Do It Yourself (Warhol)
| Do It Yourself (Landscape) |
|---|
| Andy Warhol , 1962 |
| Acrylic and rub-off numbers on canvas |
| 177.2 x 137.5 cm |
|
Museum Ludwig , Cologne
Link to the picture |
| Do It Yourself (Seascape) |
|---|
| Andy Warhol , 1962 |
| Acrylic and rub-off numbers on canvas |
| 138 × 182.5 cm |
| Collection Erich Marx , Berlin
Link to the picture |
Do It Yourself (Do it yourself) is a five-part series of paintings of American Pop Art -Künstlers Andy Warhol from 1962. The different themes are the " paint-by-numbers " templates (in the US as Paint-by number known) modeled for self-coloring for hobby painters.
description
The works carried out by hand by Warhol are panel paintings in acrylic paint with “Prestype” rub-off numbers (similar to the product from Letraset ) on canvas . The subjects of the paintings vary, so there are the landscape formats Do It Yourself (violin) , measuring 137 × 182.9 cm, which shows a still life with a violin lying next to a bowl of fruit; the Do It Yourself (Sailboats) , 182.9 × 254 cm, a seascape , with two sailboats against a fulminant Wolkenhimmel; the Do It Yourself (Seascape) , 138 x 182.5 cm, shows a coastal scene with a boat house , gulls and two down on dock sailboats; as well as the portrait formats Do It Yourself (Flowers) with the dimensions 175 × 150 cm, which depicts a spring-like picture of flowers with daffodils , irises and tulips ; and Do It Yourself (Landscape) , 177.2 × 137.5 cm, which shows an autumn landscape through which a dirt road leads past a barn building with a typical US mailbox and a large tree to another building on the horizon.
All of the works in the series are deliberately incomplete by Warhol: Some areas have already been painted in color, while the unprocessed white areas are provided with black outlines and numbers that define the entire motif. The numbering of the white areas indicates the assignment of certain colors. The numbers consist of "Prestype" branded black letters in Times Roman font .
The paintings give the impression that the artist has stopped in the middle of painting or has only just started to paint in the numbered areas. In fact, the colored surfaces only served Warhol for a "decorative" purpose and their unnatural coloring in no way corresponds to any of the original designs. In order to reinforce the impression that the pictures were made mechanically, Warhol simply glued the numbers on instead of painting them by hand.
For the sketches of the acrylic paintings, Warhol used templates from hobby painting boxes that were already printed on paper. Warhol's estate also contained numerous hand-numbered pencil sketches for Do It Yourselfs .
Classification in Warhol's work
In the spring of 1962 Warhol finally broke away from the subject of comic strips, which his Pop Art colleague Roy Lichtenstein had been producing with great success since the previous year with works such as Mädchen mit Ball and turned to other everyday objects in a kind of hectic search for motifs . The encounter with Lichtenstein had triggered Warhol's decision to concentrate only on the choice and reproduction of the simplest possible topic. Throughout the year Warhol worked in three very different painting techniques, so he created hand-painted works, series pictures using stencils or stamp printing and screen prints , although the screen prints did not yet replace the hand-painted pictures.
Warhol made numerous pencil drawings of dollar bills , tin cans , ketchup bottles, as well as portraits of the film stars Joan Crawford , Hedy Lamarr and Ginger Rogers - all stars from Warhol's youth in the 1930s and 1940s. He also meticulously copied magazine advertisements in which the aforementioned film goddesses advertised cosmetics such as Maybelline mascara or perfume bottles . A few attempts to imitate press photos exactly belong in this phase of Warhol's search for a topic. Around this time, Warhol's black and white dance diagram pictures were also created .
As the year progressed, Warhol began to continually eliminate anything that looked hand-made in his work. First, the developed letter and trading stamp series that Warhol with simple rubber stamp anfertigte. The artist liked the idea of elevating printed paper with a specific market value to art in order to capitalize on it. "He genuinely longed for the ability to add greater commercial value to anything by simply touching it," said Warhol biographer David Bourdon .
The author Marco Livingstone remarked to Warhol's imagery: "The simple choice of subject had for Warhol all the advantages of ready-prepared meal. All decisions of the artist in arrangement, composition or color choice had already been set by the subject" The history of the often-cited Campbell -Suppendose falls into this Time. Allegedly, Warhol had adopted an idea from the art dealer Muriel Latow. The first silkscreen prints included the dollar pictures, Handle with Care - Glass - Thank You , Martinson Coffee and the Coca Cola pictures (all 1962).
Considerations
David Bourdon : "Only an artist as disrespectful and ironic as Warhol could come up with the idea of transforming these mass-produced kitsch pictures into 'originals' for a wealthy group of buyers - and collectors today count them among the funniest and smartest of his oeuvre."
The art historian Michael Lüthy: “ It is no coincidence that the Do-It-Yourself pictures from 1962 open up the tension between individual DIY and prefabrication, but without staging this tension as a conflict. Rather, these pictures seem to say that Warhol just likes to paint the way the template suggests. "
Collections
The Do It Yourself (Seascape) is on permanent loan from the Erich Marx collection in the Museum für Gegenwart in the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin. The Do It Yourself (Landscape) is part of the collection of the Museum Ludwig in Cologne. Do It Yourself (Flowers) and Do It Yourself (Sailboats) are in the Daros Collection in Zurich . The Do It Yourself (violin) is privately owned.
Exhibitions
Do It Yourself (Sailboats) was shown from June 8, 2007 to September 16, 2007 in the exhibition Seestücke as one of the key works of Pop Art on the subject in the Hamburger Kunsthalle . Warhol's Do It Yourself (Landscape) and Do It Yourself (Flowers) are part of the first online exhibition at the New York Museum of Modern Art , which has been shown since 2008 under the title Color Chart: Reinventing Color 1950 to Today .
literature
- Kynaston McShine, Robert Rosenblum, Benjamin HD Buchloh, Marco Livingstone: Andy Warhol retrospective . Prestel 1989, ISBN 3-7913-0918-8 .
- David Bourdon: Warhol . DuMont, Cologne 1989, ISBN 3-7701-2338-7 .
Web links
- Do it yourself positions from the sixties to the present day on artfacts.net
Individual evidence
- ↑ Kynaston McShine, Robert Rosenblum, Benjamin HD Buchloh, Marco Livingstone: Andy Warhol retrospective . Prestel 1989, ISBN 3-7913-0918-8 , pp. 168-173
- ^ A b c Marco Livingstone: Notes on Warhol's working techniques in: Andy Warhol Retrospective , pp. 63–65
- ^ David Bourdon: Warhol , p. 112
- ^ David Bourdon: Warhol , p. 108
- ^ David Bourdon: Warhol , p. 114
- ↑ Michael Lüthy: Warhol's retreat or From dealing with the pictures in the picture. In: Warhol. Polke. Judge. In the Power of Painting I. A selection from the Daros Collection, Zurich / Berlin / New York 2001, pp. 25–32. Retrieved January 27, 2009 .
- ↑ Seascapes. From Max Beckmann to Gerhard Richter. Hamburger Kunsthalle, archived from the original on June 18, 2008 ; Retrieved January 27, 2009 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Color Chart: Reinventing Color 1950 to Today. ( Adobe Flash ) Museum of Modern Art, accessed January 27, 2009 .
