HISTORY OF GRAPHIC DESIGN (AGD1222)

ARTS CRITISM Andy Warhol

PREPARE FOR:

MADAM RINA BINTI ABD. SHUKOR

PREPARED BY:

Dip. DG26B NURUL SYAMIMI BINTIMOHD MOKHTAR

3153006491

JABATAN PENGAJIAN UMUMPUSAT PENGAJIAN ASASI & UMUM (CFGS)

UNIVERSITI SELANGORSEMESTER MEI 2015

Pop: The Genius of Andy Warhol (1928-1987)32 Campbell’s Soup Cans 1962

Andy Warhol was part of the pop-art movement. Like many of the more modern movements, it didn't focus so much on technique (like say, impressionists) but more on subject matter and in particular, questioning what is art and breaking down or stretching symbolism to it's limits. Pop-art, in essence, tried to take the old, stuffy, pretentious "fine art" world and instead do the reverse. Instead of subjects being classical stories or grand landscapes or other "classy" subjects, they made their art about the present world and everyday stuff.

Art of the late 20th Century is influenced by technological innovations. It often plays on the contradiction of scale and commonly accepted reality. Andy Warhol uses images from popular culture (like soup cans) in unexpected ways.Warhol in particular emphasized mass media, things that were reprinted and ubiquitous, hence doing stuff like painting a can of soup or highly uses screen printing in his stuff.

His original 32 paintings of Campbell’s canned soup (titled Campbell’s Soup Cans) played a major role in defining Andy Warhol’s artistic career. Apart from helping him get his first solo exhibition the Campbell’s Soup Cans steered the direction of Warhol’s future work.

Andy Warhol, Campbells’ Soup Cans, 1962 © 2014 Andy Warhol Foundation / ARS, NY / TM Licensed by Campbell’s Soup Co. All rights reserved. Source: MoMa

Andy Warhol produce 32 Campbell’s Soup Cans in 1962. For this artwork, he made 32 images on separate canvases. Each image was of a single can of Campbell’s soup. Each canvas was 16 x 20 in. (40.6 x 50.8). Warhol painted the images using synthetic polymer paint, tracing the image from a photograph. He used a projector to make the images he traced larger than the source photographs. Through Campbell’s Soup can images, Warhol gained a reputation for having a non-painterly style – his images look mechanical and do not show signs of the artist’s touch.

The 32 images in Warhol’s artwork each represent one variety of Campbell’s Soup available at the time. Each is depicted on a white background. Each of the 32 canvasses is very similar to the others. However, they do have minor variations in the lettering of the soup names. Most of the letters are painted in red text, but four varieties have black letters. The sizes of the letters also vary slightly in order to fit the name of the variety. Also, a few varieties use somewhat different styles of lettering. One soup can, for example, uses lowercase script. Warhol stenciled the lettering on some cans and painted it on others

Warhol’s32 Campbell’s Soup Cans is a work of art comprised of 32 red, white, and black advertising-style images of soup cans each on a single, framed, medium-sized canvas. At first glance, the 32 cans of soup are overwhelming in their monotony. A twenty-first century viewer might liken the sameness of the soup cans to the boredom of modern consumer culture, in which factories and mass production make millions of identical goods. As a viewer look closer, however, they see many subtle variations in the design and coloring.

When Warhol first exhibited Campbell’s Soup Cans, in 1962, each of the thirty-two canvases rested on a shelf mounted on the wall, like groceries in a store. The number of paintings corresponds to the varieties of soup then sold by the Campbell Soup Company. Warhol assigned a different soup variety to each, checking them off on a product list supplied by Campbell once their “portraits” were completed. The tiny variations give the viewer hope that, despite the monotony of mass-produced society, glimpses of originality can still break through.

Warhol is the central figure of Pop Art in part because he self-consciously replaced the fine art tradition built around uniqueness and self-expression. Instead he brought both the look, methods, and logic of mass production and mass media to his art. In doing so, he harnessed the industry of celebrity in a very canny way. Andy Warhol claimed: "The reason I'm painting this way is that I want to be a machine." Like many Warhol quotes, this seems like a simple, even naive, statement, but it is also provocative enough that we shouldn't take it on face value. 

The premier and variations

Black font coloring is visible in Clam Chowder and Beef canvases from Campbell's Soup Cans, 1962.

Example of varied coloring

Warhol's work might contribute to introduced: brand equity, clothing, fashion and beauty, imagery, packaging and self-concept.

In my opinion, the importance of the work wasn't necessarily it's aesthetic qualities, but the questions it posed and how it reframed what people thought defined "art."