4th Floor

Wall Text and Extended Labels

Gallery 402

Commerce and Play

The darker moments of KAWS + Warhol presented on the second floor of the museum are joyfully balanced here by a new installation from KAWS. The artist has transformed his recent General Mills cereal redesign project into a wall of Plexiglass-encased boxes that echoes Warhol wallpaper and borrows Warhol’s practice of installing his paintings over wall coverings. In this case, massive and deceptively simple-looking canvases featuring the KAWS designs for iconic brands such as Boo Berry and Count Chocula hang in front of a wall of the actual artist-designed cereal boxes. A truly mass-market consumer project enters the realm of fine art in the form of a museum installation. Juxtaposed with the KAWS cereal boxes, Warhol’s Brillo Boxes display a similar Duchampian quality but in reverse art objects made to appear as consumer goods. Paired with the boxes of both are playful cereal toys from KAWS, made now in five-foot-tall painted bronze, and Warhol’s toy paintings intended for children. Completing the installation are the artist’s “package paintings,” which serve as a direct bridge between fine art and commerce.

Gallery 401

Return to painting

In 1965, following the opening of his Flowers exhibition in Paris, Warhol announced his retirement from painting to devote himself to filmmaking. The artist’s shift in focus resulted in the production of nearly 650 underground films, including The Chelsea Girls, his first commercial success as a filmmaker. But Warhol’s break from painting was short-lived. He came out of “retirement” in 1972 with a major exhibition of works depicting Chairman Mao, which signaled an energetic return to painting. From this moment until his unexpected death in 1987, Warhol created more paintings than at any other point in his career. He experimented with a diverse range of styles, reprised themes from earlier output, and engaged with current trends. The 1980s proved to be especially productive with painterly outcomes, collaboration with contemporaries, direct inspiration from Western Art History, and responding to life in New York City.

Skull, 1976, 2002.4.24

Warhol’s “Skull” paintings have often been considered memento mori, recalling the centuries-long tradition of art that reminds us of our mortality. Memento mori, from Latin, translates roughly to “remember that you are mortal” or “remember you will die.” Warhol’s own near-death experience happened in 1968 when troubled writer Valerie Solanas shot Warhol in the abdomen after claiming the artist had lost a script she had written. After reportedly being declared dead upon arrival at the hospital, Warhol’s life was saved during five hours of surgery. After nearly two months, he was released from the hospital but required further surgeries over the following years.

Hammer and Sickle, 1976, 1998.1.188

Andy Warhol created his Hammer and Sickle series in 1976 after a trip to Italy. While there, the most common graffiti he saw was the communist symbol found on Soviet flags, which signified the union of industrial and farm workers’ interests. In Italy, a democratic country since the end of WWII, Warhol viewed the repeated graffiti as more Pop than political. After returning to the United States, Warhol asked his studio assistant Ronnie Cutrone to find pictures of the symbol. The reproductions he found were like the Soviet flag, flat in appearance. For a different approach, Cutrone purchased a double-headed hammer and a sickle at a local hardware store and photographed the tools in various positions; the resulting photos served as source material for the Hammer and Sickle series. The works were first exhibited in 1977 under the ambiguous title Still Lifes at the Castelli Gallery in New York City.

Andy Mops a Hammer & Sickle, 1976, 1997.4.343

As a keen observer of his environment, Andy Warhol attempted to document the world by almost every means possible. In 1970, Warhol purchased a portable video system and, along with studio assistants Michael Netter and Vincent Fremont, began making video recordings of his life and surroundings. Hundreds of these videotapes make up a body of work called Factory Diaries which include tapes of day-to-day activities at the Factory, Warhol’s creative process, and more. Among these tapes, “Andy Mops a Hammer & Sickle 1976” shows Warhol in his studio at 860 Broadway applying paint to one of his Hammer and Sickle canvases before screen printing over it.

Untitled (Elephant), 1985, 2002.1

According to studio manager Vincent Fremont, Warhol bought a pink papier-mâché elephant as a prop for a fashion exhibition at the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. After the exhibition, the elephant was returned to Warhol’s studio at 860 Broadway. It was eventually painted brown and Jean-Michel Basquiat decorated the head and trunk with imagery but never completed covering the entire animal. Warhol later asked Keith Haring to paint the sculpture, which became part of the office decor

Mount Vesuvius, 1985, 1998.1.3177

Warhol created the Vesuvius series in 1985 for Lucio Amelio, an Italian art dealer and curator. Amelio commissioned the works for display at the Museo di Capodimonte in Naples, which was better known for displaying masterworks by Botticelli, Raphael, Titian, and Caravaggio. The corresponding exhibition catalogue included the statement from Warhol: “I painted each Vesuvius by hand, always using different colors so that they can give the impression of having been painted just one minute after the eruption.” This version, entirely black and white, highlights Warhol’s return to painting with its expressive brush strokes. It is a rare example of Warhol capturing motion in his two-dimensional works. Vesuvius, a volcano notorious for its destruction of Pompeii in 79 CE, and continued eruptions since, has been memorialized by artists throughout history including Albert Bierstadt, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and J.M. W. Tumer to name a few.

Dentures/Keep Frozen, 1985, 1998.1.2119

Warhol collaborated with many artists in several mediums, including painting, filmmaking, and writing. One of his collaborators was a young American artist of Haitian and Puerto Rican descent, named Jean-Michel Basquiat. Basquiat first gained attention as a teenager during the 1970s in New York City as SAMO©, the graffiti artist. Basquiat mixed words, symbols and images derived from pop culture, graffiti, and primitive art. He also combined mediums, using drawing, painting, and collage. Like Warhol, Basquiat appropriated pictures from existing sources, including books such as Gray’s Anatomy by Henry Gray and Symbol Sourcebook: An Authoritative Guide to International Graphic Symbols by Henry Dreyfuss. Warhol and Basquiat admired each other’s work and became close friends, eventually painting on the same canvases together. Between 1984 and 1985, Warhol and Basquiat collaborated on over 150 works. Their collaborations culminated in a highly publicized exhibition at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery in September 1985

Jean-Michel Basquiat

Andy Warhol collaborated with Jean-Michel Basquiat over several years during the 1980s. Warhol attributed his return to painting to Basquiat stating “Jean-Michel got me into painting differently, so that’s a good thing.” Despite their differences, the mutual influence on each other’s work is clearly visible. Warhol was inspired to return to his painterly beginnings of the early 1960s whereas Basquiat started to sample his earlier collages via Warhol’s silkscreen technique.
The artists also shared an affinity for working out. Boxing, a subject Basquiat depicted in several paintings, became the centerpiece for the posters touting an exhibition of both artists’ paintings at Tony Shafrazi’s New York gallery. Sparring a give and take, a back and forth— became their signature move when working together. As Keith Haring observed “The collaborations were seemingly effortless. It was a physical conversation happening in paint instead of words…two minds merging to create a third distinctive and unique mind.”

Keith Haring

Like Basquiat, Keith Haring was a “Warhol baby.” Both belonged to a younger generation that venerated the artist they called “Papa Pop.” Haring absorbed Warhol’s wisdom about navigating the art market and media attention, while Warhol was invigorated by Haring’s youthful energy and fresh approach to art. Warhol’s Pop Art also had a profound influence on Haring’s work, encouraging him to incorporate pop culture elements and everyday imagery into his art.
Throughout the 1980s, Haring was committed to democratizing the art experience. Along with paintings, he also created billboards, murals, advertising campaigns, and even a line of Swatch watches. In 1986 he opened the Pop Shop in SoHo, selling apparel, posters, and toys bearing his drawings. Many galleries criticized Haring for “de-valuing” the art object while others, such as Warhol, championed Haring’s insistence on making art accessible and affordable. Pop Shop was highly influential to contemporary crossovers of art and merchandise that are now so prevalent, as in the work of Yayoi Kusama, Shepard Fairey, Takashi Murakami, and KAWS.

Collaboration (Dollar Sign, Don’t Tread on Me), 1984-1985, 1998.1.488

In this painting, Basquiat obscures Warhol’s Dollar Sign screen print with a snake hanging by its tongue and the words “DON’T TREAD ON ME” along its side. The phrase “DON’T TREAD ON ME” and the rattlesnake are taken from the Gadsden Flag, a Revolutionary War-era flag created to promote independence from the British Crown. Over time, the insignia has been repurposed as a symbol of libertarian, anti-government beliefs, and has since been adopted by members of the Tea Party movement and far-right groups. This painting shows how each artist’s style was often at odds with the other. Warhol’s Dollar Sign works were based on his pen and ink drawings, and this subtle allusion to the artist’s hand coupled with Basquiat’s style makes for a striking juxtaposition. Warhol’s capitalistic fervor is underscored by Basquiat’s sinister hanging snake. The sheen of Pop is painted over, and the ultimate reading becomes much darker.

Ten Punching Bags (Last Supper), 1985-1986, 1998.1.791a-j

This provocative work is a study in juxtapositions, paradoxes, and contradictions, reflective of the dynamic relationship between Warhol and Basquiat. Warhol’s Renaissance-like depictions of Jesus, refer to both artists’ shared Catholic faith and the socio-political upheaval in the 1980s. Each figure of Christ is altered with a different physical injury, such as scratches, black eyes, and other bruises. One bag shows an armless black human form, similar to the one that Basquiat painted of Michael Stewart in his 1983 work Defacement (The Death of Michael Stewart). Scribbled and drawn in typical Basquiat style, the word “Judge” is found on each bag, making a powerful commentary on the disparity between the Christian doctrine of non-judgment and Christianity’s exclusionary stance on homosexuality – which was especially evident during the AIDS epidemic. Symbolically, the number of punching bags serves as biblical references to the Ten Commandments and the ten lepers, or outcasts whom Jesus cleansed.

Marilyn, (4), 1978, 1998.1.233

After Marilyn Monroe committed suicide in the summer of 1962, Warhol began working on a series of portraits to enshrine the image of the Hollywood icon in vivid colors and lustrous golds. Warhol returned to Monroe numerous times throughout his career, as in the 1978-1979 Reversal series. These works use a somber black palette to veil, obscure, and manipulate her famous face, abstracting the image and at times leaving only her recognizable lips. This work alludes to the dark realities of American cultural sainthood in Monroe’s case, anxiety, depression, and substance abuse alongside fame and fortune.

Details of Renaissance Paintings (Sandro Botticelli, Birth of Venus, 1482), 1984, 1998.1.307

In 1984 Warhol devoted an entire series of prints and paintings to historical painters of the Renaissance. The most iconic subject from this series was Sandro Botticelli’s 15th century masterpiece, Birth of Venus. Botticelli’s work depicted a young nymph rising from a clamshell; her body was lean and delicate, and she shyly covered her nakedness with her long, golden locks. In his 1984 version, Warhol leaves out Venus’s figure and brings the focus to her face and hair by cropping the image at the neck. One can see stylistic similarities to his famous portraits of Marilyn Monroe.
Although Warhol sourced images from Renaissance masters for this series, he maintains his signature Pop palette and close attention to cropping and editing techniques first gleaned from his early work as a commercial illustrator. Here Warhol borrows from history but makes it his own.

Film and Video Gallery

“I just use whatever happens around me for my material.… The world fascinates me. It’s so nice, whatever it is. I approve of what everybody does…. I accept things. I’m just watching, observing the world.” Andy Warhol, 1967

Warhol created artworks that explored the boundaries of the moving image from the time he purchased his first movie camera in 1963 until the end of his life in 1987. He began with 16mm/film, continued with video, and eventually produced series for cable television.
The touch screens in the gallery allow you to view over 100 full-length selections from Warhol’s film, video, and television work.