Arts and Creativity Editor Emily Sheehy reviews Hugh Lane Gallery’s exhibition featuring the work of legendary artist Andy Warhol.
On October 6th 2023, Ireland’s largest ever Andy Warhol exhibition opened in the Hugh Lane Gallery. Curated by Barbara Dawson, Director of the Hugh Lane Gallery, and Michael Dempsey, Head of Exhibitions, ‘Andy Warhol Three Time Out’ has been five years in the making and showcases some of Warhol’s most iconic and recognisable works, including the prints of Campbell’s Soup Cans, Marilyn Monroe and Mao Zedong. The exhibition comprises over 250 works borrowed from museums and private collections and expertly captures the variety of media in which Warhol produced artwork. It expertly highlights how Warhol pioneered the pop art movement, commented on the influence of capitalism and consumerism on art and broke down distinctions between fine art and popular culture. It has been received with great acclaim from critics and casual art enthusiasts.
It expertly highlights how Warhol pioneered the pop art movement, commented on the influence of capitalism and consumerism on art and broke down distinctions between fine art and popular culture.
The first room features his interactive Silver Clouds sculpture, a dozen or so giant silver pillow-shaped balloons that you are encouraged to hit into the air. The message it signals is that art is meant to be experienced, not just observed from a distance. The next room over is filled with Wharol’s early artwork and drawings from the 1940s and 1950s, allowing visitors to witness his beginnings and evolution as an artist. It also gives us the privilege of seeing some of his earliest work that was not originally exhibited due to their explicit homoerotic nature.
The next rooms contain some of Warhol’s best known works, such as the silk prints of Marilyn Monroe, Campbell’s Soup Cans, Chairman Mao and the Brillo Boxes. Warhol has previously stated “buying is much more American than thinking and I’m as American as they come”. His work acknowledges the intrinsic link between Americansim and consumerism, and that artwork is not immune to the influence of capitalism. The subsequent room explores the growing impact of digital media, including the rise of television. Flash–November 22, 1963 is a portfolio of 11 screenprints concerning President John F. Kennedy’s assassination and how the media affects our understanding and response to current events. The message is as relevant as ever in the age of social media and how it shapes public understanding. It is accompanied by the piece Nine Jackies showing nine pictures of the former First Lady before and after the assassination of her husband. These voyeuristic photos are appropriated from a newspaper and represent how the fatality is unseen, yet seen in the face of Jackie Kennedy.
His work acknowledges the intrinsic link between Americansim and consumerism, and that artwork is not immune to the influence of capitalism.
One of the rooms was filled with screens showing his Screen Tests, a series of black and white film portraits created between 1964 and 1966. He asked his subjects to sit motionless for three minutes and stare into the camera, often not blinking. His subjects include other famous contemporaries including Bob Dylan, Salvador Dalí and Marcel Duchamp. Perhaps the most captivating screen test is of his muse Edie Sedgwick, who tries to suppress her smile throughout the process. His films Sleep (1963) and Empire (1964) are also projected in this exhibition, two films that are over five hours and eight hours long respectively. With these pieces, he edited out any movement and projected them in slow motion to create a dream-like and static sequence in a silvery monochrome.
The exhibition also uniquely focuses on collaborations between Warhol, Irish artist Francis Bacon and US artist and photographer Peter Beard. The exhibition merges with the Francis Bacon Gallery, where some of Bacon’s work is hung complementary alongside Warhol’s to highlight their collaborations. We are also shown the collages that Warhol created with Beard that are composed of a variety of newspaper and magazine clippings, scraps of notes and cigarette packages. Featured also are Warhol’s works in collaboration with other renowned artists such as Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquit. It highlights how Warhol’s works were not created in isolation, but in collaboration with other successful contemporaries of the time.
While a lot of Warhol’s art focuses on other people or objects, it would be incorrect to state that his work isn’t deeply personal at times. The exhibition also contains many self portraits that create a spectral appearance of the artist. His preoccupation with death and mortality is captured in his series Death and Disaster, which was only heightened in 1968 when he was shot and critically wounded by Valeria Solanas. This fear is expertly represented in his screenprint Gun, a modern day memento mori.
For anyone looking to gain an overview of Warhol’s work and understand his works in more depth, Three Times Out is a fantastic exhibition. It has been expertly curated to display the variety of his artistic practice and his continued relevance in the 21st century. Descriptions accompany each of the artworks and allow visitors to gain more of an insight into the artist and the specific era of his career that is being explored. Even if you are not an art enthusiast or Andy Warhol fan, it is an interesting and engaging exhibition that highlights the links between art, popular culture, media and capitalism. Running until 28th of January, it is certainly not to be missed.