"There will always be a pre- and a post-Warhol," writes Philippe Tretiack, "and that post-Warhol period is having difficulty establishing itself." There also will always be people who consider Andy Warhol's work to represent the beginning of the end of serious cultural life in America. A flagrantly commercial antihero of the gay, big-city subculture, Warhol offended in so many ways. His cheerful, absurdist pop images of Campbell's soup cans, Jackie Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe, and the electric chair made serious subject matter with serious meaning a thing of the past. Everything Warhol did made serious film, painting, drawing, or printmaking look slightly silly. He flaunted his disregard for the pretensions of the fine artist, calling his studio "the Factory," churning out multiples, and publicly insisting that his work could be fabricated by practically anyone (until it was pointed out to him that this would significantly lower his prices).

In an excellent essay in the front of this small book, Tretiack places Warhol historically and esthetically, hitting all the high points of Warhol's flamboyant career and stylishly discussing the legacy of this '60s bad boy. The rest of the book is full of pictures--mostly Warhol's more famous images, but also some snapshots of Andy. Missing are a few pictures of Warhol's graceful, elegant shoe drawings and recipe illustrations, showing the kind of fine-art facility with which the artist began his career. But the rest is packed in here in all its flashy vainglory, including the green-tinged picture of a smiling Tricky Dick Nixon with the hand-lettered admonishment "Vote McGovern." At the end of the book are a brief chronology and a list of captions for the plates. --Peggy Moorman

Book Description
Andy Warhol (1928-1987), one of the most celebrated artists of the last third of the twentieth century, owes his unique place in the history of visual culture not to the mastery of a single medium but to the exercise of multiple media and roles. A legendary art world figure, he worked as an artist, filmmaker, photographer, collector, author, and designer. Beginning in the 1950s as a commercial artist, he went on to produce work for exhibition in galleries and museums. The range of his efforts soon expanded to the making of films, photography, video, and books. Warhol first came to public notice in the 1960s through works that drew on advertising, brand names, and newspaper stories and headlines. Many of his best-known images, both single and in series, were produced within the context of pop art. Warhol was a major figure in the bridging of the gap between high and low art, and his mode of production in the famous studio known as "The Factory" involved the recognition of art making as one form of enterprise among others. The radical nature of that enterprise has ensured the iconic status of his art and person.

Andy Warhol contains illustrated essays by Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, Thomas Crow, Hal Foster, Rosalind Krauss, Annette Michelson, and Nan Rosenthal, plus a previously unpublished interview with Warhol by Buchloh. The essays address Warhols relation to and effect on mass culture and the recurrence of disaster and death in his art.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Andy Warhol (1928-1987), one of the most celebrated artists of the last third of the twentieth century, owes his unique place in the history of visual culture not to the mastery of a single medium but to the exercise of multiple media and roles. A legendary art world figure, he worked as an artist, filmmaker, photographer, collector, author, and designer. Beginning in the 1950s as a commercial artist, he went on to produce work for exhibition in galleries and museums. The range of his efforts soon expanded to the making of films, photography, video, and books. Warhol first came to public notice in the 1960s through works that drew on advertising, brand names, and newspaper stories and headlines. Many of his best-known images, both single and in series, were produced within the context of pop art. Warhol was a major figure in the bridging of the gap between high and low art, and his mode of production in the famous studio known as "The Factory" involved the recognition of art making as one form of enterprise among others. The radical nature of that enterprise has ensured the iconic status of his art and person.

Andy Warhol contains illustrated essays by Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, Thomas Crow, Hal Foster, Rosalind Krauss, Annette Michelson, and Nan Rosenthal, plus a previously unpublished interview with Warhol by Buchloh. The essays address Warhol's relation to and effect on mass culture and the recurrence of disaster and death in his art.

SYNOPSIS