Andy Warhol is the last celebrity artist the world may ever know. While there are more artists living today than ever before, it is hard to imagine an artist personality today rising to the level of national awareness the way Warhol did. That is as much a statement about modern times as it is about the larger than life persona of Warhol himself. In the era of the blog Warhol’s insight that “in the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes” seems more prophetic than ever. The implication that is often ignored in this quote is that if everyone is famous, than nobody is. Twenty two years after Warhol’s death, there are countless fifteen minute celebs, but not a single artist more famous than Andy Warhol.

Warhol’s fascination with the notion of celebrity is simply one chapter in a body of work that explores dehumanization, consumerism, cultural desensitization, and materialization – all very “American” virtues. His charismatic life was so intertwined with American society that a study of Andy Warhol becomes a sociological commentary on American culture itself. Warhol recognized his connection saying, “I feel very much a part of my times, of my culture, as much a part of it as rockets and television.” In many ways Andy was the American dream. He overcame poverty, physical flaws, and pathological shyness to become the king of pop culture. But Warhol’s story is even more than a rags to riches tale. Andy Warhol packaged himself as a product for consumption just like the cans of soup and bottles of Coke that he painted. Andy Warhol’s life was just as much a work of art as his paintings.

Pick any of the many books written about Andy Warhol and you will observe that nobody really ever has a solid grasp on who he actually was or what he was trying to do. Was he the voyeur he claimed to be or critic of the culture he commented on? Was he sincerely promoting beauty of ordinary objects or was he showing the absurdity of consumerism? Was he really callous towards life and death, or was he pointing out how valuable our lives should be? Was he a shy socialite or a cunning businessman? Was he the ultimate hipster, casually dismissing the importance of his art, or was he a philosopher with a firm grasp on art history? To fall for any single side of these arguments is to oversimplify his art. His popularity can be attributed to how easily it is for anyone (from art critic to blue collar worker) to add their own meaning to his work.

Andy, the non-stereotypical artist
Even if we have deep respect for art, most of us also carry a negative stereotype around with us about artists. Have you ever listened to an artist gush about their work talking about things that couldn’t possibly have any relevance to your life? You probably rolled your eyes and questioned the sanity of this person. When a person’s words don’t align with their artwork and the art fails to connect with the audience you have a recipe for irrelevance. That is the real genius of Andy Warhol. His artwork could be appreciated by almost anyone. When questioned about the meaning of his work he could have said something like, “I feel that the pressures of society have polluted the beauty of the common object irrevocably and I want to represent the impact that the ordinary has had on the bourgeois blah blah blah.” Instead he let his artwork stand on its own merits and allowed the audience to decide for themselves what it is all about.” That’s why Andy’s most memorable quotes are contradicting thoughts like:

“I’m afraid that if you look at a thing long enough, it loses all of its meaning.”

“In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes.”

“I am a deeply superficial person.”

“I never wanted to be a painter; I wanted to be a tap dancer.”

“It’s not what you are that counts, it’s what they think you are.”

The exception to the self-contradicting element in his work is his least successful work done in the 1980s. His portraits of celebrities were not very well received and are criticized for being too commercial. The irony of course is that this was exactly why Andy chose this subject matter. It was the same reason he painted Coke cans and soup labels – celebrities are also products of American consumerism. Nevertheless, Warhol’s work in the 80s does feel less timeless than his earlier work and there is truth to the notion that Andy was existing more and more as a business man and less as a pure artist. Had he not died in 1987 it is interesting to speculate about whether Warhol’s work would have continued towards the “business” side of the spectrum or if he would have regained a second wind and taken his art in a brand new direction.

What if Andy Warhol were still alive?
The thought of Warhol living in 2010 is worth a couple final thoughts. I joked with a friend recently that had he been alive today, Andy Warhol would most certainly have been a judge on American Idol. This position would give him the ability to single handedly dish out fame to people neatly packaged in fifteen minute packages. What else would Andy be involved with if he were still alive?

Perhaps Andy’s blog would be regularly updated with long posts about his cats and other less than fascinating insights into his life. The posts are tediously detailed and never talk about art directly. It is unclear whether Andy writes these posts himself or if he has assistants that help with the writing.

Andy Warhol wouldn’t have a twitter feed, instead favoring a more visual micro-blogging format. Andy Warhol’s flickr stream would be massive with photos of everything he consumed. The photos would be neatly categorized into collections like shoes, candy, weapons, condiments, and toiletries. All his photos are uploaded at high resolution and are released under a creative commons license that requires only that his name be displayed prominently with the reproduction.

What else do you think Andy’s life would include if he lived today? A reality show? Product endorsements? I am curious what you think, so please leave a comment if you have more ideas.

(…part of my continued conversation with Jason Simanek, following up on his post at bohemianalps.com where he posted “Fine Art in Museums: Tigers in Zoos“)

I am lucky to have an assortment of art to cover the walls in my home. I don’t own a Pollock or a Warhol – most of it is work done by friends or myself. On the rare occasion when we have guests over, I think it is interesting to give people a tour of the house and see what artwork – if any – people respond to. If the home is the “natural habitat” for art, then perhaps the response people have to art in this context is more authentic than it would be in a museum. Here is what I have observed…

When confronted with art unexpectedly, most people will say something safe like, “Did you do that?” or “I love all your artwork.” They are very careful to avoid directly interacting with the art on my walls. The exception is photography, especially photos of our family which aren’t art at all. These responses sounds like, “Look how young you guys were,” or “what kind of camera do you have?”

If “religion and politics” are the top two topics that people try to avoid talking about in polite conversation then art has to be a close third. I think art is intimidating to non-artists. That is the only way to explain the popularity of mass-produced reproductions and non-interactive visual junk. People are afraid of empty walls – but they are just as afraid of walls that make any kind of statement. Paint it beige and hang a Georgia O’Keefe print and nobody will ask any questions.

A few years ago I had an art show where I created prints of different faces of Jesus Christ that I scanned and enlarged from old Sunday School posters. (Thank you for coming to that show, Jason, by the way. It meant a lot to me to have you there.) Anyway, one of the more memorable pieces from that show was a 4 foot wide print of Jesus with a crown of thorns and a somber expression. Needless to say, it has made quite a statement hanging above our dinner table in the kitchen. The surprising thing is that this print hasn’t started any real conversation outside of Betsy persuading me to move it down to the basement. Perhaps, the subject matter is too intimidating. Frankly, I think it is kind of funny to sit under a 4 foot photo of Jesus’ face and pretend it isn’t there. That metaphor might be stronger than what I had in mind anyway.

Sometimes “art” feels irrelevant in the same way that I struggle with organized religion. People just prefer to ignore it. I think that is sad, because both art and Christianity have the power to rise above the mediocrity of everything else. It is much easier to ignore the meaningful things in life and embrace the “safe” stuff. As a result the kitsch rises to the top and things with substance get attacked – or worse yet ignored – because these things are uncomfortable. The people who create and have passion for them seem absurd because they have the guts to be different. People don’t have time to wrestle with deep thoughts when there are simpler ways to entertain themselves. Why would anyone want to stifle an endless stream of gratification by confronting things that aren’t easy to understand or appreciate?

With that I will toss it back to Jason’s blog. This one ended on a dark note, so next time I will try to focus more on the positive, I promise…

I am not sure if I am just nostalgic for design conversations like in the good-old days, or if I am looking for an excuse to reconnect with old friends, but I have been corresponding by email with people that have influenced me significantly over the years, particularly in regard to my creative development. One of those friends is Jason Simanek, a talented designer/artist/thinker that I went to college with at Concordia University. I have fond memories of sharing a studio with Jason and the many conversations where we pushed each other in hopes of understanding what art was and what it meant to be an artist. I can’t believe that was almost a decade ago and I am still wrestling with the same ideas. I wasn’t surprised that an email to Jason sparked some interesting ideas. We decided that it would be fun to make our conversation public and experiment with a blog-to-blog conversation. The first fruits of this experiment can be seen on Jason’s blog at bohemianalps.com. Here are links to the first two posts:

In Search of a Truly Creative Occupation

Fine Art in Museums: Tigers in Zoos

I hope you enjoy our thoughts, and watch for me to post the next chapter in the conversation soon…

Last week I quietly released my second chess plugin for WordPress and I wanted to make a quick post to tell you a little about it. You may remember I tested out a plugin a while back that allowed you to display chess games in your WordPress posts. While that plugin worked okay, I wasn’t impressed and was looking for a way to customize the chess board interface. Unfortunately there wasn’t a WordPress plugin like that available so I decided to make one myself.

I found a great open source javascript called JSPgnViewer that give me a very functional PGN game viewer to build on. For those of you unfamiliar with “PGN,” that is the standard format (notation) that chess games get saved as. It is basically just text that shows the moves of a game. With the heavy lifting of creating a PGN viewer already finished, I was able to focus on building the customizable skins for the chess pieces and boards. Another feature that I am pretty happy with is the ability to add your games through a WordPress quicktag. All you have to do is click on this button in the HTML side of your WordPress editor and paste in your code. More information about the chess game viewer plugin is available here.

I will wrap this up with a quick demonstration of the plugin in action. Here a few of the games I have enjoyed recently:

In the game above I was down a two major pieces and preparing for a loss until the water parted and I ended with a nice combination.

I almost took a draw in the game above at move 27, but then I saw a way to get my second knight involved to force checkmate. Move 30 puts my knight in harms way as a cocky way to finish the game. I am a jerk that way.

Sometimes your opponent just doesn’t want to win and they let you checkmate them with just a single knight.

Above is a terrible move at 27! Luckly, I still had a little life left. I love this ending.