Death & Stars

I finally got around to seeing the Warhol exhibit at the AGO yesterday, and while I was a little disappointed because many (easily more than half) of the pieces on display I had seen before in London, I thought as an overall exhibit it was well put together (good work Mr. Cronenberg) and worth seeing (though I did end up shelling out $60 for admission, parking, food and gas for the car which is just too much IMO). The focus on celebrity and death and our morbid fascination with both as a society was clear, and it was cool to get a chance to see clips of some of his short experimental films that I’d never seen before. If Andy had an idea, no matter how ridiculous or unorthodox, he went for it…warts and all. You’ve got to respect him for that…

If anything, the exhibit only reinforced my admiration for the man, and his warped, somewhat macabre sense of originality. I enjoyed the car crash pictures more than the Elizabeth Taylor or Elvis silk screens…but that’s just me. There was one picture of a woman who had jumped off the Empire State building and landed on the roof of a car…and it was striking. It was as if she was in some sort of pose…still clutching her pearl necklace. Very reminiscent of the types of girl-on-hood-of-car shots you might see in a Maxim, Playboy or Car Magazine…only, the beauty captured in this picture was dead. This one spoke the loudest of all the shots, while also speaking very softly…if that makes any sense? I spent a good 5-10 minutes looking at it.

I’d love to describe the show in more detail, but to tell the truth, I’m just not qualified enough to give an in depth run down of the show. I thought about taking notes, but after about 15 minutes, I lost interest and just wanted to look. There was a follow along narration by Mr. Cronenberg, but I didn’t listen to the whole thing because I wanted to just enjoy the stuff on display at my own pace. I’m glad I went, even though the theme was one I was already well aware of. It merely reinforced my belief that he was scraping the trough of the human condition and presenting whatever he found there that tickled his fancy. Our dirty little secret condition if you will…much of which we, as a society, are still wresting with and trying to come to grips with in a decidedly indirect way…our obsession with fame and death being the two most prominent of these guilty pleasures.

And J…I got a chance to visit THE Dali gallery in London (the one by the Millennium Wheel) and it was great. His stuff is really odd and surreal, but I really enjoyed it. I got a chance to see a lot of great art while I was living in England, its what I did on my Wednesdays off…train into London, followed by hours of wandering the streets, popping into galleries, museums and touristy places. I should get back into that…

“Andy was celebrity-obsessed. It was an honest thing that came from his time as a poor, gay outsider living in Pittsburgh and longing for the glamour and fame of Hollywood. [But] he could never be the centre of that universe so he created his own Hollywood. And I suppose, ironically and perfectly, he then found himself being courted by the real stars of Hollywood. To me that makes him an existential hero. Just by force of will and desire, he created himself. And along with the celebrity, he really understood that celebrity was in its own way a disaster. He was very astute about who he was and what that meant. Celebrity equals fame equals death. And the reverse was: a disaster and death could make you a celebrity. Andy was the first to understand that. If you died in a spectacular way, you got your 15 minutes of fame. You would get your pictures in all the papers and perhaps Andy Warhol would do a painting based on your spectacular death.” - Curator David Cronenberg