Just got back from London
Posted: March 30th, 2002, by Chris HThings I did included looking at the Warhol exhibition. Some amusing things about it:
* The sculpture of replica Brillo boxes was a replica of the sculpture of Brillo boxes.
* The film of the Empire State building (supposed to last all night) is the edited highlights.
* You aren’t allowed to take pictures of paintings made from photographs ripped out of magazines.
Still not sure what I think of Warhol. The pictures I like and you’ve got to respect how ubiquitous they’ve become (I can’t see Marilyn Monroe without thinking of the yellow hair and pink lips silk-screened on). The other stuff, the celebrity worship and glossy surfaces, I’m suspicious of. It feels like he is used to justify all sorts of annoying tedious crap, a fig leaf for artists that revel in their own pointlessness and vapidity. Once he did that he left no further for artists to go down that route and if the route wasn’t so commerce-friendly it would be seen as just a pretty little cul-de-sac.
Chris H
Chris was hit by a brick as a child and lost the popular culture part of his brain. This affliction means he is only able to listen to obscure japanese noise bands and watch films with overtly complex storylines. His other interests include skulking, editing documents, taunting policemen and entering undecipherable handwriting contests. He lives in an enormous underground laboratory where he spends many hours trying to un-invent television.