That’s how I felt about the Whitney’s exhibit, which I saw last Saturday night, a day before it closed.
I mean, he lacks the human touch, no? And, of course, that’s the entire point of the hard-edged, billboard-graphic Warhol and Pop Art aesthetic. No painterly Abstract Expressionistic gestures for that bunch.
Warhol’s critique of American society is so blisteringly spot-on. All the more so for him being as much infatuated as censorious. When Chairman Mao occupies the dimensions of Hollywood marquee, he tells us all too much about our own idolatries.
The exhibit occupied an enormous suite of galleries on one floor, and then it continued in two small galleries on other floors.
By the time we reach Warhol’s Interview magazines of the covers of the 1970s, he’s become a caricature of himself, but isn’t that the whole point as well? Isn’t that what celebrity is about?
The show left a certain ashen taste in the mouth.
A taste alleviated by the superb repast I then enjoyed on site at EAT.