A Warhol cash-in that teaches us nothing
Andy Warhol
Tate Modern, London SE1 ★★★★★
More than three decades after his death in 1987, what has Andy Warhol become? The answer is simple – and appropriate, given that he will always be remembered for immortalising Coca-cola and Campbell’s Soup. Warhol is modern art’s super-brand. Bigger even than Picasso. During his lifetime, he was already such a glutton for wealth and glamour that he was considered a sell-out. He ended up worth millions of dollars – hundreds of millions, in fact. And, even in the afterlife, he’s still got the Midas touch. Last year, he popped up in the middle of the Super Bowl, munching on a Whopper in a highprofile ad for Burger King. What was his famous quote, again? Not his prediction that in the future everyone would be famous for 15 minutes. (Alas, he was spot on, there.) No, the other one. Ah, yes: “Good business is the best art.” Kerching!
So, we know why Tate Modern is staging a Warhol retrospective. What museum director would pass up sure-fire income? Welcome, then, to Warhol World, where £22 (the cost of a full-price ticket) buys you a mildly invigorating canter through his career. Coke bottles? Tick. Marilyn and Elvis? Tick. Oddballs, speed-freaks, and “superstars” (Warhol’s coinage) cavorting inside his silver-walled studio, aka the Factory? Tick, tick, tick.
There’s also a mock-up of a nightclub, recreating one of Warhol’s mid-sixties multimedia shows known as the “Exploding Plastic Inevitable”, featuring the Velvet Underground and Nico. Don’t say Tate fails to provide a bang for your buck. On screen, a couple larks about with a bullwhip. Best leave the kids in gallery five chasing silver helium-filled balloons (which Warhol described as “paintings that float”).
Here’s the thing with Warhol: he’s chronically overfamiliar. We already know that we live in the Age of Andy. He didn’t invent social media, but he was its herald. His society portraits are basically Instagram selfies with filters, avant la lettre. He spawned reality television. Marilyn Diptych (1962) foretells the tragedy of Caroline Flack. Some people still think of Warhol as counterculture. Really, though, he’s mainstream – as alternative as Urban Outfitters. And his story has been told so often it has hardened into a fossil.
Blake Gopnik’s new biography of Warhol runs to 960 pages. This is the abridged version. Entire series are represented by single works. A portrait of Mao wearing mauve lipstick. One mottled Oxidation Painting, made by peeing on copper paint. A “fright-wig” self-portrait from 1986 – in which the ghastly will-o’-the-wisp of Warhol’s disembodied red visage floats against a black void – beside, um, three steamrollered guinea pigs? Sorry, a selection of his custom-made wigs. Relics of a modern saint.
Why so many hairpieces, and not, say, one “Shadow” picture? Or any of the underrated black-and-white works of the Eighties? Earlier, in the “Pop” section, there isn’t a single Electric Chair.
If you’re after a primer to the artist, this slick presentation works. But there’s little here to sate the nerds. Not much passion. No advocacy for under-sung moments in his career – apart, that is, from a gallery showcasing “Ladies and Gentlemen”, a little-known series of drag queens and trans women from 1975. A couple of these paintings are interesting. Most, though, are so-so. Still, the curators give us the hard sell. Look, Warhol remains relevant in our era of identity politics! But their case feels calculated, an attempt to cash in on the zeitgeist. Which is, I suppose, how Warhol operated.
Throughout, I kept thinking of Warhol’s hand-painted “Do It Yourself ” pictures from 1962 (not included): ironic Pop takes on paint-by-numbers kits. Tate’s show is, if you like, Warholby-numbers, the equivalent of one of the artist’s deadpan shrugs. Its spirit is that of the corporate Seventies – the years of Andy Warhol Enterprises, Inc. A clever, Warholian strategy? Maybe.
“Uh, gee,” Andy would say, if he were still alive, walking through these rooms; “Great.” You may want more.