In Padua the eccentric world of Andy Warhol, pop icon par excellence

The Altinate Cultural Center in Padua hosts from September 30, 2022 to January 29, 2023 the exhibition Andy Warhol. Pop Icon, curated by Simona Occioni.

On display are more than one hundred and fifty works including drawings, photographs, engravings, silkscreens, sculptures and postcards for an immersive journey into the world of Andy Warhol, pop icon par excellence. The exhibition is conceived by Daniel Buso and the show is organized by ARTIKA in collaboration with Fondazione Mazzoleni and the City of Padua.

In six thematic sections, Warhol’seccentric universe will be recounted, starting with a biographical portrait of the great New York artist and focusing on the artist’s depiction of American society and culture. The brands that populated the advertising imagery prevalent in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s, such as the iconic Campbell soup, will find space. Alongside the brands, Warhol represents the icons of entertainment: the face of Mick Jagger, Sylvester Stallone, and Marilyn Monroe become mystified objects, equal to consumer products.

The background of Pop Art is mass culture, destined to become the main object of art itself. The artists emphasize the debasement of taste, while highlighting their detachment from consumerist society.

Andy Warhol proceeds following a definite pattern: visual isolation of the image, assimilation of advertising language, repetition and use of loud colors. The procedure reveals the true nature of modernity: indifference, materialism, media manipulation, economic exploitation, irrepressible consumerism, stardom and the creation of false needs and false aspirations in the masses. Warhol reveals the superficiality of the system through the manipulation of images and the transformation of self into a character bordering on the grotesque.

“Among the many revolutions that transformed art in the second half of the twentieth century, the Pop movement is the one that definitively annulled the distance between the work and the audience. Andy Warhol’s work, in particular, inspired by the mechanisms of repetition, recognizability, and reproducibility of famous people and everyday products, achieved universal notoriety. The artist himself ended up turning into an icon of himself, as the title of this exhibition cleverly recites, which brings to Padua a cultural experience that is both profound and playful,” commented Andrea Colasio, Councillor for Culture, and Sergio Giordani, Mayor of Padua. “More than one hundred and fifty works including drawings, photographs, engravings, silkscreens, sculptures and postcards allow visitors to immerse themselves in the colorful and brilliant world of one of the most famous and quoted artists of the 20th century.”

For info: www.artika.it

Image: Pierre Houlès, Andy Warhol Minox (1982; Private collection)

In Padua the eccentric world of Andy Warhol, pop icon par excellence

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