After a delay of a few decades, the Osservatore Romano finds Andy Warhol, pop art genius as an artist religious - throughout his life he prayed almost every day in his parish of St. Vincent Ferrer, on Lexington Avenue, where he was kneeling on all the days of mass-
Never give anything for granted. This is the first thought that comes to do after listening to the conference on "Andy Warhol, a religious artist?", Organized by St. Louis of France in Rome. To propose a rereading of the work and life of Andy Warhol was Alain Cueff, author of "Warhol à son image" (Flammarion, 2009) and editor of Le Grand Monde d'Andy Warhol at the Grand Palais in 2009, a meeting-discussion with Stefano Chiodi.
Alain Cueff claims that today we are used to design the art of the twentieth century as an art that has given up the sacred. The basic idea of \u200b\u200bthe vanguard was built against a tradition in which art and religion were often linked together. Perhaps it is time to revolutionize this vision too partisan. Andy Warhol was in fact not the only one affected by this change of perspective, because his work "could be better understood if they were accepted the contradictions that animate it."
WARHOL - RAFFAELLO, 1985
Pochi sanno che il padre della pop art non solo era un dandy antiborghese, provocatorio e ambizioso, ma anche un uomo profondamente religioso, dedito alla preghiera e alla beneficenza. Dalle considerazioni di Cueff e dalla ricerca "religiosa" di Warhol degli ultimi anni sono nate spontanee alcune domande: cosa sappiamo e che cosa, soprattutto, non sappiamo della vita di Warhol? Ripercorriamo la sua biografia.
Terzo di due fratelli, Andrew Warhola - questo è il vero cognome - nasce a Pittsburgh il 6 agosto 1928 da Ondrej, laborer in a coal mine, and Julia Zavacky. Both parents are from Miková, a Ruthenian village in eastern Slovakia, emigrated to Pennsylvania in search of fortune. Andy coincides with the birth of the great depression that has deeply marked the American economy, but the resourcefulness of his father secured the family a degree of prosperity.
So much so that I buy a house in the neighborhood of Oakland. Both are fervent Catholics Ondrej Julia Ruthenian Byzantine rite and Pittsburgh are diligently sought the Byzantine St. John Chrysostom, where the children are baptized. In this church, as in all Orthodox churches, is responsible for the iconostasis with a its sequence of icons at multiple levels. The vision of this iconostasis has great influence on Warhol.
EIGHT Elvises - OF ANDY WARHOL
The serial repetition at various levels is one of its distinguishing features. Years later, when set up exhibitions, always insisted that his works were placed on walls covered with wallpaper, to create a sort of imaginary iconostasis. The icons are also present in the rooms of the house Warhola. In a his first paintings, the living room Warhola (1946), we can see even a crucifix above the fireplace.
In 1936 Andy was taken ill with rheumatic fever, which earned him three attacks of chorea (St. Vitus dance).
"The attacks always began on the first day of vacation. I do not know what he meant, but I spent the summer lying on the bed." The long hospital stays and home stays away from the school, turning it into a hypochondriac. Spends his days in bed with his mother to draw, which makes him recite ancient prayers in Slovak. Andy Julia is wearing a necklace with a crucifix and always leaves her rosary and a small Byzantine missal by the bed.
This missal is decorated with a reproduction of Leonardo's Last Supper. It will not be a coincidence that many years later that same image will become the recurring theme of his latest works. The poor health deepened the bond between mother and son, who remained close until her death in 1972.
WARHOL-THE LAST SUPPER WITH ST THOMAS AND ST JAMES, 1986
diploma in commercial art in 1949 he moved to New York , where he published his first pictures, signing with the name that will make him famous: Andy Warhol. Began to devote himself to painting, making drawings for commercial television and advertising. He began to exhibit in 1952, at first without any feedback statement. In 1955 the prestigious shoe Miller commissioned a series of drawings that appear regularly in newspapers advertising.
In 1957 he won a special merit award for its advertising for the shoe Miller. In 1960 he devoted himself seriously to painting, creating images inspired by the advertising and comic books, and reproducing objects of mass culture, like bottles of Coca-Cola. His paintings are exhibited in the pop department store windows on the fifty-seventh street and this unusual way allows him to sell works directly to collectors.
Until then time Warhol had always worked on commission. Felt that the world of new media takes a few ideas, but good, to achieve success. He tried these ideas, even if it means having to buy. Having a lot of confidence in Muriel Latow, interior designer, asked for a suggestion for a fee. He had to find something to identify with an image. Something that people might have said: "Warhol who? What Campbell's soup?".
WARHOL. CAMPBELL SOUP
Strangely enough, Warhol was an admirer of Marcel Duchamp unconditional, which as we know, had decided to desecrate the concept of art. Warhol not only desecrated the art, but cynically managed to turn it into a slot machine. Was not enough to transform a flourish as a symbol of commercial production into a work of art, but with the help of screen printing that work repeated an infinite number of times. To obtain an economic immeasurable. His ideas are simple, effective, serial, repetitive, they created the image and easily recognizable.
image that earned him so much of that money was soon forced to hire a sales manager of his famous factory. Una sorta di studio gigantesco - uno dei primi loft a essere riconvertito - in cui entrava e usciva una folla di gente bizzarra, artisti di ogni tipo e razza, ma anche, purtroppo, sbandati e drogati. Fin dall'inizio della sua carriera Andy si ritrovò in mezzo a episodi estremi.
Un'artista di passaggio sparò alle sue tele, una femminista folle, Valerie Solanas - fondatrice della Society for Cutting up Men, ossia "Società per fare gli uomini a pezzi" - dopo qualche anno sparò direttamente a lui. Era il 1968. Entrato in crisi, durante la convalescenza Warhol ritrovò il gusto della pittura e della creazione. Ormai tutto il mondo - reali, capi di Stato, capitani d'industria - gli chiedeva ritratti e lui non deny them to anyone.
definitely welcomed in the elite of international culture and art, between the seventies and eighties his works were exhibited in major museums around the world, reaching staggering odds. On 17 February 1987, returning from Europe, was struck by a strong biliary colic, so that he was admitted to New York Hospital. Was operated on 21, but died the next morning in his sleep of a heart attack. Placed in a coffin of solid bronze with a prayer book and a red rose in hand, the funeral took place in the Byzantine church of the Holy Spirit in Pittsburgh, in the presence of family and few friends.
He was buried beside his parents in the cemetery of St. John the Baptist Byzantine, in Bethel Park. His mother had always advised to live "in order not to be poor and have enough money for a modest funeral." So in the cemetery, to remember the great artist, there is only a simple tombstone of gray stone. The following April 1 in St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan was celebrated a memorial Mass attended by thousands of people. During the celebration of his friend John Richardson delivered an emotional eulogy. For the first time it was made public the deep religiosity of Andy Warhol.
"The secret knowledge of his piety - Richardson said - there does inevitably change the perception of an artist who has fooled the world into believing that his only obsessions were money, fame, glamor, and so phlegmatic that he was to appear insensitive. Never take Andy to the letter. The observer was insensitive in fact an angel. For me at least is responsible for the conversion: my. "
was how it turned out that all his life Warhol had asked almost every day in his parish of St. Vincent Ferrer, Lexington Avenue. He had the habit of staying in back of the church, where he was kneeling at all times for this listing. occasion was announced even his work of charity to the homeless in New York, who often personally served meals in soup kitchens. He then learned of his deep disappointment in learning that his nephew Paul Warhola Jr. had left school at the seminary, where he had proudly maintained. But the revelations do not end here.
It seems that during a trip to Naples in the spring of 1980, hosted by the gallerist Lucio Amelio, Warhol had been pressing for meet John Paul II. We succeeded on April 2. A witness that meeting in St. Peter's Square, there remains a moving picture in which it seems that between the two clubs a kind of intense empathy. Warhol wrote in his diary that the Pope shook his hand in hers and it made him feel blessed. In light of the facts we know today about the intimate life of the artist, it is clear that Warhol was the victim of a split personality.
Perhaps because his primary identity, linked to celebrities, he was always so strong as to overshadow everything else, including the relationship with a religious sense of life and art. Apparently he had managed to create an impassive mask, capable of half the world believe that he was a indifferent self-centered, content with himself. Maybe the armor they needed not to be discovered, and his works "religious" were the messages that should have been understood only by those who had read saputi.
After all evil and must have recently investigated the journalists who interviewed him regularly, if no one has ever found that the star of the Pop Art and transgression lived in an apartment furnished with antiques, Persian rugs and paintings Pre-Raphaelite artists. Not to mention the fact that Renaissance was sleeping in a bed canopy, surrounded by sacred images. A large crucifix on the table and an ancient statue of the risen Christ a little further.
Né si è mai analizzato a fondo il passaggio che negli ultimi anni della sua vita subì la sua produzione, da rappresentativa della vita consumistica americana a una sorta di ossessivo omaggio al Rinascimento italiano. Come mai nessuno si era reso conto che Warhol aveva trasformato l'iconografia del proprio lavoro?
Gesù, Maria, gli Apostoli, l'Ultima cena di Leonardo, diventano improvvisamente la metafora di una sua inquietudine spirituale. Sembra che cerchi giustificazioni agli occhi di chi lo considera still a cynical careerist, through the support of Renaissance camouflage. The result is a series of works citationist crazy, little known to the general public, although all large. We just have a question. Which one was the most genuine Warhol?
Source: srs Sandro Barbagallo for the Osservatore Romano
Source : Dagospia
Link: http://www.dagospia.com/
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