Stock Warhol
by Adrian Hanft, (1 comments)
In an act of promotional prowess that would make the king of Pop Art proud, the Warhol Foundation has teamed up with the Stock Photo company, Corbis. The partnership’s goal is to make “it incredibly easy to obtain all necessary clearances for commercial use of Andy Warhol artwork and images, and even his famous quotations.”
Normally I would object to a corporation making a profit off a dead celebrity, but Warhol is a unique situation. His insight into popular culture, the concept of being a celebrity, his business sense, and his corporate commentary make it a perfect match. I wrote about Campbell’s Soup’s Warhol promotion last April, and thanks to continued corporate sponsorship, Andy lives on in modern pop culture. Would he have wanted it any other way? I doubt it.
So if you make it over to Corbis’ Warhol gallery, there are a couple of noteworthy elements to their site. First, they have many images that have rarely if ever been seen by the public. There is one section devoted entirely to Warhol’s self-portraits. It is fascinating to see how someone so concerned about image and so self-conscious of his appearance portray’s himself through his art. It is one of the few times we ever get a glimpse at the person behind the mechanical plastic exterior that he so explicitly devised. The second part of the site that I found interesting was the section devoted to Warhol’s photography. Here we see the closest thing to personal expression that exists in the Warhol catalog. The goal of his screen printing was to distance himself from the arrogance of personal expression that he saw in Abstract Expressionism. In his photos we see the world through his eyes instead of masked behind the impersonal marks of a squeegee and a silkscreen. I only wish there were more photos.
Comments (1)
Kyle said:
That’s interesting. Thanks, Adrian. I especially liked his quotations.
Posted on October 14, 2004