Last Saturday, Ellie and I went to Andy Warhol: Other Voices, Other Rooms , an exhibit at the Wexner Center at Ohio State. This exhibit is a big deal; it is the exclusive U.S. presentation.
Displayed are some of Warhol's famous silkscreens, but it focuses on his video work. I was most intrigued by his "screen tests." What this consists of is a person staring at the camera for minutes (sometimes hours) on end. It is a strange experience to stare at somebody like that -- to watch their facial ticks, eye movements, and lip licking. It feels eerie, almost intrusive. Like some unknown line has been crossed.
Here is the collection of screen shots from an earlier exhibit:
The rest of films were even more odd: some fascinating, some stupid, some vaguely pornographic, and all of them aimed to getting you to look at life (and film) in a different way. Warhol's goal, of course, was to collapse distinctions: high and low art, male and female, fiction and reality, public and private, people and technology, etc. His video work certainly seems to continue with this theme.
The other highlight was experiencing the famous "silver clouds." Apparently in 1966 Warhol held an exhibit in NYC, Silver Clouds, that consisted of a roomful of silver, metalized plastic pillow-shaped balloons inflated with helium and oxygen. These balloons floated around the room. This was replicated for us and looked something like this:
1 comment:
Glad to hear a review of the exhibit. I've been interested in going and trying to convince Andy to go with me.
P.S. There's a new movie out that looks like it might be up your alley: Slumdog Millionaire. Have you heard of it?
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