The exhibit “Andy Warhol: Vanitas” is at the Andy Warhol Museum.<\/p>\n
\u201cVanity of vanities, all is vanity,\u201d declares Ecclesiastes. <\/p>\n
For those who have long considered Andy Warhol too fixated on the worldly to dwell on the spiritual, the exhibit \u201cAndy Warhol: Vanitas,\u201d which runs through March 9 at The Andy Warhol Museum, offers a powerful reconsideration.<\/p>\n
Drawing its title from the art-historical genre that contemplates mortality, the futility of earthly pursuits, and life\u2019s fleeting nature, the exhibition reveals a more contemplative side of Warhol. A collaboration with the SCHUNCK Museum in the Netherlands, the show invites visitors to see Warhol through a different lens.<\/p>\n
What to expect<\/p>\n
The exhibit takes visitors on a journey through three themes: Mortality, vanitas and temporality.<\/p>\n
Amber Morgan, director of collections and exhibitions at The Warhol, said that the exhibit is especially timely as more audiences are increasingly taking an interest in exploring other aspects of Warhol\u2019s career beyond his well-known pop art masterpieces. <\/p>\n
\u201cWarhol was strongly influenced by his Byzantine Catholic upbringing and the religious iconography that pervaded his early life,\u201d Morgan notes.<\/p>\n
Anna Plakas, culture journalist at Katholiek Nieuwsblad said of Warhol, \u201cThe American artist wrapped himself in an air of superficiality \u2013 but beneath that lay a layered and even faithful man. Warhol considered faith a private matter and therefore did not speak much about it, except that it was nice to go to church,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
What \u201cVanitas\u201d demonstrates is Warhol\u2019s thoughtful, introspective side. A work like \u201cThe Last Supper\u201d draws from a popular genre of paintings produced during the 16th and 17th centuries called memento mori- reminders of mortality. \u201cThe Last Supper\u201d underscores the inevitability of not only Jesus Christ\u2019s death, but all human death. The piece brings in Warhol\u2019s Catholic background and was done with blacklight paint.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe lighting changes as you sit with the piece, then you see the layers. It has this transformative quality to it and there\u2019s an otherworldly mystique that he\u2019s grappling with in this piece,\u201d Morgan said.<\/p>\n
Plakas contends that Warhol believed that fame was ephemeral too.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe suggests, in a series of self-portraits, that behind his mask was emptiness,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was as if he turned himself and his surroundings into caricatures-perhaps to make us reflect on the madness of the cult of which he had become the center. Remember you will die, his eyes seem to say.\u201d<\/p>\n
Visitors will also see Warhol\u2019s \u201cShadows\u201d paintings. \u201cShadows\u201d, a series of colorful canvases with glitter, drew this observation from Warhol: \u201cSomeone asked me if I thought it was art, and I said no. There was a disco at the opening party. So, you could call it disco d\u00e9cor.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another intriguing part of the exhibit is ephemera from Warhol\u2019s Time Capsule archive, including his electric toothbrush, acne cream, wig tape, junk mail and more. <\/p>\n
\u201cTime Capsule fits the theme so well because it shows him trying to capture time. It also shows that he\u2019s a normal person and brings that human element into it,\u201d Morgan said.<\/p>\n
Warhol, being openminded, also explored other concepts.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think there will be surprises for visitors like healing crystals and astrology charts,\u201d Morgan said, adding that it speaks to Warhol\u2019s willingness to confront universal big questions and explore multiple paths in his search for answers.<\/p>\n
From dark to light<\/p>\n
As visitors make their way through the exhibit, there is almost a \u201cdark-to-light\u201d sort of feeling.<\/p>\n
\u201cMortality can be a very dark subject, but they\u2019ll see how Warhol brings a sense of humor and life to it. He helps us all think a little more introspectively on this universal experience with which we all deal,\u201d Morgan said.<\/p>\n
In the end \u201cVanitas\u201d helps us all to understand that Warhol wasn\u2019t only the master of pop-culture superficiality, but also an artist who grappled with mortality, faith and life\u2019s mysteries.<\/p>\n
For more information, go online to www.warhol.org<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The exhibit “Andy Warhol: Vanitas” is at the Andy Warhol Museum. \u201cVanity of vanities, all is vanity,\u201d declares…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14453,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[7485,73,75,74,10970],"class_list":["post-14452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-andy-warhol-museum","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-vanitas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14452\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}