PRINTFaces of Warhol
MU museum shows an exhibit of Andy Warhol’s working photographs
Andy Warhol
Polaroid photograph, Debbie Harry, 1980
May 27, 2009 | 12:00 p.m. CST
No one better encapsulates the ’60s-era pop art craze than Andy Warhol, the coolest of outcasts. Celebrating its 20th anniversary, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts recently gave obscure photographs from the depths of Warhol’s factory to MU’s Museum of Art and Archaeology. A yearlong exhibit entitled “The Faces of Warhol” opens June 6. It will showcase almost 80 of Warhol’s working headshots, including Polaroids and gelatin silver prints, in three installments: “Manufacturing Fame,” “Constructing Gender” and “Accessing the Private.” Each will remain on display for four months.
When thinking of Warhol, we think big red Campbell’s soup cans. Surprisingly, a large chunk of his artistic career was spent behind the lens of a camera. Before beginning a silkscreen, he would snap nearly 200 color and black-and-white pictures of a particular person, usually a factory visitor-turned-superstar. “You can see how he brings out personality through repetition,” says museum curator Mary Pixley. Polaroid even released a specially made Warhol model. He was that cool.
Where: MU’s Museum of
Art and Archaeology
When: June 6, 2009 –
June 6, 2010
Cost: Free
Call: 882-3591
Polaroid photograph, Pia Miller, 1985
Headshots were the first step to the Warhol process. He would use his favorite picture as a springboard into another project. “During the Renaissance time artists would do sketches before starting on a painting,” says associate museum educator Cathy Callaway. “Warhol would use Polaroids to do a piece of art with them.” Callaway mentioned that Debbie Harry (the lead singer of the band Blondie) might be the most recognized face acquired by the museum.
Pixley describes the exhibit as an intimate look at the relationship between the photographer and the subject. “We want to go into more intellectual depth with Warhol and his work,” says Pixley. “We’re not just putting up photographs. We’re trying to understand more fully the art of Warhol.” The Warhol collection goes beyond those Coca-Cola bottles and smiling Marilyn headshots. Here’s your free ticket into the inner workings of that tinfoil-lined studio.
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