ANDY WARHOL. THE ART OF BEING FAMOUS

Palazzo Sant’Elia – Palermo

19 October 2017 – 7 January 2018

Pop art is a way of loving things. Andy Warhol

Art must be consumed, like any commercial work. And it must be repeated, endlessly, changing the contours but not the themes, turning the colors on and off. For one of the most important exponents of Pop Art like  Andy Warhol , every icon must be chewed, swallowed, copied and rejected, in such a way as to empty it of all meaning. So here are The  Flowers , Mao, Marilyn Monroe, Mick Jagger, Liza Minnelli, Princess Diana: subjects. Stop. But with such a strong and authentic impact that they become examples of communication.

The exhibition ” Andy Warhol – The Art of Being Famous”  which opens to the public from 19 October 2017 includes about 180 different subjects, including unique works, multiples and art objects, from the  Rosini Gutman Collection , which embrace a large part of the entire artistic and iconographic career of the artist, from 1957 to 1987, the year of his death; an anthological collection of the best known “icons”: from the  Gold Book , created by Warhol on the occasion of one of his first successful solo exhibitions at the Bodley Gallery in New York, in the early 1950s; to the “recipes” of Suzie Farkfurt,  Wild Raspberries, a book made “by hand” with the help of his mother Giulia Warhola, mimicking the French cookbooks that were so fashionable at the time; some of the most famous subjects of the sixties, seventies and eighties, from the myth of Marilyn Monroe to the charm of Liz Taylor, from the historic bottles of Coca Cola to the legendary cans of Campbell’s soup; and again,  Flowers , Mao, Mick Jagger, Liza Minnelli, Joseph Beuys and  Ladies and Gentlemen.  From the  Rosini Gutman Andy Warhol Collection  there are also some unpublished works such as the  Space Fruits, the realization of which Warhol himself describes in his diaries, ten years after the attack suffered – on June 3, 1968, the feminist and frequenter of the “Factory”, Valerie Solanas, shot Warhol and his then partner, Mario Amaya who survived, despite the serious injuries sustained. From that moment the artist appeared less and less in public – and a series of  Dollars Bills  of various sizes ; Fish, Candy Box, Drag Queen, Kiku ,  Dress  and  Campbell Box , plus many  record covers , Interview   issues (the magazine founded by Warhol in New York), and other objects that became works of art after passing through his hands. The seriality, the precision of the screen printing technique, the very concept of copying and reuse, are unique and fundamental components for understanding the path of a different, innovative, avant-garde artist for years in which Pop Art was still in a nutshell, which thereafter it will also spread to Europe.

Also on display at Palazzo Sant’Elia are the images of some of Andy Warhol’s personal documents: from the passport to one of his first report cards, the hospitalization sheet after the attack, some work tools and various precious books, such as the ” Index Book ”, signed by Warhol himself. In a room that is part of the exhibition itinerary, documentary films and art videos on the artist and the Factory will be screened. A bookshop has also been set up, which in turn becomes an art space.

The staging of “ Andy Warhol. The Art of Being Famous”  has been perfecting itself with each new stage; over the past ten years, the exhibition has visited Montecarlo, Lugano, Andorra, Barcelona, ​​Spoleto, Trieste, Cordoba, Palma de Mallorca, Pescara, Taipei and Kaohsiung in the Republic of Taiwan, San Marino, Ascoli Piceno, Aosta, Bologna, Dusseldorf.

The intent of the Rosini Gutman Foundation is to make Andy Warhol known from a different perspective compared to other large collections, focusing attention on works that represent the most intimate (by affinity), and closest (by aesthetics) part to the its European roots, both intellectually and artistically. A step forward towards the historical and conceptual framework of Pop Art in Europe and in Italy, where it firmly adheres to the thrusts that had already been anticipated by Futurism