Andy Warhol- 15 Minutes Eternal

Andy Warhol is someone I thought I am familiar with. But actually, I am just hypnotizing myself. After I went to the art exhibition ‘Andy Warhol- 15 Minutes Eternal’ held in Hong Kong Museum of Art, I realized Andy Warhol in fact went beyond Campbell soup and Marilyn Monroe.

I was quite surprised to see his early work. Most of his work were composed by simple lines and detailed record of the objects’ real sizes. I went there with my friends and luckily, we followed a docent leading a group of students so that we could learn more about Warhol’s work. His early works were mainly shoes designs and angels’ portraits. Warhol did think art can make a living as he put art in real designs. The shoes in the paintings were things that really can be made. The sizes and heights of the heels were designed carefully.

However, the angels’ portraits caught more of my attention. There was a series of them and most the angels were naked doing sex. In the portraits, they were doing sex pleasurably and freely as their eyes showed no care of the others. The blotted line used to outline the angels makes them a bit unrealistic as they are not continues. They seemed to be really in the heaven though there is no background in the picture. It is also very special to see western-style angels drawn on folding screen, which is orientated in China. Blotted lines form two symmetrically identical angels but with different patterns on their wings. Yet, I could hardy identify which was male and female in the painting since the sex organs were not drawn. I think this unclear definition indicates that Warhol’s sexual orientation. He was not quite sure about it. However, this initiates him to be more creative and bold in his design.

In fact, I most appreciate Warhol’s self portraits as they were very iconic and fully showed his confidence to his talent. He was very modern to take self portraits by taking them in motion and style them with different effects. He as an artist was very eager to show different disposition of himself and his narcissism. To the others who don’t know Warhol, the portraits were totally nonsense. But his charms in the portraits make people want to know him and make people don’t think that he was showing off. This is his success. The strong contrast of each picture in the grid photos gives impulses to audiences. We might think that it is very easy to make this kind of photos with some applications in phones. However, it is Warhol to create this kind of playthings.

However, I am not quite sure about what was Warhol’s movie doing. The hall kept playing his famous film Empire and Eat. I had a glance of the movie and there were no one inside the little theater. I think that was absolutely normal as his movies were just too long in length. I wonder how many audiences would watch the whole movie! His movie was very artistic like in Empire, it captured its change from day to night in detail. But the market value of the movie was very low as it challenges the patience of the audience. Warhol once said Art is business, Business is art. I think his movie productions was just oppose what he believed. The movie was famous just because of its length. I suggest Warhol should fast forward the original film as the final movie. It is more interesting to see people passing through the Empire State Building and day changes to night very quickly. The changes will be more obvious as well.

My favorite part of the exhibition was The Silver Cloud. It was hard to find any interactive part in the art exhibitions of most famous artists. It is in our mind that we must not touch the work. The security guard would warn you even you just have one step closer to the art work. In the room, I could try to experience the origin idea of creating from Warhol. It was very great to have such an exchange of experiences using real objects but not just by paintings or books with a famous artist. I enjoyed watching the ‘clouds’ rose from low to high. The color silver makes me felt like I was in fantasy and having party. But there were too many people (especially children, who made the pillows leaked air) inside the room so that the place was not that relaxing as Warhol expected his guests to feel. Instead, I felt lively and cheerful. That’s a good experience too.

Warhol turned every daily-use objects into art and that is why he was so amazing. To him, art is everywhere and it worth a lot. ‘Pop art is for everyone.’