ANDY WARHOL
TATE MODERN
March 12 – September 6, 2020
Eyal Ofer Galleries. In partnership with Bank of America. With additional support from the Andy Warhol Exhibition Supporters Circle, the Tate Americas Foundation, the Tate International Council, patrons and Tate Members
Every day from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm and until 10:00 pm on Fridays and Saturdays
Information by phone on +44(0)20 7887 8888, on the website www.tate.org.uk
Andy Warhol (1928-87) was one of the most famous artists of the late 20th century, but his life and work continue to fascinate and provoke new interpretations. Shy and homosexual, born into a modest, religious immigrant family, he charted his own destiny and became the embodiment of the Pop Art movement. From March 12, Tate Modern is devoting a major exhibition to him, the first organized by the museum in almost 20 years. It offers an exceptional opportunity to recall the uniqueness of a work and an artist who marked a period of profound cultural transformation. Drawing on the most recent studies, this exhibition aims to offer a fresh perspective on this American icon.
With over a hundred works spanning an exceptional career, the exhibition highlights how Warhol’s research reflected a unique vision of 20th-century culture, and made his mark on the artistic and political fields of his time. Although Warhol is best known for his iconic paintings of Coca-Cola bottles and portraits of Marilyn Monroe, mirrors of American culture, this exhibition focuses on certain recurring themes in his work that dominated the course of his life, linked to desire, identity and faith. It shows how this innovative artist redefined the role of art at a time of immense social, political and technological upheaval.
Born Andrew Warhola, Warhol grew up in Pittsburgh in a Carpatho-Ruthenian family from a small village in the former Czechoslovakia that had emigrated to the United States. The Warhola family were devout followers of the Ruthenian Byzantine Catholic Church, and the influence of the deep religious convictions of Julia Warhola, Andy’s mother with whom he lived for most of his life, is considered an important determinant in his work. Warhol’s sexuality will also be an essential theme of the exhibition, starting with a selection of his early drawings of male portraits and nudes with evocative lines executed in the 1950s. These works will form an intimate duo with the film
Sleep 1963 – documenting his lover, the poet John Giorno – to highlight how Warhol worked in collaboration with figures from outside the art world to broaden its scope.
The exhibition aims to take a fresh look at key works from the Pop period – such as 1962’s Marilyn Diptych, 1963/1964’s Elvis I and II and 1964’s Race Riot – reviewed in the light of contemporary reflections on American culture and politics, while Warhol’s boundless drive and ambition to push back traditional medium boundaries will be represented by his famous Screen Tests 1964-6 and a recreation of the psychedelic multimedia environment of Exploding Plastic Inevitable 1966, originally created for the Velvet Underground’s rock shows.
The exhibition also features Warhol’s 1966 floating balloon installation Silver Clouds, originally intended to signify his “retirement” from painting in favor of film. Having famously declared that “good business makes the best art”, the exhibition highlights how Warhol’s forays into publishing and television, as well as his interest in nightclub culture, can be seen as attempts to reveal the stars of the underground to the purveyors of mainstream culture.
After escaping an assassination attempt perpetrated by feminist activist Valerie Solanas in 1968, Warhol returned to painting and developing large-scale projects. The exhibition also highlights Warhol’s talents as a painter and colorist, with a room featuring the largest gathering of paintings ever shown in the UK from the 1975 “Ladies and Gentlemen” series. These striking portraits depict figures from New York’s transgender community, including artist and activist Marsha “Pay it no mind” Johnson – one of the leading figures in the Stonewall uprising of 1969.
Warhol’s last works, executed in the 1980s, such as the poignant Sixty Last Suppers 1986, which are on show in the UK for the first time, are presented in relation to the artist’s untimely death, as well as to developments in the HIV/AIDS epidemic that was eventually to affect many members of his entourage.
The Andy Warhol exhibition is organized by Tate Modern and the Ludwig Museum, Cologne, in collaboration with the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, and the Dallas Museum of Art. The exhibition is curated by Gregor Muir, Director of Tate Modern’s International Art Collection Department, assisted by Fiontán Moran, Assistant Curator; Yilmaz Dziewior, Director, and Stephan Diederich, Curator in the 20th Century Art Collection Department at Museum Ludwig in Cologne.
The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalog featuring an interview with Bob Colacello, a former Factory insider, an analysis by artist Martine Syms and a new essay by writer and critic Olivia Laing. A rich program of lectures and film screenings also accompanies the exhibition. Exclusive new collections of objects inspired by the Marilyn diptych and Warhol’s Skulls are also on sale in the museum’s boutiques, alongside stunning brand collaborations and a vintage vinyl collection.
Warhol_T07146, Self-Portrait
Image
Andy Warhol (1928 – 1987)
Self Portrait 1986
Tate
© 2019 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc / Artists Right Society (ARS), New York and DACS, London
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