughter was playing with a toy on the sidewalk while Kroll took pictures. Warhol, in his usual nonchalant manner, broke out a camera in the middle of the shoot and started taking his own pictures of the girl. As was the norm for Warhol, a crowd had gathered around rows deep, and people in the crowd pulled out their own cameras, too. Soon one row of paparazzi was taking pictures of Andy taking pictures, and behind them the next row was taking pictures of people taking pictures of Andy taking pictures, and the next row took pictures of people taking pictures of people taking pictures of Andy taking pictures…
The story replicates the Warholian world. Andy placed himself on both sides of the camera, and the lingering images of his work, such as his verbatim prints of Campbell’s soup cans and his many self-portraits meld into a larger portrait of his milieu, a world of fame where the viewer was all, and Warhol the king of the lookers.
Warhol: From Dylan to Duchamp
February 27 – April 11, 2010
Opening Reception: Saturday Feb. 27
6pm – midnight
Eric Firestone Gallery Exhibition and Event Space
403 N. 6th Ave.
Tucson, AZ 85701
Tel.: 520.882.2616
www.ericfirestonegallery.com
|
review.gif){kind=small}
