Singing Warhol’s praises

The Campbell soup can became an iconic image because of him. So did silk screen prints of pop stars. Andy Warhol is synonymous with pop culture of the 20th century and was the centre of the New York City arts scene for more than 20 years until his sudden death in 1987. His own image of a thin-faced man with the signature grey straight hair has itself been reproduced a thousand times over and is ingrained into people’s minds. However, what many people might not know is how the artist left his mark on the music scene.
The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts’ latest exhibit Warhol Live, running from Sept. 25 to Jan. 18, provides a glimpse of how music and dance not only greatly influenced Warhol’s art, but how he influenced the work and image of some of the greatest musicians of our time.
Included in the exhibit are more than 640 works, including paintings, silk screens, photographs, films, videos and album covers created throughout his life. Each room takes you from the days of Studio 54 and Max’s Kansas City, to the Silver Factory, one of Warhol’s infamous studio spaces. Although his work was so varied, it was the music that bound them together and becomes a guide through the exhibit.
Upon entering Warhol’s world, it is clear how much music played a role in his creative process. It was always around him. Sometimes he even played more than one genre at a time, blending rock with classical, while simultaneously recording the sounds around him.
Warhol’s work can be seen on more than 50 album covers he illustrated: including the Rolling Stones’ zipped sleeve album Sticky Fingers depicting a zipper slightly pulled down on a man’s pair of well-fitting jeans, with a functional zipper half pulled down over some significant, tight and bulging black jeans, and the “peelable” banana cover he designed for Velvet Underground, a band he produced.
Warhol’s statement in his magazine Interview, “To tell you the truth, I don’t really like music – I like the people who make it,” encapsulated his artistic interest in popular culture and the creation and manufacturing of fame. His iconic lithograph portraits of musicians and movie stars sometimes overshadow the celebrities they portray. He took their images and transformed them into iconic art that for some is better known than why they were famous to begin with.
The exhibit is a journey through Warhol’s time and place using photographs, films and especially the music of his life and times – beginning with his birth on August 6, 1928 as Andrew Warhola in Pittsburgh and ending with a gallbladder surgery gone awry resulting with his death on Feb. 22, 1987.
Warhol reveled in the idea of fame from a young age. He had a fascination with Hollywood and its stars, from Shirley Temple and Judy Garland, through to his greatest muses, Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones whom he likened masterfully to the image of the Campbell soup can. Warhol’s rise from admirer to the admired is on display.
Warhol Live is a hands-on experience that takes you inside the artist’s mind and especially his world, providing a glimpse of what it would have been like to have lived it.