“Warhol x 5” Hits the Hudson Valley
Those who only visualize Marilyn Monroe and Cambell’s Soup when thinking of Andy Warhol are just barely scratching the surface of what the artist has to offer. From the start of this year until November 2018, a collaboration between five institutional art museums will feature themed exhibitions based on Warhol. The collaboration, dubbed, “Warhol x 5,” calls upon five institutions in the Hudson Valley: Vassar College, SUNY New Paltz, Bard College, University of Albany and Purchase College.
It started when the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts gave a few of Andy Warhol’s prints to the museums at these institutions. It was the second gift they received from the foundation, the first being a set of photographs. Reva Wolf, an expert on Andy Warhol and a professor of art history at SUNY New Paltz, was interested in organizing an exhibition that included the prints given to the Dorsky Museum at SUNY New Paltz. However, Wolf found, “while each print was in itself interesting, the group given to each museum lacked the kind of thematic coherence that we wanted.”
She thus thought about forming a collaboration with nearby institutions who also received a set of prints, so they would be able to share their works with one another in order to put forth a more cohesive exhibition. Wolf talked the idea over with Mary-Kay Lombino, who curated the “People are Beautiful” exhibit for Vassar College’s Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center. Lombino was the first to join the project. In time, the other institutions followed.
The five participating museums each chose a theme for their Warhol exhibitions. Each theme focused on a different aspect of Warhol’s work, which covers a variety of topics. Together, the curators of each exhibition worked to find which pieces fit best with each theme. By putting together each museum’s collection, the curators had an abundant amount of pieces to choose from. They shared resources and ideas which, over time, brought the 2018 collaboration to life.
Each institution will hold its own receptions and events in accordance with the ongoing exhibition. “People are Beautiful” at Vassar College is currently on display. “Marking Time,” the exhibition to be featured at SUNY New Paltz’s Dorsky Museum, will be open to the public on February 10th.
When asked about the creation of “Marking Time,” Wolf recalls a talk she gave regarding Warhol’s images of Marilyn Monroe.
“What had struck me then was that not only did he make paintings of her just after she died in 1962, but that he later made prints, using the same photographic source image, at the five-year anniversary of her death, in 1967. His choice to make these ‘anniversary’ prints was something I always wanted to look into more deeply,” she said. As a result, Wolf gathered the pieces she felt were related to anniversaries and commemorations. These occurrences in life are universally felt and experienced, so viewers are encouraged to take a moment to think about these times we often simply experience without reflecting upon them.
Following the opening of the “Marking Time” exhibition will be “Warhol: Unidentified” exhibition at Bard College’s Center for Curational Studies, then The University of Albany Art Museum’s “Younger Than Today” exhibit. As a result of the exhibitions being on display for varying periods of time, visitors are encouraged to check dates in order to plan travels accordingly. The “Andy Warhol: Subject and Seriality” exhibition at the Neuberger Museum of Art at Purchase College will close out “Warhol x 5” on November 18th. Although the collaboration will eventually come to an end, the impact Warhol left on art and society will remain.
