Monday 22 October 2012

The colourful World of Andy Warhol

When I listen to the name of Andy Warhol, my mind is filled with colourful Marilyn Monroes, Elvises and Campbell cans. 

  Undoubtedly, Andy Warhol was one of the greatest artists of the 20th century, considered to be a leading figure in the visual art movement (pop art) and having offered a great deal of masterpieces in various fields like photography, painting, hand drawing, silk screening, music and even filming.His hometown is located in Pennsylvania and so does his museum, the largest in the US dedicated to a very single artist. Andy lead an openly gay life without the fear of the still conservative society, whose liberation from the homosexuality stereotypes hasn't still taken place through the gay liberation movement.
  His work is characterised by the extended use of objects frequently utilised in the daily life -such as soup cans and cars, the celebrity circle, including Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe, historical figures, like Mao Zedong and the field of advertisement that flourished by the '60s.
  Andy created a short film of continuous slow motion footage of Empire State Building located in New York city. The film is called Empire and is roughly 8 hours long. The subject is focused on the top of the highest building in NYC and the film room was located in the Rockefeller Center. Despite the eight hour length of the film when projected, the original length of the footage was just 6 hours and 36 mins. This 1,5 hour gap is a result of the depletion to the number of frames shown per second.
  Another short film of Andy Warhol is called Eat and is focused on a man eating a mushroom for 45 minutes. Andy directed and produced the film Batman Dracula, without the permission of DC comics though.
  Other films of Andy Warhol are Vinyl, which is considered to be an adaption of the popular novel A Clockwork Orange and Chelsea Girls, which is his most critically successful and popular film.
   A failed attempt of Andy's assassination at his own studio led to a profound change in his artwork and life, bringing about physical effects and difficulties on Andy's health. The perpetrator was a feminist called Valerie Solanas who had been working with Andy at his studio. The reason of her action was her turning away of Andy's Studio (called Factory) after asking for the return of a script from Andy. It had probably been misplaced.   
  Andy Warhol died in New York City on February of 1987. He had been noting a good recovery progress after a surgery he was forced to undergo before dying in his sleep from a sudden cardiac arrhythmia.

Text written by Michaelangelo - infos found on Wikipedia - photos found on the net