Printing, or being “in print”, represented a change in condition, a shift from a private, or inner world, to one that was external and public. It suggested desirability, that something was wanted by more than one person; or, as Warhol once proclaimed, “repetition adds up to reputation.” [1]
Andy Warhol’s Ads portfolio was executed only two years before the artist’s death, and it serves as a retrospective of his fascination with glamour, fashion, film and celebrity. Having begun his career in graphic illustration, drawing magazine advertisements and then designing department store windows, the Ads brings us full circle but now with over two decades of exploring the democratization of popular consumer culture to inform the imagery. Warhol had made Campbell’s Soup as famous as Marilyn Monroe, he once said “what's great about this country is America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you can know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too.” This sent.mes nt of accessibility regardless of affluence is often used to explain the allure of printmaking; not everyone can afford a unique work by an important artist but a print? Less expensive to obtain, and by the nature of multiplicity, available to many rather than just one. Like many artists before him, Warhol knew he could broaden his audience through printmaking, he was also firm in his belief that nothing was truly unique, and everyday objects should be celebrated. Thus, a background in advertising and a delight in the influences of mass media mingled with the power of serialization to culminate in this remarkable survey of American iconography.
Center: © JJs / Alamy Stock Photo
Right: © John Frost Newspapers / Alamy Stock Photo
A fascinating dialogue is formed when screenprint, originally a commercial printing technique, is utilized to portray symbols of commerce. By the t.mes Ads was published in 1985, Warhol had mastered the medium and the technical complexity of these prints is astonishing. For example, The New Spirit (Donald Duck) employed over a dozen screens and multiple colors including neon and metallic hues. The inherently flat quality of a screenprint is counterbalanced in these prints with an almost theatrical quality, such as the haunting Chanel perfume bottle floating on an ombré background. The project was an ideal intersection of propaganda and proliferation wherein logos produced by the culture of the era were in turn recreated in multiple forms so that they could reach the largest audience in the same manner that an advertisement is crafted with the hope that it will be widely broadcast.
“Warhol’s … gift was his ability to make objective as art the defining images of the American consciousness - the images that expressed our desires, our fears, and what we as a commonality trusted and mistrusted”
Sold: Replica Shoes ’s London, October 2011, for £67,250
The power of advertising is a concept often discussed – why does it hold our interest; how can it be influential? For one, we are instantly attracted to the element of nostalgia, within the portfolio both James Dean and Judy Garland are portrayed, both having been beloved movie stars who died tragically, harkening back to Warhol’s early Death and Disaster series and his fascination with the potential for fame to meet a heartbreaking end. Van Heusen is an intriguing collision of the past and present as it features Ronald Reagan, the actor as the ambassador for a man’s shirt company, yet at the t.mes of the portfolio’s publication, he was president of the United States. Another draw for the consumer is the portrayal of strength or dominance and what could signify success more blatantly than the emblems of corporate titans such as Mobil or Paramount? Each image, or each AD, appropriates a product (Life Savers), a corporate logo (Macintosh) or a famous face (Judy Garland); opulence (Chanel) mixes with utility (Volkswagen) and reminiscence (Rebel Without a Cause). To recognize these advertisements as a means of capturing the consumer’s attention at the same t.mes they are being mythologized, elevated from banal commercial to high art, is the ultimate irony on which Warhol, a brand now himself, built an entire career.
"When we are hungry for soup, don't we seek out the culturally sanctioned brand name (Campbell's) and then select the flavor according to our taste? When we want a sweet, don't we reach for the trademark Life Savers and then select the taste we prefer by its color? And when a guy wants a girl, doesn't he seek out a version of Marilyn who suits his own emotional taste and décor? If this is so, how is our taste in high art any different? Is the process really that much more refined?" [3]
1 Donna De Salvo, “God is in the Details: The Prints of Andy Warhol,” Andy Warhol Prints: A Catalogue Raisonné 1962-1987, New York, 2003, p. 19
2 Arthur C. Danto, “Warhol and the Politics of Prints,” Andy Warhol Prints: A Catalogue Raisonné 1962-1987, New York, 2003, p. 13
3 Dave Hickey, "Introduction: Andy and the Dreams that Stuff is Made of," Andy Warhol "Giant" Size, New York, 2006, p. 12