| LVC Prof Presents Andy Warhol Lecture |
06.14.12 |
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LVC associate professor of art history Dr. Grant Taylor recently presented a lecture at the Reading Public Museum in conjunction with its exhibition “The Prints of Andy Warhol,” which ends Sunday. Taylor examined Warhol’s famous 1963 quote about wanting to “become a machine” in his presentation, “Culture Mechanized: Warhol and the Art of Production.”
Taylor, an art historian who specializes in the history of early digital arts, argued that the machine metaphor provided Warhol the modus operandi for both his art of production and for dealing with life. “Beyond the mechanical processes of screen-printing that revolutionized the art world,” he said, “I assert that the artist emulated a machine to gain a certain distance, a detachment that protected him from the difficulties he felt with human interaction.”
More than 60 pop prints and four paintings are the focus of the exhibit. Iconic works by one of the leading figures in 20th-century art include Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Jackie Kennedy, Mao Tse-Tung, Mick Jagger, Ronald Reagan, and Judy Garland, along with the artist's famous Soup Cans and Camouflage prints. The exhibition provides an outstanding overview of Warhol's career as a printmaker. The photographic silk screens date from the early 1960s to the late 1980s and come to The Museum from The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh.
Warhol rose to prominence in the late fifties and early sixties as part of the Pop Art movement which drew its subjects — comics, advertisements, headlines, Hollywood stars, and politicians — from popular culture. Warhol had worked as a commercial artist in New York for more than a decade before his paintings of Soup Cans brought him to national prominence in the art world in 1962. From that time until his death in 1987, the artist continually selected subjects that wielded a powerful impact on his audience.
Taylor’s forthcoming essay, “The Soulless Usurper,” published in Mainframe Experimentalism, charts the uneasy relationship between 1960’s computer arts and the mainstream art world. Beyond his art historical research, he has completed various art projects, including a documentary film and installations in the United States and Australia. Taylor teaches a global survey in art and architecture as well as specialty courses in modern and contemporary art and was awarded the Thomas Rhys Vickroy Award for Outstanding Teaching at LVC in 2010.
For additional information about the Art & Art History Department, visit www.lvc.edu/art.
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