A scratchboard of Edwin Starr for my M.U.S.I.C.: Musicians Undermining Social Injustice series by Leo Hartshorn

Just finished this scratchboard for my M.U.S.I.C.: Musicians Undermining Social Injustice Creatively series. Edwin Starr is known for this song War, which decries the Vietnam War. His signature song was written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong and backed by the Funk Brothers. It is a powerful antiwar song with a driving, soulful rhythm, which was only released as a single by Motown after repeated requests. The song was originally on the 1970 album Psychedelic Shack by the Temptations, but Motown deemed it too controversial because it might alienate conservative fans and risk marring the image of one Motown's most popular soul groups. Edwin Starr heard the about the debate over the song and volunteered to re-record it. War became one of the most succesful antiwar songs in the history of popular music. In 1999 Edwin Starr's War was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

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.

The Religious Art of Andy Warhol

The knowledge of (his) secret piety inevitably changes our perception of an artist who fooled the world into believing that his only obsessions were money, fame, (and) glamor...


----John Richardson, "Eulogy for Andy Warhol"


Only Andy Warhol's closest friends were aware of his religious background and practice of church attendance. It became public knowledge with the eulogy by Warhol's friend art historian John Richardson. After seeing photos of Warhol's studio in an article by Richardson, Jane Dillenberger noticed an unfinished painting of Leonardo Da Vinci's Last Supper in the background and began tracking down other such religious works to bring them to the foreground. The final result of her research was her provocative book entitled The Religious Art of Andy Warhol.

Like most art lovers I was unaware of Warhol's religious paintings until I came across Dillenberger's book. She brings to the foreground elements of Warhol's life that he kept in the background. She places Warhol's religious paintings against the backdrop of his poor Slovakian Catholic family, who moved from Mikova to the Ruthenian section of Pittsburgh for jobs. From childhood through his college years Warhol attended the long Byzantine church services at St. John Chrysostum. His mother Julia Warhola, who was a deeply pious woman, made a significant impact upon his life. After leaving Caregie Tech, where he studied painting and design, Warhol moved to New York. He continued to attend a Catholic church in the Byzantine tradition. Even after he became a well known pop artist Warhol would serve meals to the homeless at the Church of Heavenly Rest on the holidays.

Warhol's religion may have been private, but his desire for celebrity, his gay relationships, round-the-clock partying, underground films (many premiering in gay porn theaters), and bohemian, addicted friends from The Factory (his studio) were well known. This is the lifestyle most people associate with Warhol. It is this lifestyle that one should not forget even when reading Dillenberger's book as it brings his religious life to the foreground.

His life was turned around by gun shots from the radical feminist Valerie Salanos in 1968. Warhol literally died on the operating table, but was revived. This experience made a profound impact on his life and art. His religious practice became even more intense with almost daily attendance at mass, although he never went to confession or took communion.

Dillenberger surveys the artwork of Warhol looking for and finding religious themes, such as a series of cross paintings, easter eggs, details from Renaissance religious paintings, death and skull paintings and most significantly a series of pop paintings with bright colors, camouflage, with modern icons, and in multiple repeated images based on Leonardo Da Vinci's Last Supper. Surprisingly, his series of religious paintings are the largest of any modern artist. This series of paintings was eventually shown in Milan in the Palazzo delle Stelline across from Santa Maris delle Grazie, where Leonardo's famous frescoe was painted.

I appreciated Dillenberger's bringing Warhol's religious life and art into the foreground from their hidden places. I was unaware of this aspect of both his life and art. Even so, this foregrounding had the effect of turning Andy Warhol into some kind of artistic saint. When all one reads and sees visually has to do with Warhol's religious life and art, the rest of his unorthodox lifestyle is forgotten or excused for a moment. I believe in Warhol we not only find a great artist, but also a flawed human being who exhibited his conflicted spirituality in both his life and art, and not simply a spiritual person whose life is seen shining through his religious art and church practice.