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ARTCAT



Andy Warhol, Black & White Paintings 1985-86

Van de Weghe
521 West 23rd Street, 212-929-6633
Chelsea
October 14 - November 23, 2005
Reception: Friday, October 14, 6 - 8 PM
Web Site


Based on advertising and other imagery found in the newspaper, these paintings are important examples on the Pop aesthetic present in many of Andy Warhol’s late works. Warhol, of course, began his career as a commercial illustrator in the 1950s and newspapers were of enormous appeal to the artist. They provided the source material for a great deal of his work in the 1960s as well as this, one of his last, uncommissioned series. Here, Warhol drew on cheap commercial imagery of the most banal advertisements for the most humble products - shoes, boots, a statue of Christ - and sloganeering from the service sector—“Somebody Wants to Buy Your Apartment!” The canvases contain silkscreens of rough-hewn, loosely drawn imagery, unmediated by painterly flourishes or layering. While Warhol’s trademark silkscreen is the primary technique in these paintings, he used an overhead projector to trace the image for the silkscreen, and they appear hand-drawn. Warhol had recently used this technique in his collaborations with Basquiat in 1983 and the drawing is similarly gestural and improvisational, giving the works the handmade-readymade element that is so compelling in Warhol’s work.

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