Taking in the current “Andy Warhol’s Dream America” exhibition at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts down at the University of Utah turned out to be as multilayered as any of the nearly 100 iconic silk-screen prints on display in the upstairs gallery.
Aside from being awash in the “culture of celebrity” of both artist and his most-often-famous subjects, there emerged a tantalizing backstory to the affair quite “Warholian,” actually.
This bizarre tale goes back to the ’60s, as you might imagine, and a stop Warhol scheduled at the “U” during a tour of the West and a few of its institutions of higher learning. Suffice to say, all was not what it seemed. But more on that later. As appetizing as this sidebar is, it never overshadows the work.
With all the attention paid to “Pop Art” and its usually quite singular practitioners back in the day, it isn’t all that surprising when wave after wave of recognition accompanies each stop along the way to the point where one becomes knee deep in deja-vu.
Arranged in groupings he referred to as “suites” or “portfolios,” they appear as, if not old friends, at least old acquaintances. The sense of familiarity is hard to get your arms around. It actually has “girth.” You find yourself treading water in a sea of Micks and Maos and Marilyns. However, the confrontation is much more comfortable than you thought it might be and the work much more complex in its simplicity.
Warhol probably wouldn’t have had it any other way. After all, one who sets about to blur the distinction between commercial illustration and fine art is allowed the crutch of juxtaposition especially when silk-screening, by definition, demands it. His shtick, of course, had as much to do with surface perception as with that of depth. Not that he ever rammed that concept down your throat, or anything.
But as this show quite aptly demonstrates, there is much fun to be had with Andy Warhol and his “pop-art” period. With all the individual pieces within a “suite” created from the same image, he’s able to manipulate mood through less-than-subtle variations in the application of color and the “illusion of offset” available through the silk-screen process itself.
Stand staring long enough and you’ll swear the subjects are winking at you especially Marilyn.
Of course, the “Campbell Soup Can” suite is a magnet. As much as anything else, it’s his logo. Old Andy had a fix on “corporate branding” long before the current bunch. And it’s not just “tomato” soup that’s on the menu. On this aisle you can also select black bean, chicken noodle, onion, vegetable, beef, green pea, pepper pot, consommé (beef), and cream of mushroom. You may want to bring along your own bib.
Colors really run rampant in the Marilyn Monroe portfolio and the evolving effects flaunt everything from aloof to alluring all through tampering with the same image. Surviving the repetitions with visual and emotional integrity intact proves no problem for Norma Jean, however.
Easily my favorite among all the portfolios included in this exhibition, and the one I returned to more than the others, carried the title “Ten Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century.” Although a list at one end of the prints identified the subjects by name, it did not assign said name to a particular print. So, in the composed pomposity of your past, you are able to interact with the suite as a whole and provide individual identifications yourself.
Now some were flat-out obvious like Sigmund Freud, Albert Einstein, the Marx Brothers, Golda Meir, Gertrude Stein, and Franz Kafka. But George Gershwin, Sarah Bernhardt, Louis Brandeis, and Martin Buber were achieved solely through the process of elimination.
Buber’s “I and Thou” became assigned reading in many a “crash pad” back when philosophy and brown rice were most often cooked in the same pot. The author’s facial features, however, obviously never had shelf life which brings us back to the quite spectacular 40-year old yarn associated with the current Warhol exhibition.
It appears that back in 1967 Warhol signed on with an entity called the American Program Bureau (APB) to lecture at, among other stops, the University of Utah. Attendees of the much-anticipated event, however, were quite under-whelmed by not only the obvious lack of profundity involved in the talk but also the seeming disinterest in all things aesthetic. Evidently, coherency itself had been denied access.
Mumbles and grumbles ensued. By all accounts the cat was clueless. Rumors began to circulate. According to The Daily Utah Chronicle, the lecture, or lack thereof, created “a mild furor.” Was it really Warhol or was it Martin Buber in drag?
The “U” withheld payment of the $1,000 speaking fee to the APB, who had already paid Warhol, until the mess could be sorted out. Photos were compared. Chronicle reporters began an investigation. Members of Warhol’s posse had their collective feet held to the fire.
Paul Morrissey, Warhol’s manager, first hemmed and hawed as the noose tightened. Soon sufficient evidence had been accumulated. A film of Warhol showed a different dude entirely. The Daily Utah Chronicle headline said it all: “Phony Warhol Suspected, Film Reveals Hoax On U.”
An actor friend of Warhol’s turned out to be the culprit. Allen Midgette, it was later learned, appeared in the role of Andy Warhol not only at the University of Utah, but also the University of Oregon, Linfield College in McMinnville, Oregon, and, depending upon which version you buy into, either the University of Montana or Montana State University. Nothing is ever quite as it seems in Andy Warhol’s Dream America.
Jay Meehan is a culture junkie and a free-lance writer with a background in commercial and community radio among other pursuits. He has been a columnist and feature writer for various Park City publications going back to 1973.