This past week, the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art opened two exhibits, both of them centering around pop artist Andy Warhol. Even though most people recognize the artist for his Campbell’s soup cans or Marilyn Monroe in bright colorful prints, these exhibits highlight Warhol’s interest in photography and sculpture.
“Andy Warhol: Little Red Book” contains 20 polaroids, taken by Warhol, of models, artists, and designers at social gatherings in 1972 — as well as one photo of Warhol himself, though it reveals only a sliver of his face. “These particular polaroids convey an informal, casual sort of party scene and really get across more of an intimate setting,” says Patricia Daigle, associate curator of modern and contemporary art at the Brooks. “Photography for Warhol was like a way of life for him. He always had a camera with him at social events.”
To him, Daigle continues, “the polaroid camera was kind of this magic machine in the sense that it could create and develop images instantly. … I think he was very much drawn to the fact that it could be so amateur in that the handheld camera allowed amateur photographers to make images themselves.”
Meanwhile, “Silver Clouds,” a show which first appeared in New York in 1966 and has been recreated in the Brooks, features large rectangular balloons made out of silver scotchpak, the kind of thin material that might be used in packaging. “It’s a fun, unpredictable show in that you don’t know how the balloons will react to your presence in the space. There are several fans in the gallery which is like the original, so the balloons are moving and floating even when no one’s around.”
When the show debuted, Daigle says, Warhol had achieved a considerable amount of fame and had grown tired of painting. “He saw these ‘silver clouds’ as a farewell to painting — as something you could inflate and that would float out into the sky and sort of disappear forever,” Daigle says. “It’s the idea that art is really not precious, that it can be made of everyday materials, and that it can just disappear.” So, Daigle encourages the viewer to reach out and touch the balloons, push them gently into a new direction, and watch them float from one end of the room to the other.
“Silver Clouds”/“Little Red Book,” Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, 1934 Poplar, on display through May 15.