APPRECIATING CONTEMPORARY ART
Andy Warhol: Coca-Cola 3 (1962)
Masterpieces of modern/contemporary art #5
(The idea behind this series is to let the individual artworks speak directly to us from their own mysterious realm, rather than interpreting and ‘explaining them away’ in conventional terms.)
Warhol’s real ‘art’ was himself, not his artworks
Andy Warhol is one of the more difficult modern artists to write about straightforwardly because, like many of the most outstanding contemporary artists, his real ‘artistry’ is not where most people instinctively think it is. His ‘art’ is not a mere collection of his individual artworks — world famous and instantly recognisable though many of them are– his art lies firmly and most interestingly in the ‘Warhol world’ that he created and sustained, and inhabited, and which lives on to this very day.
This odd contemporary merging of ‘art’ and ‘lived theatre’ is itself quite difficult to describe, because it requires a shift in our understanding of the possibilities inherent in modern art: art becomes more like performance than skillful crafting, and many people don’t seem willing to see things that way. So Warhol’s real artistic achievement amounts to his theatrical ‘externalisation’ of the Warhol…
