15 Minutes

What are your thoughts on Andy Warhol?

Andy Warhol, Cambell’s Soup Can (Tomato), 1928-1987

I kid, I kid. He never wanted you to have any thoughts on him. Seriously. He was completely and totally vapid. As empty as empty comes. But that was the point.

Who’s Andy Warhol? Thank you for asking, thank fuck, for asking. He’s that guy who painted the picture of the Campbell’s soup can. You may remember him more recently as the weirdo Burger King showed eating a hamburger in total silence during one of this year’s Superbowl ads. Burger King paid $5.25 mil for it. Andy’s dead, by the way, so they didn’t actually pay him. They paid his foundation. I know, I’m a little late the party. The Superbowl was already, like, 6 years ago.

Andy’s famous for saying that everyone would be famous for 15 minutes, or rather, “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.” See, you know who he is, kinda. So what do you think? Are you still waiting for your 15 minutes? Are you wondering why you didn’t get famous for painting a picture of the Campbell’s soup can? I sound like a hater, right?

Once, Andy painted some canvases with a copper-based paint, then he invited a bunch of his famous friends over to piss on them (one of which might have been Madonna). Want to know how much one of those canvases sells for now? You don’t wanna know. Millions.

Andy Warhol and Homer Simpson | Image courtesy of The Simpsons and Fox

Anyway, here’s the part where I must, begrudgingly, tell you why he is so profoundly important to the art historical cannon. Andy is inarguably, and unequivocally, the father of the Pop Art movement. By romanticising an object as mundane as a can of soup, and by imbuing it with the aura of a real and true objet d’art Andy made it art. Yes, your two your old could do the same, however, Andy got there first, he did it better and he didn’t just do it with soup. He did it with an electric chair called “Ol’ Sparky”, with newspaper articles and with car crashes, with Elvis in a classic stick-em-up pose and with Mao Zedong, with the iconic photograph of a bloodied Jackie O as she watched Lyndon B. Johnson being sworn in as president on Air Force One. Andy is as prolific as his media is varied, from painting to film to print and back. He is a force majeure and there is simply no denying.

Austin Powers and Andy Warhol | Image courtesy of Austin Powers and New Line Cinema

I think he’s lost his luster. Like they do with Disney movies, it’s time to put him back in the vault. His time is up and now, frankly, I’m bored. Andy is everywhere. He made a cameo in Austin Powers, and once on the Simpsons; maybe next they’ll carve his likeness on the moon.

Isn’t it true that distance makes the heart grow fonder? Or that rarity makes the diamond more valuable? It’s obvious, for the health of Andy’s market, which is positively sodden with his artwork, and for its longevity, that we should make him a little more scarce. I.e. put him in the vault; or whatever that artworld equivalent of the vault is. I’ll have to come up with that one myself, I suppose. Buried in an ancient Egyptian pharaoh’s tomb seems like a good comparable.

Goodbye, but for 15 minutes . . .

About Art Is A Beating Drum

Some years ago I suffered a devastating loss from which I thought I might never recover.

For a moment, the whole world stopped spinning on its axis, nothing made sense, everything lost its color, its taste, and I found that those things that had once mattered could not be borne. I found myself well and truly lost. 

Enter Art is a Beating Drum . . .

I don't recall how, but I came across Bill Viola, described alternately as, "a pioneer in the field of video-art" and as, "one of today's leading contemporary artists". Shooting single-channel videos that place emphasis on the human condition and its attendant emotions, Viola's videos are moving homages to life itself. For me, Viola encapsulated my grief and found a way to express it meaningfully, more so than I felt I was capable at the time. He measured it, diagnosed it, and categorized it with little more than silence and a simple gesture.

I began to understand more fully than ever before that art could be the balm to heal my wounds. The literal and metaphysical salve for the feelings and emotions with which I continued to struggle. Art was the catalyst and antagonist that enabled me to feel fury and joy, despondency, and hilarity. Plainly, it kept me company.

The most powerful examples gave me actual, physical, and visceral feelings; they punched me in the gut, shook me from my stupor, and reminded me that like a rhythmic drumming, my heart beat. I breathed. I lived.

Art is a Beating Drum is the truest expression of what that felt like for me. In the moments where I had forgotten how to breathe, and to rejoice, and to love, and to cry; art reminded me, like the ever-present drumbeat of my heart. Art connected the disparate parts of me to each other and continues to do so. It is both primal and involuntary. So, Art is a Beating Drum was born to express and record those instances where I felt most keenly. To keep those instances alive and safe long after they had passed.

And to perhaps share them. . .