WEBVTT - How Andy Warhol Worked 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:11.319 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey, 0:00:11.360 --> 0:00:14.080 and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's 0:00:14.160 --> 0:00:17.000 Charles W. Chuck, Bryan Jerry's here and this is Stuff 0:00:17.000 --> 0:00:17.599 you should Know. 0:00:19.160 --> 0:00:24.639 And look, there's Andy Warhol. Yeah, Anitie Sedgwick and lou Reid. 0:00:25.079 --> 0:00:29.000 Yeah, and Jackie Curtis and Valerie Solanas, the whole gangs here. 0:00:29.880 --> 0:00:32.200 We did one on that right in the Scum Manifesto. 0:00:32.520 --> 0:00:35.600 Yes, we did, okay. Chapter eighteen of our book is 0:00:35.640 --> 0:00:39.400 on the Scum Manifesto in Valerie Solanas shooting Andy Warhol. 0:00:39.479 --> 0:00:41.239 We did not do it as a podcast yet no, 0:00:41.600 --> 0:00:43.000 Oh well, probably never will. 0:00:43.240 --> 0:00:47.800 Oh okay, But I think, Chuck, before we get into this, 0:00:47.880 --> 0:00:50.800 we should dispend something because I think it's very instructive 0:00:50.840 --> 0:00:55.520 about Andy Warhol. He is. Probably the most famous quote 0:00:55.520 --> 0:00:58.080 from him is that ever in the future, everyone will 0:00:58.120 --> 0:01:02.600 be famous for fifteen minutes. And he didn't say that, 0:01:03.320 --> 0:01:05.440 even in an interview in nineteen eighty he said he 0:01:05.480 --> 0:01:07.880 didn't say it. He used it in I think a 0:01:08.000 --> 0:01:12.560 nineteen eighty or sixty eight exhibition like the Notes, but 0:01:12.840 --> 0:01:15.600 it wasn't his. There is at least four other people 0:01:15.640 --> 0:01:17.720 who can make a claim to having said it first, 0:01:18.440 --> 0:01:20.800 and that that says a lot about any Warhol that 0:01:20.880 --> 0:01:25.080 he was not shy or embarrassed or even secretive about 0:01:25.200 --> 0:01:28.600 taking other people's ideas, even asking for other people for 0:01:28.720 --> 0:01:32.120 ideas to use in his own work. And then it 0:01:32.200 --> 0:01:37.000 also shows that the idea that he said that, and 0:01:37.040 --> 0:01:40.720 that that's so associated with him and his whole you know, ethos, 0:01:41.760 --> 0:01:45.200 it also demonstrates that he himself was one of his 0:01:45.319 --> 0:01:49.240 own works of art, his own brand, his own image, 0:01:49.280 --> 0:01:52.480 his own everything about him was he was one of 0:01:52.480 --> 0:01:54.400 his own works of art. And those two things are 0:01:54.400 --> 0:01:56.600 all captured in just that one little quote. 0:01:56.960 --> 0:01:59.640 Yeah, that's a good way to put it. A little 0:01:59.640 --> 0:02:02.560 bit about his childhood before we get to the good stuff. 0:02:03.400 --> 0:02:07.480 He was born, actually, Andrew WARHOLA he would drop the 0:02:07.480 --> 0:02:10.240 a years later. He was born. And it's interesting you 0:02:10.280 --> 0:02:14.560 think of Warhol as a contemporary artist, which he is 0:02:14.600 --> 0:02:17.040 in some ways, but he was born in nineteen twenty eight. 0:02:18.440 --> 0:02:20.959 It's not like, you know, he was a bit older 0:02:21.040 --> 0:02:24.840 when he was at Studio fifty four in the nineteen seventies, 0:02:24.880 --> 0:02:27.520 older as in my age. 0:02:26.919 --> 0:02:29.000 Even stranger than that, chuck. He was born in. 0:02:28.960 --> 0:02:34.400 Pittsburgh, yeah, well not stranger if you're from Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh 0:02:34.480 --> 0:02:37.600 is very proud of their Warhol connection, especially to Carnegie 0:02:37.639 --> 0:02:42.320 Mellon University, where he went. His parents were European immigrants 0:02:42.800 --> 0:02:44.920 and his mother was an artist. He was the youngest 0:02:44.960 --> 0:02:47.840 of three boys, and his parents were very encouraging of 0:02:47.880 --> 0:02:50.239 his art. They got him a camera when he was 0:02:50.280 --> 0:02:53.120 a little kid. They sent him to art classes and 0:02:53.200 --> 0:02:55.400 eventually would pay for him to go. It was a 0:02:55.520 --> 0:02:58.840 Carnegie Institute of Technology at the time, but Carnegie Mellon 0:02:58.960 --> 0:03:01.200 now which is a great art school, which is kind 0:03:01.240 --> 0:03:02.360 of period. 0:03:02.240 --> 0:03:04.960 Right, Yeah, it really is. I read that the whole 0:03:04.960 --> 0:03:07.920 family just kind of, I don't want to say coddle, 0:03:08.000 --> 0:03:10.040 but he was a bit of the center of attention. 0:03:10.200 --> 0:03:12.200 He was the center of the family, being the baby 0:03:12.480 --> 0:03:15.760 of three boys. And when he was a kid, he 0:03:16.280 --> 0:03:21.040 came down with Sydenham Korea or Korea which is also 0:03:21.080 --> 0:03:23.639 known as Saint Vitas dance, which is a really mean 0:03:23.720 --> 0:03:28.720 name for a neurological disorder where you have involuntary movements, 0:03:29.720 --> 0:03:32.000 and he was in bed for a number of months, 0:03:32.520 --> 0:03:35.119 and he again just happened to have a mom who 0:03:35.160 --> 0:03:38.280 was into art, who took that time to teach him 0:03:38.280 --> 0:03:41.240 to draw, and then he also spent some of that 0:03:41.320 --> 0:03:44.520 time reading celebrity magazine. So those two things that he 0:03:44.600 --> 0:03:48.160 got into when he was sick in bed really kind 0:03:48.160 --> 0:03:50.560 of came together to form the foundation of his whole career. 0:03:51.360 --> 0:03:53.800 Yeah, and like you said, he was the youngest. He 0:03:53.920 --> 0:03:58.920 was also ill. He had a skin discoloration issue. He 0:03:59.000 --> 0:04:01.280 didn't like his nose. He thought his nose was bulbous 0:04:01.320 --> 0:04:06.240 and misshapen. He was bullied at school. He was always 0:04:06.320 --> 0:04:08.680 very just always felt bad. It's sort of about the 0:04:08.720 --> 0:04:10.720 way he looked. And then later in life when he 0:04:10.720 --> 0:04:14.240 would wear wigs and have plastic surgery and wear makeup 0:04:14.280 --> 0:04:16.520 and stuff like that, people would say that sort of 0:04:16.680 --> 0:04:18.680 you know, was andy. From the time he was young. 0:04:19.839 --> 0:04:21.920 His father would die when he was just fourteen years 0:04:21.920 --> 0:04:25.800 old of johndice liver. It was very hard on young Andrew. 0:04:26.400 --> 0:04:28.479 He could not go to the funeral. I don't know 0:04:28.480 --> 0:04:29.760 if that's from emotion. 0:04:31.040 --> 0:04:33.039 Yeah, yeah, he was completely overwhelmed. 0:04:33.120 --> 0:04:35.160 Yeah, okay, Yeah, so he was hiding under his bed 0:04:35.240 --> 0:04:37.680 during the wake. And eventually he would move to New 0:04:37.760 --> 0:04:41.000 York City in nineteen forty nine, where he would drop 0:04:41.040 --> 0:04:45.640 that a and become a very successful commercial illustrator kind 0:04:45.640 --> 0:04:46.400 of pretty quickly. 0:04:46.600 --> 0:04:48.320 Yeah, he knew how to hustle too. I read that 0:04:48.360 --> 0:04:51.240 he would go to record stores and look at album 0:04:51.320 --> 0:04:53.520 art and then pick out the labels that had the 0:04:53.560 --> 0:04:56.520 coolest art, and then go to those labels and try 0:04:56.560 --> 0:04:58.520 to get work from him. Man, it worked a lot, 0:04:58.560 --> 0:05:00.360 and I think it's one of those things where once 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:02.320 you make a name for yourself with a couple of companies, 0:05:02.360 --> 0:05:04.960 it gets easier and easier to get work. So he 0:05:05.000 --> 0:05:07.479 made a pretty good name for himself. He made a 0:05:07.480 --> 0:05:11.360 pretty good living as a commercial artist for at least 0:05:11.360 --> 0:05:15.000 the first decade or so of his career. And he 0:05:15.080 --> 0:05:18.520 had this style that I don't know was unique to him, 0:05:18.520 --> 0:05:21.320 but you know, he basically adopted it himself, where he 0:05:21.360 --> 0:05:25.200 would draw something, usually kind of out of proportion, some 0:05:25.279 --> 0:05:28.440 parts were more detailed than others. It very very early 0:05:28.520 --> 0:05:32.520 sixties drawing, like almost pink Panther type illustration, and then 0:05:32.560 --> 0:05:35.600 he would blot the ink before it was dry, so 0:05:35.680 --> 0:05:37.960 some parts would be thicker, some lines would be thicker 0:05:38.000 --> 0:05:41.000 than other parts that were not even disconnected and almost 0:05:41.000 --> 0:05:43.760 appeared dotted, and then he would go over and color 0:05:43.839 --> 0:05:47.000 them in outside of the lines, like almost blot them 0:05:47.400 --> 0:05:51.200 with paint. And he became really well known for that, 0:05:51.440 --> 0:05:54.480 and it was really good to apply to women's shoes 0:05:54.520 --> 0:05:56.200 and that was one of his favorite things to draw 0:05:56.240 --> 0:05:57.080 commercial art for. 0:05:57.760 --> 0:06:00.440 Yeah, he also started and this would come come in 0:06:00.600 --> 0:06:02.680 very handy, as we will see when he sort of 0:06:02.720 --> 0:06:05.880 had his assembly line art thing going at the factory, 0:06:06.960 --> 0:06:09.640 he would he'd made stamps of things. He made rubber stamps, 0:06:10.120 --> 0:06:12.600 and this is how he would do printmaking. So if 0:06:12.640 --> 0:06:14.200 he had a client and was like, I love this, 0:06:14.320 --> 0:06:16.719 but I don't like the color, he could go do 0:06:16.800 --> 0:06:19.200 it again without starting all over, just by changing the 0:06:19.240 --> 0:06:22.080 color out on the stamp. Or if he was doing 0:06:22.120 --> 0:06:24.960 like screen printing or printmaking or something like that, He's 0:06:25.120 --> 0:06:29.000 very easy to change things up. Then, like you said, 0:06:28.680 --> 0:06:32.800 he won awards, he made some pretty good money. He 0:06:32.880 --> 0:06:36.120 was out as a gay man in the nineteen fifties. 0:06:36.480 --> 0:06:38.800 I've even both I've seen that he was and that 0:06:38.880 --> 0:06:39.400 he wasn't. 0:06:40.080 --> 0:06:42.360 Oh really, I've always seen that he was. But either way, 0:06:42.440 --> 0:06:46.400 it was the art role of the nineteen fifties. Even 0:06:46.440 --> 0:06:49.719 in that scene, it wasn't the most normal thing to 0:06:50.160 --> 0:06:51.320 be out and proud. 0:06:51.360 --> 0:06:56.000 Right for sure, No definitely. So one of the things 0:06:56.000 --> 0:06:59.320 that made Andy Warhol Andy Warhol is he never really 0:06:59.360 --> 0:07:04.719 saw the high art that he created gallery art versus 0:07:04.720 --> 0:07:09.280 commercial art as something more elevated than the commercial art 0:07:09.279 --> 0:07:11.280 work he did. It was just different or maybe he 0:07:11.280 --> 0:07:13.720 could make more money for it. There were other people involved, 0:07:14.000 --> 0:07:18.400 but he viewed the gallery owners, the curators and people 0:07:18.400 --> 0:07:22.000 who would eventually commission him or you know, buy his work, 0:07:22.160 --> 0:07:24.640 he would let them help shape it. Like he wasn't 0:07:24.680 --> 0:07:27.080 like one of those you know the picture of the 0:07:27.200 --> 0:07:31.280 artists who like can't take the first note about their work. 0:07:31.400 --> 0:07:33.760 He would get like, yeah, exactly, like you were his 0:07:33.960 --> 0:07:36.600 client when you were buying art from him. And that's 0:07:36.640 --> 0:07:40.280 how he viewed it. And that was definitely new and 0:07:40.400 --> 0:07:43.040 he carried that throughout his career and it had a 0:07:43.080 --> 0:07:45.040 lot of benefits for him. And then toward the end 0:07:45.080 --> 0:07:47.480 it really kind of detracted from his images. 0:07:47.520 --> 0:07:51.480 We'll see, yeah, for sure. Early on, and this is 0:07:51.520 --> 0:07:54.000 in the fifties, you got to remember he was selling 0:07:54.880 --> 0:07:58.280 some self published art books. He had one called Studies 0:07:58.320 --> 0:08:01.040 for a Boy Book that was in a gallery called 0:08:01.040 --> 0:08:04.040 the Bodily Gallery, and it was his first solo exhibition. 0:08:04.600 --> 0:08:07.119 They were sketches of young men. He was not shy 0:08:07.200 --> 0:08:13.040 about projecting sexuality in any of his works, and like 0:08:13.080 --> 0:08:15.000 we said, this is nineteen fifties. Even in the art world, 0:08:15.000 --> 0:08:18.200 some people accepted that stuff. Other galleries were like, no, 0:08:18.560 --> 0:08:21.080 we can't have like gay themed art in our gallery, 0:08:21.840 --> 0:08:24.280 even in like a New York art gallery. So he 0:08:24.320 --> 0:08:26.760 was kind of pushing the envelope early on with that stuff. 0:08:27.640 --> 0:08:29.520 He worked with his mom. His mom lived with him, 0:08:29.560 --> 0:08:30.840 she moved to New York and lived with him for 0:08:30.920 --> 0:08:33.400 about twenty years, Yeah, until she left in I think 0:08:33.480 --> 0:08:37.240 nineteen seventy one's where she went home to die, right. 0:08:37.360 --> 0:08:41.320 Yeah, essentially. And another just like with his father, he 0:08:41.360 --> 0:08:43.840 ignored letters from his cousin telling him like his mom 0:08:43.960 --> 0:08:47.360 was dying and apparently she was holding out for him 0:08:47.360 --> 0:08:49.559 to visit, and he never did. And I don't think 0:08:49.559 --> 0:08:52.480 he went to her funeral either. And he said later 0:08:52.559 --> 0:08:55.439 that in a quote that he couldn't bear think of it. 0:08:55.840 --> 0:08:58.559 He likened her to a bird that had died recently, 0:08:59.000 --> 0:09:00.880 and that he couldn't been there to think of the 0:09:00.880 --> 0:09:02.560 bird dying. That he just liked to think that it 0:09:02.600 --> 0:09:05.040 was out for a walk. Yeah, So that kind of 0:09:05.040 --> 0:09:07.480 thing just totally overwhelmed. He was very close to his mother. 0:09:07.520 --> 0:09:09.000 I mean, think about it. He lived with his mother 0:09:09.080 --> 0:09:11.760 for twenty years. Yeah, during like the height of his 0:09:12.400 --> 0:09:16.040 career and fame, and supposedly also they were both deeply 0:09:16.080 --> 0:09:21.080 religious Byzantine Catholics, and he would carry a rosary around 0:09:21.120 --> 0:09:23.719 in his pocket with him. But there's a lot of 0:09:23.800 --> 0:09:27.040 legends and stories about Andy Warhol. There's also another story 0:09:27.080 --> 0:09:29.520 that he would carry loose diamonds around his pocket because 0:09:29.520 --> 0:09:32.320 he liked to just kind of, you know, jiggle him 0:09:32.320 --> 0:09:35.080 around like they were loose change. So who knows. It's 0:09:35.080 --> 0:09:38.719 not entirely documented, but there's there's a whole thread of 0:09:40.120 --> 0:09:42.040 there's a whole camp that it's like, No, he was 0:09:42.080 --> 0:09:43.760 super religious, he just kind of hit it. 0:09:45.040 --> 0:09:46.760 Yeah, he was a bit of a conundrum in a 0:09:46.760 --> 0:09:49.040 lot of ways. The more I read about him, it 0:09:49.120 --> 0:09:52.480 was interesting because he could be quite kind and giving. 0:09:52.520 --> 0:09:55.120 He could also be very cruel, even to friends of his. 0:09:55.200 --> 0:09:58.600 As we'll see, he was a lot of things. He 0:09:58.679 --> 0:10:02.280 was a well known liar, So even things that you 0:10:02.360 --> 0:10:05.640 read that Andy Warhol said oftentimes was not the truth. 0:10:05.760 --> 0:10:08.640 And the way I took it was he wasn't like, 0:10:09.040 --> 0:10:12.520 oh he's a liar. He's a bad guy because he lies, 0:10:12.840 --> 0:10:15.280 or it seemed like you just like messing with people 0:10:15.320 --> 0:10:16.600 and he would just make stuff up. 0:10:16.960 --> 0:10:19.600 Yeah, some people. It's funny because you know, from the 0:10:19.640 --> 0:10:22.280 outside you think of Andy Warhol as almost like an 0:10:22.360 --> 0:10:26.040 art god, but inside the art world, like there were 0:10:26.040 --> 0:10:27.719 a lot of people who are just annoyed with him, 0:10:27.960 --> 0:10:30.200 or I just thought he was lame or a creep. 0:10:31.120 --> 0:10:34.840 I saw him compared to basically an energy vampire. Yeah, 0:10:34.840 --> 0:10:36.480 but then like you said, other people are like no, 0:10:36.559 --> 0:10:39.199 he was very kindly and very giving of himself and 0:10:39.800 --> 0:10:42.680 of his money and help people get like a start 0:10:42.800 --> 0:10:44.839 for in their art career that they were looking for, 0:10:44.960 --> 0:10:48.160 like you, Yeah, like you said, he he was a 0:10:48.200 --> 0:10:50.280 contradiction in terms in a lot of ways. 0:10:50.480 --> 0:10:53.400 Yeah, big time. So he obviously is most famous for 0:10:53.800 --> 0:10:56.920 being a pop artist. Pop art started in London in 0:10:56.960 --> 0:10:59.760 the early fifties and Warhol was one of the first 0:10:59.760 --> 0:11:03.280 few artists to kind of get involved in this art 0:11:03.320 --> 0:11:07.600 movement that emerged from Dada and also just had a 0:11:07.640 --> 0:11:10.640 lot of it was just sort of in the early 0:11:11.200 --> 0:11:12.840 it was in the zeitgeist of the art scene at 0:11:12.840 --> 0:11:17.240 the time of this idea of mass produced objects being 0:11:17.240 --> 0:11:20.320 a theme. There was also, at the same time, though, 0:11:20.360 --> 0:11:23.439 a very different world of people like Jackson Pollock and 0:11:23.520 --> 0:11:27.200 abstract expressionism happening, people who are very serious about their 0:11:27.320 --> 0:11:32.080 art and who I imagine did not appreciate this kid, 0:11:32.360 --> 0:11:33.839 while he wasn't a kid by that point. But this 0:11:33.880 --> 0:11:37.080 guy named Andy Warhol, this very eccentric guy, that's you know. 0:11:37.120 --> 0:11:39.680 One of the very first things he did were those 0:11:39.960 --> 0:11:42.640 celebrity screen prints, those silk screens, right. 0:11:42.720 --> 0:11:47.679 Yeah, one of the abstract expressionist kings, Williem d'cooning, told 0:11:48.160 --> 0:11:50.040 Andy Warhol to his face that he was a killer 0:11:50.080 --> 0:11:52.559 of beauty, a killer of art. He said, you even 0:11:52.640 --> 0:11:53.600 kill laughter. 0:11:54.480 --> 0:11:57.760 You know, dacooning. He killed La Laughter two himself. 0:11:57.800 --> 0:11:59.559 He was pretty drunk at the time, but yeah, I'm 0:11:59.559 --> 0:12:03.920 sure any Warhol didn't like to hear that. Right, So, 0:12:03.920 --> 0:12:07.840 so he is associated with pop art, and it definitely 0:12:08.160 --> 0:12:13.040 did dominate abstract expressionism, and it kind of said like, hey, 0:12:13.080 --> 0:12:14.880 you don't have to just you don't have to take 0:12:15.000 --> 0:12:17.800 art quite so seriously. And not only that, are you 0:12:17.840 --> 0:12:21.640 guys paying attention over here to how commercial and consumerist 0:12:21.720 --> 0:12:25.199 America is becoming. Let's start meditating on that a little 0:12:25.200 --> 0:12:28.240 bit and like you said, one of the first ones 0:12:28.280 --> 0:12:32.280 that really kind of gained attention were his silk screens 0:12:32.280 --> 0:12:36.240 of celebrities like Marilyn Monroe. And I think one of 0:12:36.280 --> 0:12:39.640 the first ones he did was Marilynd's portrait on a 0:12:39.720 --> 0:12:42.560 gold background, and it was meant to basically kind of 0:12:42.600 --> 0:12:46.880 look like a Renaissance icon of the Madonna. Just the 0:12:46.920 --> 0:12:49.600 gold suggested it, I guess something like that. And what 0:12:49.640 --> 0:12:54.400 he was essentially saying, he was equating celebrity as replacing religion. Now, 0:12:54.800 --> 0:12:56.560 so it was kind of like comments like that that 0:12:56.679 --> 0:12:59.400 was the basis of early top art. 0:13:01.440 --> 0:13:04.760 Should we take a break? Yeah, I don't think this 0:13:04.800 --> 0:13:07.800 has any great cliffhangers, No, really, it doesn't. I was 0:13:07.800 --> 0:13:09.200 trying to find one, all right, So we'll take a 0:13:09.200 --> 0:13:11.080 break now and we'll come back with the sort of 0:13:11.080 --> 0:13:13.720 the beginning of Andy Warhol's pop art career right after this. 0:13:36.400 --> 0:13:39.440 All right, So we mentioned before the break. In nineteen 0:13:39.480 --> 0:13:42.120 sixty one, I think one of his first pop artworks 0:13:42.200 --> 0:13:44.400 was called black and White. It was black and white. 0:13:44.400 --> 0:13:49.440 It was called Coca Cola two, and it's a drawing 0:13:49.520 --> 0:13:52.640 of one of those great coke bottles. And this would 0:13:52.679 --> 0:13:55.760 become a thing for him, like brands, especially food and beverages, 0:13:55.760 --> 0:13:58.600 which is very interesting, I think. But he did those 0:13:58.600 --> 0:14:00.800 silk screens right away. In the very next year, in 0:14:00.840 --> 0:14:04.680 nineteen sixty two is when those Campbell soup cans came out. 0:14:05.040 --> 0:14:07.040 A couple of the things he's most well known for 0:14:07.600 --> 0:14:10.480 were those celebrity silk screens and the Campbell soup cans. 0:14:10.800 --> 0:14:14.960 Thirty two portraits, And I love that Livia used those quotes, 0:14:15.360 --> 0:14:19.360 used portraits and quotes because what he did was he 0:14:19.440 --> 0:14:21.520 would project. Is what I did when I was a kid. 0:14:21.600 --> 0:14:24.000 I had a little overhead projector, and I would project 0:14:24.000 --> 0:14:26.240 an image of Opus the penguin, or build a cat 0:14:26.320 --> 0:14:28.840 on a wall, and I would trace it. And I 0:14:28.840 --> 0:14:32.400 would act like I could draw right when I couldn't. 0:14:32.440 --> 0:14:34.200 I was just tracing something. And that's what he did 0:14:34.200 --> 0:14:36.880 with those soup cans. He traced them from being projected 0:14:36.880 --> 0:14:37.360 on a wall. 0:14:37.560 --> 0:14:40.760 Yeah, so they were the first thirty two portraits were 0:14:41.440 --> 0:14:45.880 hand drawn. His first Campbell soup one portraits were and 0:14:46.680 --> 0:14:49.880 he actually didn't have the idea himself. He paid fifty 0:14:49.880 --> 0:14:53.680 dollars to a designer named Muriel Latau at a party. 0:14:53.880 --> 0:14:56.680 He paid by check for the idea. She said she 0:14:56.720 --> 0:14:59.880 had a good idea and that was it, and he 0:15:00.120 --> 0:15:03.320 turned it into his whole career. And then there's one 0:15:03.360 --> 0:15:05.640 other development too while he was doing the Campbell soup 0:15:05.680 --> 0:15:09.800 cans that really kind of altered his career that instead 0:15:09.800 --> 0:15:14.160 of projecting onto a canvas and then hand drawing something 0:15:14.240 --> 0:15:17.280 and then going back and painting it, he figured out 0:15:17.320 --> 0:15:19.960 that you could take you could project an image onto 0:15:20.000 --> 0:15:22.640 a silk screen that had amulsion on it that would 0:15:22.640 --> 0:15:26.360 burn that image onto that silk screen, and all of 0:15:26.400 --> 0:15:28.400 a sudden, you had a stencil and you could put 0:15:28.440 --> 0:15:30.720 whatever color you wanted through it and make the same 0:15:30.720 --> 0:15:32.920 thing over and over and over again. And so his 0:15:33.040 --> 0:15:36.040 next series of soup cans were just Campbell's tomato soup, 0:15:36.440 --> 0:15:39.160 but in all sorts of different colors. And that kicked 0:15:39.200 --> 0:15:45.040 off the Maryland, the Elvis, the Jackie I think A 0:15:45.120 --> 0:15:49.560 hundred Ways or something like that like that that changed 0:15:49.600 --> 0:15:52.440 his career because not only did it it causes sensation 0:15:52.680 --> 0:15:54.800 like nobody had made art like that before, and it 0:15:54.840 --> 0:15:59.120 looked really cool, but also it allowed him to form 0:15:59.160 --> 0:16:02.240 the assembly line that he eventually became famous for. 0:16:03.080 --> 0:16:05.360 Yeah, I mean a lot of his art later on 0:16:05.600 --> 0:16:08.400 was done by these people that worked for him in 0:16:08.440 --> 0:16:11.000 the factory, and it was you know, if you've ever 0:16:11.040 --> 0:16:14.200 been to like a T shirt silkscreen place and there's 0:16:14.240 --> 0:16:16.520 people just like silkscreen t shirts, one after the other. 0:16:17.000 --> 0:16:20.200 Andy Warhol was doing that kind of thing and becoming 0:16:20.280 --> 0:16:23.560 very famous for it. It's very interesting how it all happened. 0:16:24.080 --> 0:16:27.160 But there was a gallery in nineteen sixty two, the 0:16:27.200 --> 0:16:31.640 Fairest Gallery in Los Angeles, where he had his first 0:16:31.680 --> 0:16:35.360 solo pop art exhibition of these soup cans. The gallery 0:16:35.360 --> 0:16:38.840 co owner was named Irving Bloom, and he displayed them 0:16:38.880 --> 0:16:41.680 like they were shelves on or they were cans on 0:16:41.720 --> 0:16:45.520 a shelf, like at a supermarket. Very clever. Dennis Hopper 0:16:45.600 --> 0:16:48.720 very famously bought one of those first ones. But apparently 0:16:49.720 --> 0:16:52.040 Warhol didn't even go. A lot of people didn't go. 0:16:52.360 --> 0:16:56.280 Wasn't super big at first? A lot of people too, right, Yeah, 0:16:56.320 --> 0:16:58.960 a lot of writers were making fun of it in 0:16:59.040 --> 0:17:02.200 the press. One quote was like, Frankly, the cream of 0:17:02.200 --> 0:17:05.080 asparagus does nothing for me, but the terrifying intensity of 0:17:05.080 --> 0:17:08.479 the chicken noodle gives me a real zen feeling. So 0:17:08.520 --> 0:17:13.800 he was being mocked until you know, he became Andy 0:17:13.840 --> 0:17:15.960 warhowt and I'm sure he was mocked for a lot 0:17:15.960 --> 0:17:18.720 of his career by some of the same critics that 0:17:18.760 --> 0:17:20.760 had their nose turned up at stuff like this, for sure, 0:17:20.960 --> 0:17:22.720 But it was the beginning of this movement in the 0:17:22.800 --> 0:17:24.920 United States, and no one had ever seen anything. 0:17:24.640 --> 0:17:28.680 Like it, No, because nobody had done anything like it. Like, 0:17:28.680 --> 0:17:31.680 like you said, commercialism kind of slipped in here there, 0:17:31.720 --> 0:17:34.560 but this was nothing but commercialism and a comment on 0:17:34.680 --> 0:17:37.960 commercialism and our relationship to brands and all that kind 0:17:38.040 --> 0:17:42.880 of stuff, and that was definitely new. And from that 0:17:42.920 --> 0:17:47.399 the pop art esthetic like took off. You can basically 0:17:47.720 --> 0:17:49.679 plant that at the feet of Andy Warhol in his 0:17:49.760 --> 0:17:52.880 first Campbell's Soup camp portraits, and then very quickly after 0:17:52.920 --> 0:17:56.560 that later on the Tomato soup portraits with silk screening. 0:17:56.960 --> 0:18:01.080 And today I think, I think what had up and wash? 0:18:01.520 --> 0:18:04.439 Did you say, Blum? Irving Blum? I said, bloom, but 0:18:04.920 --> 0:18:08.920 bloom he he, It may be bloom either way. He 0:18:09.000 --> 0:18:12.879 decided that those those portraits should not be sold off individually. 0:18:12.880 --> 0:18:14.840 They didn't really make sense on their own. They made 0:18:14.840 --> 0:18:18.040 sense as a group because it was allegedly all thirty 0:18:18.040 --> 0:18:22.639 two flavors of Campbell's soup, and that you know, just 0:18:22.720 --> 0:18:26.080 having Scotch broth by itself is kind of cool, but 0:18:26.160 --> 0:18:29.480 not really, you need the whole thing. So he bought back, 0:18:29.640 --> 0:18:32.960 including Dennis Hoppers. He bought back all of those first 0:18:32.960 --> 0:18:35.720 thirty two portraits, and he paid Andy Warhol a thousand 0:18:35.800 --> 0:18:38.640 dollars about ten thousand. 0:18:38.240 --> 0:18:40.679 Dollars one today. 0:18:41.119 --> 0:18:46.280 Yeah, one hand drawn or hand painted soup can is 0:18:46.320 --> 0:18:50.160 called a small torn soup can pepper pot. In two 0:18:50.160 --> 0:18:52.440 thousand and six, that one sold for eleven point eight 0:18:52.520 --> 0:18:55.919 million dollars. So Irving Blum got these things for a 0:18:56.000 --> 0:18:58.840 song because it hadn't taken off yet, but it did 0:18:59.119 --> 0:19:00.320 very quickly after. 0:19:00.400 --> 0:19:04.840 Well that that small tour in campbell soup can that 0:19:04.920 --> 0:19:08.639 wasn't even one of the big paintings. That was paper 0:19:08.720 --> 0:19:10.800 dresses we talked about. Paper dresses were a thing at 0:19:10.800 --> 0:19:14.840 the time, literally dresses made out of these paper pieces, 0:19:15.359 --> 0:19:18.720 and he was making these paper dresses with images silk 0:19:18.760 --> 0:19:22.199 screened on them, and Campbell's soup even started doing that 0:19:22.280 --> 0:19:25.479 later on. But just one of the pictures from one 0:19:25.520 --> 0:19:28.000 of the dresses sold for almost twelve million bucks. 0:19:28.720 --> 0:19:33.600 Oh wow, that's great, that's pretty cool. Yeah, I also 0:19:33.640 --> 0:19:38.159 saw too. I don't understand art unless somebody explains it 0:19:38.200 --> 0:19:38.439 to me. 0:19:38.720 --> 0:19:39.200 Same here. 0:19:39.280 --> 0:19:42.600 But I saw that the especially the silk screen tomato 0:19:42.680 --> 0:19:45.000 soup cans that is the same soup can, but in 0:19:45.080 --> 0:19:48.600 a bunch of different colors. That what he's doing is 0:19:48.680 --> 0:19:51.280 by taking this thing that you take as a given 0:19:51.320 --> 0:19:53.639 that's so familiar, it's a Campbell soup can. I recognize 0:19:53.640 --> 0:19:56.600 that everybody knows what that is, and by putting by 0:19:56.600 --> 0:19:59.240 playing with the colors and making different color combinations, he 0:19:59.359 --> 0:20:03.240 was actually like basically melting the brand. The whole idea 0:20:03.240 --> 0:20:05.280 of the brand, the whole identity of the brain was 0:20:05.320 --> 0:20:09.680 just kind of being stripped away from the viewer's brain 0:20:10.200 --> 0:20:13.160 and turned into something else without the viewer even really 0:20:13.200 --> 0:20:17.119 realizing it, because the colors are so pretty that you 0:20:17.320 --> 0:20:19.320 just kind of lost track that you're looking at a 0:20:19.320 --> 0:20:22.000 soup can, even though you start out knowing that you're 0:20:22.000 --> 0:20:23.080 looking at a soup can. 0:20:23.359 --> 0:20:23.560 Oh. 0:20:23.600 --> 0:20:25.720 Interesting, Yeah, I thought that was pretty interesting too. 0:20:26.200 --> 0:20:28.960 Yeah, as far as pop art goes, you know, you 0:20:29.040 --> 0:20:32.960 mentioned a comment on consumerism. You know, it sort of 0:20:32.960 --> 0:20:34.919 depends on who you ask on what it means. That 0:20:35.000 --> 0:20:39.719 can be a comment on consumerism. It could be just 0:20:39.840 --> 0:20:43.960 you know, everyday things are like celebrating something that's every 0:20:44.000 --> 0:20:48.040 day in ordinary Andy Warhol himself said pop art is 0:20:48.080 --> 0:20:51.359 just about liking things, and that he ate Campbell's soup 0:20:51.480 --> 0:20:54.000 every day for lunch for twenty years. I don't know 0:20:54.000 --> 0:20:55.680 if that's true. That sounds like one of his little 0:20:55.720 --> 0:20:58.240 stories that he might tell. But for him it was 0:20:58.320 --> 0:20:59.959 very simple. I don't think he tried to get too 0:21:01.720 --> 0:21:05.360 overly analytical about it. He was just like, it's pop art, 0:21:05.359 --> 0:21:07.040 and that's the whole point is you shouldn't examine it 0:21:07.040 --> 0:21:07.560 too closely. 0:21:07.760 --> 0:21:10.520 Well. One of the other things, though, is that he 0:21:11.920 --> 0:21:15.560 was very ambitious. He liked money, he liked fame, He 0:21:15.640 --> 0:21:18.159 wanted to be known as the greatest artist in the world. 0:21:18.680 --> 0:21:21.560