Thursday, November 16, 2006

Andy Warhol Ruined Art

Today, at auction, Andy Warhol's iconic picture of Chairman Mao sold for a record $17.5 million dollars.

(No need to provide the picture here.)

This iconic picture of many iconic pictures looks the same as any other Andy Warhol silkscreen, which is to say that it looks like it could have been completed by a 13 year old middle school student during art class.

A few facts about this picture (not I didn't say PAINTING).

  • This picture was probably never MADE by Mr. Warhol himself. By that point in time, after his ill-fated assassination attempt, Mr. Warhol hired a staff of people who made silk screens by the process, under his name.
  • The only thing authentically Warhol about this is the fact that he probably paid the money to have it created
  • By the late 1970s, Andy Warhol was too busy throwing lavish dinner parties and commenting on the TV talk show circuit to bother with art.

And yet, this picture sold for $17.5 million dollars at auction.

If this progresses further, I expect for an authentic finger-painting mass produced by a major corporation to draw at least 1 million dollars at auction. Nevermind that they are all made out of ticky-tacky and they turn out all the same.

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