To Be Popular: Andy Warhol
American popularity takes many forms. Whether familiar brands, customs, or faces, popularity garners credibility, which is inherently attractive to the American consumer. Within America's capitalist system, individuals rely on corporations to supply goods, services, and entertainment. Thus, corporations appeal to the masses and are deemed popular.
Artist Andy Warhol viewed capitalism for what it was-- the good and the bad. He admired rags to riches tales, known as the American dream. However, he also recognized capitalism's wastefulness as a materialistic bandaid, covering deeply rooted societal issues. Warhol spearheaded this genre of Popular Art, where mass media was his muse. Warhol sought to appropriate familiar or popular images, stripping them from their original meaning.
Warhol's work echoes the nature of American media. His medium of choice was silkscreen printing, allowing him to mass-produce his pieces. With overproduction, there is an apparent dilution of value and desensitization. Considering American corporations and larger-than-life people known as celebrities, the humanity in these systems and people is often overlooked.
In the Marilyn Diptych, Warhol plasters the repetitive portrait of deceased starlet Marilyn Monore from her film Niagara. The picture is categorically Marilyn from her swept hair to her sultry smile. Some may view the piece as a tribute to the successful actress. Instead, the work serves to articulate the deceptiveness of mass media. Following shortly after the film, Monroe's life was taken by suicide. Her seemingly glamorous life was indeed a tragedy. The mass-produced portrait, therefore, fails to achieve the loss apparent after her death. The celebrity status or popularity of Marilyn Monroe lessened the sadness surrounding her life.
Concerning his work, Warhol stated, "The more you look at the same exact thing, the more the meaning goes away, and the better and emptier you feel." Warhol further plays with desensitization in Jackie Kennedy. Similarly, the work is a portrait capturing cultural and fashion icon Jacie Kennedy. The chosen image directly follows her husband's assassination.
As well as cultural icons, Warhol considered cultural phenomenons such as the death penalty. In a silkscreen reproduction, Warhol utilized the image of an electric chair. It is apparent the colorization, flatness, and repetitiveness strip the image from its original emotion and connotation.
American society tends to gloss over the workings of popular figures and entities, strongly articulated in Warhol's artwork. Mass media also often entails the loss of context, sentiment, and emotional charge. In this sense, Warhol underscores the dangers of popularity.