“A good reason for being famous is so you can read all the big magazines and know everybody in all the stories,” wrote Pop Art innovator Andy Warhol in his book The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: (From A to B and Back Again).
Warhol was obsessed by fame. And fame, it would seem, was equally fascinated with Warhol. Few artists ever approach the level of wealth and recognition he knew in his lifetime. The artist’s shockingly unnatural-looking wig is instantly recognizable as are his infamous paintings of Campbell’s soup cans. His overplayed prognosis that in the future we’ll all be famous for 15 minutes evolved from gross cliché into unsettling prophesy in the wake of Internet sites such as YouTube and the rise of reality TV.
Warhol’s double obsessions with the concept of celebrity and the comic potential of trash will be on display when the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art opens the appropriately titled “The Prints of Andy Warhol: (From A to B and Back Again),” a survey of 63 screen prints and five paintings representing the artist’s most famous works. Think of it as a party where Marilyn Monroe and Jackie Kennedy share Coca-Colas, while Elizabeth Taylor chats with Chairman Mao over a nice tin of tomato soup, and Warhol stands enigmatically in the background (next to a cow) mumbling about how great everything is.
“The Prints of Andy Warhol: (From A to B and Back Again)” opens on Thursday, June 14th, and runs through September 7th at the memphis brooks museum of art. Admission is $7 for Adults, $6 for Seniors, and $3 for students.
