Today marks the 20th anniversary of Andy Warhol's death.
I am old enough to remember Warhol and The Factory, so remember, and appreciate the contributions that this man made to art, and pop culture, and have been fascinated for decades with his life, philosophy, and work.
I was also lucky enough to have seen some of his work at MoMA last summer when I was in New York with my son. I took the picture above while I was there. While there, something that really showed me just how brilliant Warhol's work is, was my son's fascination with it. He (my son) knew who Warhol was because of his part in "The Doors," the Oliver Stone movie about the band, but really didn't know any of his work. Then as we went through the museum the only piece of work that grabbed my son's attention more than the Campbell Soup Cans was the Richard Avedon portrait of Lennon (at left), which is itself similar to some of Warhol's work.Along with his creating "Pop" art, Warhol was fascinated with fame, and is known for the quote:
"In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes."As time went on, and he got tired of being asked about the quote he occasionaly changed the quote to "In the future 15 people will be famous" or "In 15 minutes everybody will be famous," but the original quote is something that has turned out to be somewhat prophetic.
With the popularity of stupidity like "Survivor," "American Idol," and other so-called reality TV shows (which Ron Jeremy has compared to porn flicks), and the World's fascination with people like Anna Nicole Smith, and Paris Hilton whose only claim to fame is fame itself, it seems that the Western World's main goal behind war is bringing Warhol's statement to life.
Case-in-point, during the time I have sat here writing this there have been two news spots on the Anna Nicole stupidity, and a full length segment on Britney Spears head-shaving rehab-quitting maneuvers on the morning news, and no mention of the mess in the land of the fabled Garden of Eden.
Everything I've read about Warhol seems to point toward his wanting and being fascinated with fame, but I really wonder sometimes what he would think of the fame machine now.
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3 comments:
Hey I got something like 50 hits for Britney Spears after doing a blog post about her... I think it went on for at least 15 minutes. Does that mean my time is up? No fair, I don't think it counted.
I think that would count for her, so you still have a shot.
However, another version of the quote I once saw might count here:
"On the web, everyone will be famous to fifteen people."
I once saw a documentary on Andy, and i must say he was a facinating individual. He had a very unique perspective on life and art. His mannerisms and his general behavior were strange, but in a way that was very intriguing. Even the way which he was shot, ....His life was one of those stories that you just couldn't write.
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