Wednesday, August 02, 2006

The Warhol Shows

I finally got around to seeing the shows up at the Warhol right now. They didn't allow pictures to be taken at either of the current non " Warhol" shows (I took a couple and they will join my exiting art porn collection) which I guess only helped to underscore how much most of this work has entered the realm of commodity.

Both shows were very good and worth spending time with. What struck one the most about the NY Art Scene show was how hard it is to regain any context for this work. For the most part almost everything in the show is now "iconic" or considered important on some level. A lot of the particular works I had seen before; most likely in Soho in the late 1980's with a lot of it's context already gone. Although I lived through that period, I was young and to a large extent missed the "scene". I have an earlier post on that subject.

I think it's always sort of interesting to look for the points in history in which the anti establishment becomes the establishment. This might have been one of the last times when there seemed to be some sort of a line between them.

The "f" Word show is kind of a gem and I actually came across a few artists in that one I had never seen before. Wangechi Mutu is an artist I heard about but was still very blown away by and Ida Applebroog has really done some great stuff here blurring all kinds of lines in great ways. ( this work was in the show ) Another big stand out in this show was the work of Amy Wilson. ( Amy's dealer is from Pittsburgh )

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