Andy Warhol + Lady Gaga
 |
| Artpop album cover (2013), Lady Gaga (1986-) |
 |
| Last Supper (Dove) (1986, MoMA), Andy Warhol (1928-1987) |
Andy Warhol is considered by many to be the most influential artist in the last fifty years. He worked in great depth in many different media, pushing far beyond the preceding notion of modernist artistic authorship by linking product and creator conceptually. He became more than a person—he became a phenomenon. He capitalized on the media’s cult of personality as Art turned into Art Business, and successfully manipulated the mass media. Warhol was a corporate artist in a corporate world.
Lady Gaga is a pop singer-songwriter, known by her sucessful hits like "Just Dance", "Poker Face", "Bad Romance", "Born This Way", amongst others. In 2013 she released her fourth studio-album ARTPOP, which was inspired by Warhol's work. The main goal was to reverse his movement and put art in front of pop culture, especially in her visuals (ex: "Applause").
Warhol's piece The Last Supper (Dove), is one of the artist's later works, directly inspired by Leonardo Da Vinci's mural The Last Supper (1495-98). As many of Warhol's late works, this piece has strong religious motifs and symbolizes the Holy Trinity, represented by three distinctive elements: the General Electrics logo (the Father and energy); Jesus Christ (the Son and salvation); and the Dove logo (the Holly Spirit, cleanliness and purity). And all this for 59cents only, as the tag indicates.
This image is a form of visual poetry, since Warhol creates new meanings combining such contrasting iconographies in a single piece, and it also plays with the concept of reproduction. Indeed, Warhol used reproductions of Da Vinci's piece, taken from postcards and history and colouring books, which may lead us to question how many repetitions are necessary until the original loses it's meaning.
Finally, this piece sums up Warhol's pathway, by connecting advertising, art, and religion.
Lady Gaga is a confessed admirer of Warhol’s work and persona (don’t forget Candy Warhol, a Warholian alter-ego that Gaga invented and explored in the beggining of her career). Besides, she seems to follow Warhol’s motto — “making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art”, which is reflected in her lyrics ("Money Honey", "Beautiful", "Dirty", "Rich and Fame" are very good examples). Her 2013 album Artpop seems to be no exception.
In her album cover, designed by the famous visual artist Jeff Koons, she uses many strategies to persuade us of her authority as an artist, worthy of entering Art History’s Hall of Fame .
The cover consists of a collage of small pieces of two canonical images: Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne (1622-25), Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus (c. 1483), which converge at the center of the image, creating a focal point. In the center, Lady Gaga is giving birth to Koons’ Gazing Ball. The first images link Gaga to the great masters of the Renaissance (Botticelli) and of the Baroque (Bernini), casting an aura of antiquity and profane sacrality to the image. The Gazing Ball is an acient symbol of wealth and status, as it was first used to adorn the gardens of the royal and noble families, reflecting their vast estate. In the twentieth century, it’s use was popularized in the american middle-class household for the same effect. This ball in particular is used to reflect the consumer, which is the source of Gaga’s queendom of wealth. Lady Gaga is casting this aura on herself, strategically aligning her work with that of the grand narrative of Art.
Well-done! I especially like the way you have introduced the results of our discussion in class into your text.
ReplyDeleteVery good interpretation and analysis. Some theories and analyses say that history of art is history of stealing from one another. We can see that in many painting styles and eras, as well through music genres, literature and all other forms of art. What Andy Warhol did with his work was that he admitted that stealing to himself and everyone else who consumed his art. In a way, he said to himself that he is a thief like everybody else in the world of art and he made a new art movement, the one considering consumerism and the one that obviously included earlier art forms and famous paintings, as well as celebrities and products. And just as Lady Gaga was influenced by earlier genres of music, she also made an album cover that represents various artworks from the past. And when Lady Gaga does it, it makes things more interesting. Art is built upon art. Art is built upon stealing other art so that someone in the future can steal your art and build something new and innovative upon it.
ReplyDeleteMislav Bartoš
Jay-Z's 'Magna Carta Holy Grail' album cover has his name and two statues named Alpheus and Arethusa by Battista di Domenico Lorenzi (Italian, ca. 1527/28–1594). It can be explained with John Berger's connection of publicity and oil paintings. In this case it's just different text. Basically they want to sell their albums and if you buy them you will have more cultural value, even cultural authority and superior status through owning them. It is in a way like you would own an oil painting. Those statues have cultural value and Jay'z or Lady Gaga (among others) by putting important historical art on their album covers raise their cultural, artistic value and it operates as a publicity, their music's culture enhancer and it shows that they are 'modern day's Picassos'.
ReplyDeleteBojan Toprek