Andy Warhol "Warhol's Andys"
Ronald Feldman Fine Arts
This event has ended.
From the beginning, Warhol offered a contradictory balance between up-close intimacy and calculated artifice. Robert Rosenblum, Andy Warhol’s Disguises
The Feldman Gallery will exhibit a large selection of Andy Warhol self-portraits from 1966 to 1982, including painting, photography, and unique prints, some never before exhibited. Self-portraits occupied a central position in Warhol’s entire body of work and were important in the creation of his public persona. Controlling his own image, Warhol played with the art of disguise and deception, seemingly telling us all, yet revealing nothing. There are many Andys but Warhol remains substantially unknowable.
The exhibition includes several variations of Warhol’s depiction of himself as The Shadow, the mysterious radio character from the 1930s through the 1950s, as part of the 1981 Myths series. Featured is a large composite painting that incorporates ten American myths with Warhol’s profile image placed along an entire edge. Also on view are unique trial proofs from the edition of The Shadow – some with diamond dust – and The Shadow with Glasses, characterized by energetic drawing. Based on the reworking of the repetitive image, the prints exhibit color combinations that range from sumptuous contrasts to monochromatic studies.
Two silkscreen self-portraits from the ‘60s represent the young Warhol, already a Pop icon and part of the culture he celebrated. Larger-than-life self-portraits from 1977, nine years after he was shot, combine different poses with silkscreen effects. A mock strangulation conflates a possibly spontaneous moment with the theme of sudden death. In a 1982 unique print, derived from a photograph to promote his modeling career, Warhol stares directly at the viewer as do many of his celebrity portrait subjects.
In the series, Altered Image, made in collaboration with the photographer Christopher Makos in 1981, Warhol role-plays in drag, inspired by Man Ray’s photograph of Duchamp as a female. Also on view are images showing Warhol practicing model poses and commissioned assignments: performances for the camera in which the projection of personality, or its erasure, illuminates the artifice of posing.
Media
Schedule
from November 05, 2010 to December 23, 2010
Opening Reception on 2010-11-05 from 18:00 to 20:00