One of my favorite classes this semester, Contemporary Art Trends, is a discussion about artists from the 1950s up until the present day art scene including their work, their influences, thought processes and cultural impact. Its only a once a week class, and even though it is a 4 hour friday morning lecture... I'm like a kid on santa's lap every week.
We explored the life and work of Andy Warhol this past week, and being among one of my favorite contemporary artists I was excited to see what he had in store.. but he is SO much more interesting than I thought!
He was a silly little genius. The basis of his work being the repitition of iconic and even controversial images to the point of insignificance in order to drone out the meaning all together and leave it as a lifeless void. He even carried this out through his false persona as a cocky and insecure parrot like consumer mindset to the public in order to further reinforce his work. Genius, genius, crazy little genius.
...and not to mention he really does make captivating contemporary art {paintings, photos, reproductions, films, and screen prints} as well as being unabashadly eccentric and oddly fascinating. And was apparantly a practicing Byzantine Catholic who worked at homeless shelters and lived with his aged devout Catholic mother, as well as being a sexually mysterious and living in his studio affectionately named "The Factory" with walls lined with tin foil and full of partying hippy posse.
Which makes me want to hang out with him even more, figure him out and hear his inspirations. I hope he's in heaven... I'd love to meet this silly creative legend and talk about Jesus.
I realize that sounded like a book report, but I just can't get over how weirdly fascinating he is...
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