shadows
This weekend I saw Andy Warhol’s Shadows at Dia Beacon.
Shadows is “a single painting in multiple parts,” and is designed to be installed to fill the available space. Dia’s space, as you can see, is large. Dia’s website explains:
In 1979 Andy Warhol presented Shadows at the New York gallery of Dia Art Foundation co-founder Heiner Friedrich. The installation featured the environmentally scaled painting in multiple parts, which the artist created between 1978 and 1979. As “one painting,” Shadows consists of 102 equally sized canvases hung edge to edge and low to the ground (but not too low to be kicked, as Warhol noted in his review of his 1979 show for New York magazine). While fixed by these physical terms, Shadows is nonetheless contingent in its presentation. Since the number of panels shown and the order of their arrangement varies according to the size of the exhibition space, the work in total contracts, expands, and recalibrates each time that it is installed.
First reaction to this paragraph: “wow, kudos on that art speak phrase contingent in its presentation.” Second reaction: “wait, Warhol reviewed his own show?”
Yep, and here it is, archived at the Guggenheim Bilbao’s site:
On Tuesday I hung my painting(s) at the Heiner Friedrich gallery in Soho. Really it’s one painting with 83 parts. Each part is 52 inches by 76 inches and they are all sort of the same except for the colors. I called them “Shadows” because they are based on a photo of a shadow in my office. It’s a silk screen that I mop over with paint.
I started working on them a few years ago. But I get the most done on weekends because during the week people keep coming by to talk.
The painting(s) can’t be bought. The Lone Start Foundation is presenting them and they own them.
Someone asked me if I thought they were art and I say no. You see, the opening party had disco. I guess that makes them disco décor.
This show will be like all the others. The reviews will be bad—my reviews always are. But the reviews of the party will be terrific.
I had the painting(s) hung at eye level. Any lower and people would kick them, especially at the party. The only problem with hanging the show was the gallery floor. One end of the gallery floor is one foot higher that the other.
But the kids helped me, and when we finished we all had lunch. I ate a pickle and drank some Evian and then some Perrier Jouet.
Lone Star(t) foundation renamed itself Dia, btw. Also? The reviews of Shadows continue to be bad. Here’s Christopher Knight in the L.A. Times in 2014 when it was exhibited at MOCA:
Vapid and pretentious, the overblown installation ranks among the worst works Warhol made.
Whatever. I thought Warhol’s disco décor looked pretty great. Especially at Beacon. Afterwards I drank some Pellegrino and ate a strawberry fig bar.