The Original Creators: Andy Warhol

Each week we pay homage to a select "Original Creator"—an iconic artist from days gone by whose work influences and informs today's creators. These are artists who were innovative and revolutionary in their fields. Bold visionaries and radicals, groundbreaking frontiersmen and women who inspired and informed culture as we know it today. This week: Andy Warhol.

“An artist is somebody who produces things that people don’t need to have.” – Andy Warhol

For a man who coined the (incredibly prescient) expression about everyone having their 15 minutes of fame, it’s a bit ironic that his notoriety and relevance has lasted much longer. Warhol was a painter, printmaker and avant-garde filmmaker whose legacy in Pop Art has since had a lasting and incalculable impact on the world. Initially working as a commercial artist, he then went on to experiment with reproductions of mass-produced objects and explored our morbid obsession with celebrity culture.

In his first solo show at the Stable Gallery in 1962, the iconography that would go on to define him was already present: the silkscreened Marilyn Diptych, 100 Soup Cans and 100 Coke Bottles. The colorful celebrity portraits and re-purposing of consumerism (which became his trademark) helped forge a new American pop culture mythology, while also defining the Pop Art movement. He blurred the unlikely line between fine art and commercial products, breaking down the barrier between high and low culture.

This desire for the artistic elevation of consumerist products led Warhol to found his studio, the Factory, in 1963, as a place where he could mass produce posters and prints as well as experiment with filmmaking, all while hanging out with a wide variety of freaky and eccentric artists, musicians, models and hangers-on. It was here where he helped build and forge his own mythology and celebrity. Many of the films made while at this silver-colored studio went on to become classics of avant-garde cinema including Sleep (1963) and Empire (1963).

Sleep (1963)

Warhol’s exploration of different creative mediums showed how experimental and modern his way of making art was. From sculpture to video art, novels, magazines, photography, album covers, television, advertising and performance art—all were worthy avenues for creative expression. He was a prophet of the modern world we now live in, one obsessed with vacuous celebrities where image is everything. This superficiality was celebrated and embraced by Warhol, he was one of the original plastic people and proud of it. He was someone who had intuited what the world would become, a world of mass communication and globalization. He unintentionally foresaw the hybrid world that technology and entertainment would create, combining the real and virtual into a world of simulacra.

When speaking about getting shot by radical feminist Valerie Solanas Warhol said: “Before I was shot, I always thought that I was more half-there than all-there—I always suspected that I was watching TV instead of living life. People sometimes say that the way things happen in movies is unreal, but actually it’s the way things happen in life that’s unreal. The movies make emotions look so strong and real, whereas when things really do happen to you, it’s like watching television—you don’t feel anything. Right when I was being shot and ever since, I knew that I was watching television. The channels switch, but it’s all television.”

It’s like he knew the information age was coming. While his multidisciplinary approach is one that’s embraced by many artists today, he even dabbled with the digital art medium when in 1985 he painted a portrait of Debbie Harry on an Amiga computer at a Commodore Amiga press conference.

Below we take a look at some of his most important and influential works:

Campbell’s Soup Cans (1962)

If someone asked you to think of Pop Art, this is the image you’d probably have in your mind’s eye. Displayed as soup cans arranged on a shelf, the commercialism of the piece is inevitable, and the Campbell soup can went on to become a theme with which he played with in other works. They are now a defining image of Pop Art.

Marilyn Diptych (1962)

This piece explores the themes of celebrity and death and the tragic relationship between the two that continues to resonate today. This was the first of his celebrity portraits that helped define a new American mythology, while also hinting at the mass-produced celebrity culture that was to come.

Brillo Soap Pads Box (1964)

Brillo Soap Pads Box re-contextualises the commercial product as art by creating fine art from the mundane. Its bold attractive design also highlights the desirability of these items, while celebrating the aesthetic of the machine made.

Silver Clouds (1966)

This installation, a collaboration with engineer Billy Kluver, was a playful look at immersive art, and acted as a precursor to the interactive art we see today. It was a blend of technology and contemporary art, with the silver clouds of the piece made from Scotchpak, suggested by a friend of Kluver’s at Bell Labs research group.

As well as creating some of the most recognisable art in the world, Warhol’s influence has been felt across the whole spectrum of artistic disciplines, extending into graphic design, pop music, film, TV, along with contemporary and visual art. It’d be difficult to imagine Damien Hirst existing without Warhol, but Warhol has also left an influence as a public figure. He helped define the idea of a celebrity culture where one person can become a brand and where all of life’s experiences are worthy of documentation and exploration, predating and pre-empting the social media sharing culture we live in today.