I was reluctant to attend this show.
I have viewed SO much Warhol over the years that I felt this show might just seal the coffin on my appreciation for him. Instead, this show raised the bar on my Warhol knowledge and took me further into his world. This exhibition was an opportune moment to reconnect with this artist. The show at MAM focused on the work Warhol generated during the last decade of his life. It features his final series of self portraits, his return to painting and his perspective on Christianity.
The self portraits range from confrontational death masks to colorful repetitive tiles containing comic relief. Warhol's artist persona is iconic, which is the ideal achievement within this pop culture theme. A floating head of wacky white hair = Andy Warhol.
Warhol's later work finally departed from screen printing. Which I greatly admire, because screen printing is his signature method of producing artwork. For him to acknowledge that this process had become a predictable cliché is a true sign of the artist's evolution. He had returned to the timeless medium of painting. Quite the juxtaposition for a pop artist who owned The Factory.
The Christianity remix pieces intrigue me the most. Warhol stays true to the original content within The Last Supper. But he brakes away by adding a bright yellow field of color behind the classic imagery and presents this piece as an oversized dyptic. I combed the piece for other discrepancies as I'm sure he predicted a viewer would and I found none.
107 black & yellow Jesus portraits tiling along the back wall of the gallery is the largest piece in the show and the one with the most visual impact. I'm sure the museum hung this piece as the grand finale for this reason. So many deities together, representing the many facets of Christianity. Some tiles are clean representations falling within the intended stencil lines and others are sloppy and off register.
Powerful symbolism.
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