Essay - The Life and Works of Andy Warhol What Is the...

The Life and Works of Andy Warhol

***** is the most famous work of contemporary art? Some might say Salvador Dali's melting clocks, others might go back a bit e*****rlier and say the "Sunflowers" painting of Van Gogh. But if you were to ask the average person on the street what *****istic image truly springs to mind when they are *****ed what they think best represents contemporary art, that individual world probably think of Andy Warhol's repetitive images of Campbell's Soup cans. Or, at very least, th***** ***** would be more likely to be familiar with the subjects of ***** ***** than either Dali's clocks or post-impressionism.

***** popularity and the indelible nature of his ***** ***** a testimony to the powerful n*****ture ***** his art. Warhol's work is not *****, of course, in the sense that it draws forth a powerful emotional response in the viewer. But Warhol's ***** is ***** in the way that it reflects ***** nature of modern life ***** the way it has changed the ***** ***** is produced and viewed.

Warhol's influence is particularly significant ********** unlike most contemporary visual artists, Warhol's work was ***** only provocative, but also popular. In recent years, interest in his work has only grown. His life even spawned a movie, "I Shot Andy Warhol," about an attempt of a woman to murder him. Today, more than any contemporary artist Warhol's work and Warhol as an image ***** an artist ***** come to represent our times in terms of its stress on celebrity ***** superficiality. Warhol reveled in ***** ***** ***** contemporary culture, rather ***** attempting to critique it. Although ***** work w***** ironic, it was also characterized by a strong affection for the ***** image of food labels, the air brushed pout of Marylyn Monroe, *****d all of his other works that trod the line between satire and art.

***** ***** work is located at ***** height ***** the influence of the pop art movement of the 1950's ***** 1960's in America. (Eldrige "Andy Warhol") Pop art, or popular art, was not *****iginally supposed ***** be qu*****e the same thing as for instance, pop music, a term ***** is usu*****lly used to describe music that is simply popular, or easily consumable by the mass media. Instead, although pop ***** could theoretically ***** popular as art like Warhol's was, it ***** also ***** to be critical in the irony it expressed towards low, contemporary art*****tic ***** such as advertising. However, *****cause the pop art movement could ***** have existed *****out advertising and the mass media, its relationship with ***** commercialism that spawned it is ambiguous. Also, because ordinary people tended to ***** ***** art, as opposed to 'high art' of the times, pop art became *****ular, like pop music.

In creating most of his art, Warhol used a mechanical stencil process known ***** silk screen-printing. This was a technique deliberately designed ***** give his work a flat, mechanical texture. Silk screening, be*****e Warhol, ***** not commonly ***** to make