Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, PA

Today I went out in the snowy weather and visited the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I had recently read the book The Religious Art of Andy Warhol by Jane Dillenger (see my review in this blog) and wanted to come to Pittsburgh, where Warhol grew up, and visit the Warhol Museum (http://www.warhol.org/museum_info/index.html). It was worth the trip.

The museum as six floors of galleries, memorabilia, and archives. I began at the sixth floor and worked my way down. Several works among the collection stood out for me. First, the silk screens of a series of skulls. On viewing the skulls one is immediately overwhelmed by their sheer size. One huge canvas fills a whole wall. They are stark reminders of our mortality. But, painted in Warhol's brilliant colors these skulls take on life. Not only the color but in the shadow of the skulls you can see the shadow of a baby, represented new life. In the shadow of one skull I saw the outline of a spermatozoa, again representing new life.

There are many interpretations of Warhol's repetition of images. I was curious to read one interpretation next to a a series of repeated images of Elvis on a silver canvas by a Rabbi Mark N. Staitman of Rodef Shalom Congregation:

In Prayer, I speak to God. In study, God speaks to me. Judaism is a religion of text. We see Torah as a gift of God. The first century rabbi ben Bag Bag said, “Turn it and turn it, for everything of value is in it.” For 2000 years we have studied Torah, looking for God’s word to us. It is not uncommon that Torah seemingly repeats itself. Often the seeming repetition has a slight variation, but always a variation in context. While some may see this as redundancy, Judaism sees each statement as having different meaning.

God would not be redundant. The task of the student of Torah is to find the distinct meaning in each variation of the text. Though each image in the painting starts with the same picture, each can be seen to have a different meaning, each meaning to contribute to a whole; meanings and meaning which, we the viewers, the generations, discover within.

As with repetition and meaning in West African drumming (see my blog article on polyrhythmic preaching), repitition in Warhol's art is interconnected with meaning. And repetition in Warhol's works takes on many meanings depending upon the subject matter, mood, color, etc. Repetition becomes an element of artistic hermeneutics.

As I descended the floors of silkscreens of animals, celebrities, and common objects, like product boxes, I was hoping to ascend a little upon viewing one of Warhol's last series of paintings of Da Vinci's Last Supper. When I got to the first floor I saw it. It was a huge, double image of Da Vinci's Last Supper . And in bright pink! Really Warhol made the print from a cheap copy of Da Vinci's famous fresco. Still, there is a visual impact in viewing the painting that makes it a totally new interpretation of Da Vinci.

As an artist who has been drawn (no pun intended) to realism, I was surprised by a new appreciation of the pop art of Warhol.

Secret Lives of Great Artists

When I took several art history courses in L.A. City College in 1968 I got D's, even though I was an art major. Those bad grades were part of what caused me to lose my college deferment and to get drafted into the army during the Vietnam war. I never got bad grades again! And yet, I still remember the artists and the major art movements to this day.

I just finished reading a book that has inspired me look at art history afresh. It is entitled Secret Lives of Great Artists by Elizabeth Lunday. What makes it interesting is the odd angle she takes on well known artists. She tells some bizarre stories that I don't remember from my college art classes. Maybe I would have paid more attention if the professors would have spiced up the history with these oddities.

I don' remember hearing that:

* Leonardo Da Vinci was publicly accused of sodomy and was notorious for leaving work undone.

* Sandro Botticelli tried to crash a large rock on his neighbors roof for making too much noise.

* Michelangelo Buonarroti had such bad body odor, from not bathing, that he drove his assistants away while painting the Sistine Chapel, which was not painted lying on his back.

* Michelangelo Merisi Da Caravaggio was constantly in fights and even murdered a man in a bar room brawl.

* Rembrandt Van Rijn, whose was inspired by Mennonites and even painted a Mennonite minister and his wife, did not follow their morals. He had several lovers and was dragged before a church council for "living in sin."

* Dante Gabriel Rossetti, a Pre-Raphaelite painter with serious addictions, dug up his dead wife

to retrieve personal poems he had placed in her coffin.

Paul Cezanne had an inflammatory temper and hated to be touched.

* Henri Rousseau was jailed for bank fraud.

* Van Gogh performed missionary work among the poor. During his periods of insanity he would eat paint directly from the tube! Yummy.

* Edward Hopper was a wife-beater and his wife a husband-beater.

* Diego Rivera and Frieda Kahlo...well, their sexual escapades are no secret, even Frieda's trist with Leon Trotsky.

* Georgia O'Keeffe often painted in the nude and chased off nephews and nieces who spied on her.

* Jackson Pollock's couldn't draw so he dripped. His alchoholism killed him in a car crash.

* Andy Warhol was shot by a radical feminist. He turned back to religion and painted a series on Da Vinci's Last Supper (I just bought a book about this entitled The Religious Art of Andy Warhol by Jane Dillinger).

* Salvador Dali, who I have been aware of since high school, was so bizarre it would take a book to write about his weird antics (May years ago I read his autobiography. This was one strange dude. Maybe that's why I like him so much).

I have always wondered why so many artists seemed to live such tortured and bizarre lives. There must be something in the psychology of creative people that lends itself to this. Anyway, this book by Lunday highlights the strange aspects of artists lives. Unlike art history in college, it kept my interest.