Elements of Pop Culture in Warhol’s Art Coursework

Elements of Pop Culture in Warhol’s Art

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Elements of Pop Culture in Warhol’s Art
Andy Warhol’s name is still as big after his death as in his lifetime. He is, however, not remembered for coining the expression ‘fifteen minutes of fame’ alone. His talents were greater and went deeper than that. While he is a legendary filmmaker and producer, there would have been a gaping gap in the world of art without his input. One of his greatest creations winning him a high place in the arts hall of fame is the pop art that departed from the 19th century aristocratic passions. His work was concentrated on the ordinary and extra-ordinary events and characters. His collection of celebrity silk-screen, however, beat the popular press in its attempts to reveal the private lives of such famous personalities as Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor by peeping behind their curtains. Unlike the press, Warhol succeeded in harmonizing the public and private lives of the celebrities by simply concentrating his energies on the former. In other words, he was oblivious of the personal lives of the celebrities, choosing instead to work on the images as a pure representation of the person as a brand. This paper picks two of Warhol’s art pieces – Mao and Green Coca-cola Bottles – to bring out pop elements in his work.
Paintings of Mao Zedong
The political situation in China in 1971 attracted Warhol’s attention and interest with the result of Chairman Mao Zedong’s paintings the following year. The medium and materials are silkscreen ink, graphite on linen and acrylic. While the paintings are much more colorful and show more evidence of brushwork, the pop elements unique to Warhol are not absent. Mao was a public figure whose private life would have deeply interested the press illustrators. The obvious attempt would have to portray emotion through posture of the figure or facial expression. Further, any other artist would have attempted to add some details to show who Mao really is and the events of the moment through a fuller portrait. Warhol in his character, n...