Do The Warhol—Part 1: The Business of Vision

by Scott Graves
Your correspondent, as absorbed by the Warhol Museum, 117 Sandusky Street, Pittsburgh, PA.

Your correspondent, as absorbed by the Warhol Museum, 117 Sandusky Street, Pittsburgh, PA.

A dance craze— like “freaking”— it is not, but rather, a point of view.

Back in January of this year, Andrew Breitbart announced “Big Hollywood’s modest objective: to change the entertainment industry”.  The announcement is as important as it is radical, assessing the power of Pop Culture in shaping global attitudes and standing athwart contemporary assaults on Western values, yelling, as did William Buckley in 1955, Stop.

Ask yourself: Is a vision of the world that is contrary in almost every way to the prevailing cultural paradigms a difficult “sell”?  Given this is always so, how is such a challenge overcome?

“Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art. Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.”  —Andy Warhol.

This from a man whose art, at a time when the prevailing artistic paradigm was the dynamic force of abstract expressionism, cut against the grain entirely with stark, cold, objective representations—with silk-screened wooden boxes virtually indistinguishable from their cardboard counterparts containing Brillo pads, and with paintings of common household items— Campbell’s soup cans, most famously. It is not impossible to shift the paradigm, to change the perspective, to assert new viewpoints in art and capture the minds of the audience for them.

The business of producing “art”— representations of reality in every possible medium— generates billions of dollars and has an enormous impact on culture. In point of fact, those representations reinforce sensibilities in their audiences and participants that not only contribute strongly to the creation of culture, but also to the attitudes that are informed by culture.

What’s the problem with so many contemporary attitudes? They are, among other things, non-judgmental, amoral, narcissistic, belligerent, pathologically emotional and unreasonable, anarchic, obsessed by a sense of entitlement, absurd, destructive, willfully ignorant, nihilistic, devoid of self-knowledge and an understanding of human nature, externally motivated, and as controlling and manipulative as an adherence to leftist ideology, whether conscious or unconscious, can produce.

These leap to mind and reveal nothing more than the tip of the iceberg, saying nothing of the attendant symptoms of such folly in over-excitement, anxiety, ennui, sexual dysfunction, chemical dependency and so forth. The litany can go on and on and on… but to go so far as to question the ‘appropriateness” of such attitudes is, as often as not, viewed as intolerable.  Such benign expressions as affectations of dress or teenage dancing simply must not be “suppressed” or linked to the entertainment industry, since kids have always done it, and they’re just having fun.

Somehow (golly gee-whiz, I wonder how?) these attitudes and viewpoints have come to define convoluted and contradictory ideas— twisted ideas— of freedom and the pursuit of happiness more in line with fear and loathing than with joi de vivre. Are these viable foundations for a life worth living? We can’t ask Lord Byron. We can’t ask Kurt Cobain. Nor can we ask Michael Jackson.

Claims that “it’s only rock and roll” or just a movie, TV program, a video game, etc., are bogus. These popular diversions can and do consume our time and attention, often demanding the total focus of consciousness it takes to be an Indy driver or a member of a Bomb Squad.  Ephemeral, disposable, they may be, but those things that produce such riveting effects cannot be dismissed as mere entertainments, i.e. of little consequence.

Ideas have consequences. Art has consequences. Both worlds create connections in the mind to abstract visions that, again, inform cultures and subcultures collectively and individually. “Everybody here is wearing a uniform, and don’t kid yourselves”, as Frank Zappa, a wise guy, put it. Black tie, rainbow bumper sticker, stacked heels, AC/DC or Che T-shirt, cowboy hat or rose tattoo—what are the connections?  They can be almost infinite in terms of thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, ideas, self-images, all broadcast by various media, and it might be reasonable to suggest that not all of them are in one’s best interests.

And if such choices regarding personal appearance reflect only the surface, what lies in the depth of the content of our character? What can be said of our thoughts and emotions? What of our words and actions? Do our deepest inner selves and our reputations among others reflect genuine integrity of character in the combinations and permutations of all these elements of personality?

But we’re smart. We’re highly intelligent. Yet we are like consumers of some exotic hallucinogen so jaded by long experience we say derisively, “That stuff has no effect on me” as we ramble somewhat aimlessly from one personal or cultural/political disaster to another.

“If conservatives don’t figure out popular culture soon, the movement will die a deserving death”, said Mr. Breitbart six months ago, and rightfully so. What, then, must conservatives, independents, libertarians, classical liberals, free-thinking artists, producers, and, yes, patrons of popular culture who are unswayed by leftist “progressive” dogma figure out?

Andy Warhol assumed a role of detached observer, a recorder, a mirror; an objective overview of Warhol’s work, one not distracted by glitter and trash, brings certain elements of popular culture into clear focus. First among equals is Economics, and it’s no more complicated than the artist’s quote above. Make the money, work hard for it, be smart with it. Good business means making the hard work pay off with financial growth and independence. Diversify. There’s no yawning abyss between art and music, film and literature, magazines and photography, sculpture and performance art, news and gossip and entertainment. They are all mediums through which an artistic vision may be realized. Media is meant to be used, to be manipulated.  Objectively, is most effectively manipulated by the controlled application of CASH.


YouTube : When you got it, flaunt it.

Invest.  Invest in Ideas.  Artists, (you know who you are, if no one else does) knowing with certainty that there will be no grants from National Endowment for the Arts, get a job, be self-supporting, and invest in yourselves.  There is no such thing as “selling out”; selling out is the whole point. Tongue planted firmly in capitalist cheek, of course, with the hope that conservatives and others will get a handle on pop culture, and soon.


YouTube : Warhol Sells Out?

And Fat Cats take note: George Soros has moved so much money in the promotion of the Left in politics and media he could easy change the name of his Open Society Institute to “Global Social Engineering R Us”.  Those who wish to see their values portrayed in artistically viable ways, in a manner conducive to accessibility and commercial success, need to ratchet up their efforts to compete with this monster— or at least put up a viable Resistance.  Put your money where your mouths are, and into the hands of artists and producers who may be “under the radar” but who know (knowing hunger and even the concept of thrift) what to do with the financial resources, and will do it wisely with the intentions of realizing their creative ideas and reaping a profit, thus keeping your patronage.  You might even avoid seeing the wealth you’ve worked so hard for over the years go up the noses of your trust fund beneficiaries.  (Don’t worry about their dance floor behavior, though.  It can’t possibly be an indicator.)

Another important Warholian element for consideration is the idea that there are differences between the culture of the fine arts and the popular culture. Simply put, it does not matter. Warhol effectively erased a great many such distinctions, and if there are to be any, history will be the judge. The intellectual and moral crises challenged by those who rebel against the cultural dominance of the left today are of such existential moment it is foolish to labor over such points.

The real work of redefining the future is what is of profound importance.

NEXT: Do The Warhol— Part 2 of 4: The Cult(ure) of Personality


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Posted Jul 23rd 2009 at 6:56 am in Art, Classic Hollywood, Politics | 49 Comments