You know how, a few years ago, you started seeing well-off middle aged women with their highlighted shag Quatro-cuts, and their accessorizing (pre-fab distressed jeans, scarfs, boots, etc.) and you're sure they think that they're pulling it off? (There's a male version of the poseur-rocker too, usually with a Harley or something suitably "dangerous.") Imagine that same brand of clueless-ness, in the mid-sixties when they find out that that crazy Campbell soup artist is staging a happening, with droning music, a weird light show and dancers with whips.
At the time, Andy Warhol's Exploding Plastic Inevitable probably seemed like the hippest, "let's be daring" thing going. Today, it's interesting in an anthropological sense, but not nearly as threatening. Granted, there had to have been some genuine freaks at the shows, you know that with Warhol's name attached to it, there were more than a few rich wives and their "not-so-sure-about-this" husbands. This is all just speculation (because, to be honest, I'm too lazy to research), but I'm willing to bet that Warhol's crew of crazy kids (Velvet Underground , et al) genuinely thought this was some sort of mind expanding freakout statement. And Warhol may well have been laughing all the way to the bank. Even if he didn't make much on the actual shows, it paid dividends in what it did for his brand/image, and that's gotta add to the value of traded art.
Whatever, we still look to it as a reference point. And it's thirteen minutes of some noisy-ass shit.
At the time, Andy Warhol's Exploding Plastic Inevitable probably seemed like the hippest, "let's be daring" thing going. Today, it's interesting in an anthropological sense, but not nearly as threatening. Granted, there had to have been some genuine freaks at the shows, you know that with Warhol's name attached to it, there were more than a few rich wives and their "not-so-sure-about-this" husbands. This is all just speculation (because, to be honest, I'm too lazy to research), but I'm willing to bet that Warhol's crew of crazy kids (Velvet Underground , et al) genuinely thought this was some sort of mind expanding freakout statement. And Warhol may well have been laughing all the way to the bank. Even if he didn't make much on the actual shows, it paid dividends in what it did for his brand/image, and that's gotta add to the value of traded art.
Whatever, we still look to it as a reference point. And it's thirteen minutes of some noisy-ass shit.
Andy Warhol's Exploding Plastic Inevitable with The Velvet Underground at UbuWeb (1966) VIDEO
Two more clips! at Plaztikmag (1967) VIDEO
1 comment:
Last summer, the college town I lived in, in North Colorado, did a Warhol show, and everybody made a fuss.
Meanwhile, the smaller working class town next door, with a great arts community, put on a Wayne Theibaud show. I went 3 times. Finally understand what the fuss about pop art is. Thiebaud is great, and his work is hung right under Warhols at the museum of art there in San Diego.
Also, he's still alive teaching on the West coast. He didn't draw attention to himself like Warhola, but he was far and away a more poignant artist. If only he had tried to be hipper ....
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