Beschreibung:

Andy Warhol Self-Portrait 1986 Three Polaroid photographs. 3 5/8 x 2 3/4 in. (9.2 x 7 cm) each.
Provenance The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Arts, New York Catalogue Essay Andy Warhol’s 1986 Fright Wig series represents a defining moment in the artist’s oeuvre as a chronicle of his fascination with the dualism of life and death both as a private individual and as a public figure. The artist’s carefully constructed image, instantly recognizable by high and lowbrow alike, was a result of his innate understanding of the mechanics of a consumer driven, celebrity obsessed society. Warhol revolutionized the idea of the artist as a living brand and flourished in not only depicting icons such as Marilyn Monroe and Liz Taylor but perpetuated his own status as a star by commercializing every facet of his lifestyle and thus, his art. The present lot exemplifies Warhol’s ability to fuse artistic production with his own appearance to document the changing times in his life and promises his viewers an intimate glimpse into struggles and obsessions of the character that was created by Andy Warhol In these self portraits, Warhol assumes the role of a bodiless figure characterized by a shock of white blond hair contrasting with darkened sunglasses, perhaps worn to hide behind the fact that the images themselves force both the artist and the viewer to directly confront his own mortality. Warhol’s morbid fixation with death is evident here as the artist realizes he cannot fully control the tangible effects of aging within his work and chooses to reduce the distinct wrinkles and sunken cheeks to nothing more than detached splices and marks on a flat picture plane. These self portraits clearly illustrate that not even Andy Warhol superstar artist and public persona extraordinaire, can make time stand still; however, Warhol’s self portraits remain shocking and intensely powerful as they allow us the rare chance to witness the aging of a true art historical and cultural icon. Read More Artist Bio Andy Warhol American • 1928 - 1987 A seminal figure in the Pop Art movement of the early 1960s, Andy Warhol's paintings and screenprints are iconic beyond the scope of Art History, having become universal signifiers of an age. An early career in commercial illustration led to Warhol's appropriation of imagery from American popular culture and insistent concern with the superficial wonder of permanent commodification that yielded a synthesis of word and image, of art and the everyday. Warhol's obsession with creating slick, seemingly mass-produced artworks led him towards the commercial technique of screenprinting, which allowed him to produce large editions of his painted subjects. The clean, mechanical surface and perfect registration of the screenprinting process afforded Warhol a revolutionary absence of authorship that was crucial to the Pop Art manifesto. View More Works