Andy Warhol's legacy lives on in the factory of fame
15 minutes of fame?
The artist whose radical ideas galvanised the 1960s art world continues
to dominate the market and permeate popular culture – 25 years after his
death
Alex Needham guardian.co.uk,
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| People are reflected on a portrait of US artist Andy Warhol by Timm Rautert. Photograph: Susana Vera/Reuters |
On 22 February 1987, Andy Warhol died unexpectedly in a New York hospital after a routine operation on his gallbladder. Yet 25 years on, the artist described by Truman Capote, quoting Wilde, as "a sphinx without a secret" has never gone away. Not only does Warhol dominate the art market, with his work accounting for one-sixth of contemporary art sales, his influence permeates both high art and popular culture.
Warhol's work is rarely out of circulation in galleries. A show at the De La Warr Pavilion in east Sussex closes this week, but another, of his portfolio prints, starts at Dulwich Picture Gallery in London this summer. The artists he influenced are even more visible. Next month, artist Gillian Wearing, who once photographed herself dressed as Warhol, will show a retrospective of her work at the Whitechapel, while Jeremy Deller, who hung out at Warhol's studio, the Factory, in the summer of 1986, is just about to launch a retrospective at London's Hayward.
Andy Warhol lines up a shot during the filming of Taylor Mead's Ass
at his studio, The Factory, New York, 1964. Photograph: Fred W
McDarrah/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Image"I think Warhol changed film and documentary forever," says Wearing. "He was completely seminal in that area. His extremely long takes, his exploration of improvisation between fiction and reality came about through his playful and irreverent manner, and gave the world new ways of looking."
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| Andy Warhol's Marilyns, from the 2002 exhibition at Tate Modern, London. Photograph: David Sillitoe for the Guardian |
Warhol's radical idea that the stuff of modern life could be art, from Campbell's soup cans to washing-powder boxes, galvanised the art world in the 60s. "I went to see his 1989 retrospective at Moma," remembers cultural historian Jon Savage. "You walked into the 60s rooms and there it all was – America. Money, sex, fame, death. Warhol summed, up, defined and in many ways embodied the world in which we now live. Everyone thinks he's emotionless and soulless, but the cumulative effect of seeing all the Marilyns and Orange Disasters is extremely powerful – it's not just a mirror," he says, referring to the verdict of art critic Robert Hughes.
