Postmodern Deconstructionism had a purpose but like any tool it has its limits. So quick are we to throw the baby out with the bath water, and scrap even the Good parts of a Traditionalist society. Because that postmodern rhetoric ends in nihilistic oblivion you know what i'm talking about, That Part of Star Wars where the general looks at the death star blast and says "oh It's Beautiful!". I'm looking for That Healthy Synthesis between form and flow the best of both worlds. Not the dead end of ivory tower aristocratic perfectionism nor the debased masturbation of hedonism. the postmodern tide has come quite far enough stand true and
This was a paper I wrote in college that helped be understand why Getting an Art degree in the climate of postmodernism made no sense Go to school and learn about how there is no objective standard for what constitutes art, then receive a grade on all work I create.
2/15/16
Andy Warhol The Cultural Sorcerer of his day.
A response to the statement: Andy Warhol's work relied on many sources from his personal life and popular culture. Images, power, and politics influenced his work heavily.
The images created by the artist Andy Warhol have been praised by some as extremely original pieces because of they way in which they challenge the authoritarian ideals of the traditional art culture of the time. His work falls into two categories for me “Pop” art and “Relativistic” art. He was an artist who begged the question of all of us: what exactly is Art? And now that question crops up in almost every art class and art gallery everywhere. The truth is that anything can be art, as long as something has been thought of it can be art. However this kind of “Art Relativism” along with the “Pop” art that Warhol and so many other modern artists propagate might just be the most dangerous idea ever. While on the surface it seems innocent and glorifies self-expression, acceptance and freewill There is a very insidious nature to it, which I will explore with you.
The classic prints of Marilyn Monroe that Warhol was responsible for represent “Pop” art and show the Lady in different colors and tones over and over. The prints are colorful flashy and instantly recognizable as Marilyn Monroe isn’t it great now she comes in colors! This kind of art is nothing more then the fingerprints left by the work of black magick cultural engineers who want to enslave your mind for the purpose of feeding the machine of their shadowy empire. The Prints shout to the world Marilyn Monroe isn’t she great? isn’t she sexy? you just got to look at her. Warhol did this with many other celebrities too. He was infatuated with their power and wanted a piece of it, and centered his social life around them. He helped to build the cult of celebrity to the alarming heights its at today. I’m not going to make any claims as to whether Warhol was fully conscious of the implications of his work but from the interviews of the movie The Life and Times of Andy Warhol he seems almost apathetic to how it is received.
The second category of Art that Warhol is known for is the relativistic kind. I use that word because it gets to the heart of the question: what is art? Art is relative its up to the viewer to decide what beauty is and what’s a good idea, it’s subjective. This concept was executed in Warhol’s piece “Heinz Tomato Ketchup” where he built a box and labeled it as such. It does a great job in leveling the playing field humbling the viewer to be more accepting but in the process he degrades the objective ideal of beauty. Art used to inspire elevate and transcend the possibilities of the physical world but now it has been stomped into the dirt by the likes of Andy Warhol and other modern artists who care more about the connotative meaning of their work then the denotative meaning. In other words they care more about their un-manifested message than the one they can actually manifest, if they have one at all! Warhol’s piece “Campbell’s Soup can” is another example of how Andy pushes the envelope on what art is. It’s a bunch of soup cans and he doesn’t try to defend it as anything but that. This could be an attempt to honor food and if it is it’s not doing a good job. I think a more logical conclusion is that it comes from his attitude of nihilistic apathy he simply doesn’t care and his art glories in that attitude. If life is meaningless then my shit can shine like gold!
In conclusion I do not Like Andy Warhol’s art, because I find it disempowering. Yes that was a judgemental statement about a subjective artist, his work is very bland. Marilyn Monroe is pretty yes but he didn’t create that objective form so that work lacks originality. The soup cans and ketchup box are original ideas in that no one would have thought to call them art before then, but they lack objective beauty. And the parts that could be called aesthetically pleasing he did not design himself. I think Andy Warhol jumped on the cultural bandwagon of the time found his niche took the money and ran. Like most of his generation I don’t think he really cared about the ramifications of his actions because his work functions like a destructive spell in that it tears open the heart of society and picks it dry. If there is relativism in art and beauty then there will be relativism in all fields of thinking Including Morals, because art is the highest order of thought, for all other fields are indebt to the artists who paint the culture for them. This can be a good thing and it can be a very bad thing, and it is a slippery slope to the dark side. Andy Warhol was for the most part just buying into the momentum of the mechanistic consumer-capitalist control system of the times, by propagating the brainwashing icons of the consumerist culture. For this I call him a sorcerer and with his spells he did not try to save the soul of humankind, he trampled all over us.
Consider this to be a Call for REASON
