Page 23 - Studio International - February 1971

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4 But Warhol returned to the environmental quality of enigmatic yet sensual surface. Warhol's fascination York, Outerbridge & Dienstfrey, 1970).
a repeated image in the Cow wallpaper of 1966. At the for silver extended to his studio (the first Factory) 9 See Rainer Crone, Andy Warhol (New York,
basis of Warhol's approach there is an apparent wherein the furniture, floor and ceiling were Praeger, 197o), p 21.
diffidence as to what happens to his work, once it has extensively covered in either aluminium paint or foil. 10Donahue is a special case. Because he represents
been made. It is purely by chance or an accident of In 1966 Warhol made his Silver Clouds—floating the sensual male image, it may well be thought that
fate, rather than by any design on his part, that his 32 pillow-shaped objects of silver plastic filled with there is some equivalence between his image and
Campbell's Soup Cans images have survived as one unit. helium gas. When exhibited within gallery space, those of Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor. But
5 A silver ground is used in some later works : in the they responded with unpredictable movement to the the problem of Warhol's Donahue portrait is that the
several Tunafish Disasters, the self-portrait print and slightest draught or current of air. head he portrays represents nothing more than an
in at least one painting of the same subject matter, as 7 See Eldridge Cleaver, Soul on Ice (New York, image of masculine sexuality, whereas behind the
well as two electric chair images. McGraw-Hill, 1967) and Jerry Rubin, Do It ! (New faces portrayed in the Marilyn and Liz paintings is
6There invariably is a detectable painterly logic at the York, Simon and Schuster, 1970). our knowledge of their painful and difficult lives.
basis of every step Warhol makes : for instance, the 8 Very important to the history of Rock has been the The viewer cannot help being aware that Donahue is
delicately fragmented silkscreen inkdots delineating refusal of the younger audience to accept substitutes, only a commercial product, and for this reason his
the flesh of the faces in Six Marilyn (Marilyn or commercial popularizations, in place of the portrait fails. It has no life of its own.
Six-Pack), 1962, mingle with the white ground of the genuine article. Independent recording companies 11 Dennis Hopper, who directed and played a leading
canvas to produce a pronounced optical silver-grey. rapidly sprang into existence, very often owned and role in Easy Rider, is one of the few younger actors in
Thus though the subject matter iconographically run by young people, to supply the market. Thus Rock Hollywood (if not the only one) who is intimately
suggests the use of silver, it may well have been and Roll is an instance of a consumer audience actively involved with the contemporary American art world.
prompted in the first instance by the painterly process intervening to reject commercial kitsch. See two He knows Warhol well and has been a strong admirer
itself. Frank Stella's aluminium shaped canvases of excellent books for a detailed history of Rock and Roll : of his since 1963, when he visited the Factory.
196o predate Warhol's usage of silver by at least two Carl Belz, The Story of Rock (New York, Oxford 12Michael Chanin, 'Genre and Style in Recent
years. As with Stella, the use of this metallic colour University Press, 1969) and Charlie Gillett, The Movies', Art International, Vol. 13, No. to,
formally provides Warhol with a highly indeterminate, Sound of the City: The Rise of Rock and Roll (New Christmas 1969, pp 54-57.
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