Thesis: Warhol’s work expresses philosopher Jean Baudrillard’s notion of the extermination of the real by the image, a phenomenon that is an outstanding feature of our mass-media shaped culture
By Lidia DinalloAmerican Pop artist Andy Warhol once accurately described himself as a “deeply superficial person” (Brainy Quote). A virtual mirror of his time and ours, Warhol’s work constitutes the quintessential paradigm of an image-based reality that has become contemporary culture. As an artist, he wished to remain complimentary to his artwork, molding himself into a type of blank persona. However, he also led many to believe that his quirky personality was simply an act to further his business endeavors in the artworld. In turn, Warhol cultivated a trivial and ambiguous personality, one that he reinforced through many oft-quoted maxims (Faerna 4). From his early work in advertising to his exaltation of both commonplace items and celebrity figures, Warhol provides stark commentary on society’s postmodern detachment from reality due to the overwhelming presence of images. It is in what accompanies and follows this detachment, that French philosopher Jean Baudrillard took a primary interest. The publication of Simulacra and Simulation marked the philosopher’s first important step toward theorizing the postmodern. In this work, he argues that our “postmodern culture is a world of signs that have made a fundamental break from referring to reality” (Hawk). It is this “fundamental break” that Baudrillard has decided to explore in his Simulacra and Simulation. A central aspect to Baudrillard’s philosophy is the theory of simulacra. Due to its precession, the simulacrum is cleverly defined as the copy without an original. Our contemporary culture is made up entirely of signs and symbols that become even “bigger” than their referents. The simulacra is a simulation of the original which eventually proves dominant, becoming the only truth and its own entity. The essay topic will be to consider Warhol’s work in relation to the views of philosopher Jean Baudrillard. In consideration of the topic at hand, some of the main questions that arise are: In what specific ways are the artist’s work and the philosophy linked? When studying Warhol’s work, one may also question the relevancy of the source of the image to the final product and in turn examine the weight and nature of “beingness” of these works. Following this, the notions of reality and simulacra according to Baudrillard will have to be explored before the relation between the philosophical concept and the artist’s works can be made clear. The resulting thesis statement is that Andy Warhol’s work expresses Jean Baudrillard’s notion of the extermination of the real by the image, a phenomenon that is an outstanding feature of our mass-media shaped culture, to the extent that our reality has become a network of simulacra. In support of this statement, a strategy of analysis will be persued and it will include an explanation of how the media can be deemed a system of images and eventually, simulacra. Secondly, our commodity culture also demonstrates the death of the real by the image in that our market is primarily based upon buying into an image, or more precisely, simulacra. Finally, Warhol’s own method of production is key to understanding the artist’s goal to “release the image from deep meaning and to reveal it as the simulacral surface it really is” (Cornelius).
The two disciplines being used are art/art history and philosophy. The art of Andy Warhol depicts the dissolution of the real by the image-a phenomenon in postmodern culture. According to Baudrillard, the image is all society knows and therefore becomes reality. For modern society, reality is the simulacra. Warhol’s art-image is a commentary on modern American values and on the symbols of which it is based on. Just as most art reflects its time, Warhol’s work is a clever reflection of the postmodern era. The philosophical aspect of the essay will serve to explore the notions of reality, existence, and perspective according to Baudrillard and to determine some of these elements in Warhol’s works.
An explicit definition and analysis of the two disciplines is necessary in understanding its justifiable application to the topic of the essay. The word philosophy is from the Greek, “love of wisdom”. In his Dictionary of Philosophy, Peter A. Angeles defines philosophy as the “speculative attempt to present a systematic and complete view of reality” (Angeles 211). It can also be characterized as an attempt to describe and explain the way things are while trying to determine the limits, scope, and source of our knowledge (Angeles 211). Philosophy also involves the critical inquiry of past claims made by previous philosophers or the critical analysis of claims made by other fields of knowledge. The author cleverly defines philosophy as the one discipline which helps you to “see what you say and to say what you see” (Angeles 211). In other words, philosophy is a discipline that allows for the exploration and articulation of reality along with the evaluation and re-evaluation of the discernments made. According to the Oxford Companion to Philosophy, one of the best definitions found for the term is that “philosophy is thinking about thinking” (Honderich 666). It involves reflective thought upon particular types of thinking such as the formation of beliefs and claims to knowledge. Rational, critical thinking of a systematic kind is an essential characteristic of philosophy. This method of thinking is employed when making observations and then to formulate thought-out statements about the general nature of the world (Honderich 666). Philosophy allows individuals to expand on their general conception of the nature of the world and of their place in it (Honderich) 666. In order for individuals to guide their conduct rationally in life, they need a general conception of the world in which life is carried out, and of themselves as acting in it (Honderich 666). Throughout history, humans have creatively expressed their observations of the world surrounding them through art. Many may even argue that most art is reflective of the era and may present the state of the world at the time it was created.
In defining art one must consider its accordance with time. Nancy Frazier defines art history as “the effort to record, identify, understand, and explain art” (Frazier 34). In order to accomplish the following, art historians began by keeping biographies of the artists along with detailed descriptions of their works (Frazier 34). The eighteenth century held the belief that “art [was] the product of external forces” (Frazier 34). Later, during the nineteenth century the conception of art history was directed towards the idea that every age had it respective “geist or spirit” and that the art of any time period inevitably “reflects that mood, tone, and energy” (Frazier 34). Presenting a modern view of the discipline, American art historian and author, W. Eugene Kleinbauer, explained that “art history is molded by a philosophy of history- by an understanding of general divisions of history, the nature of historical periods, and the causes of historical change” (Frazier 35). Ultimately, the historical climate will affect the creative process.
The nature of Pop art is inextricably linked with its time period. In 1952 a group of young artists, writer and architects formed a discussion group in London which met at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (Flynn). Calling themselves the “Independent” group, they gathered together to discuss a wide variety of topics that they felt were influencing the creative person in a mass media society (Flynn). They discussed such issues as: communications, mass media, pop music, fashion, automobile styling, Hollywood films and science fiction (Flynn). Although Pop Art emerged in the mid 1950s in England, it realized its fullest potential in New York in the '60s where it shared, with Minimalism, the attentions of the art world (Pioch). In Pop Art, the “epic was replaced with the everyday and the mass-produced awarded the same significance as the unique” (Pioch). This meant that the gulf between “high art” and “low art” was eroding away and society stopped classifying art. The media and advertising were favorite subjects for Pop Art's often witty celebrations of consumer society (Pioch). Pop Art holds no contempt towards the materialistic society. On the contrary, much of this is often celebrated in the works of Pop artists.
In order to properly explain the origins of pop art, it is also necessary to discuss where the term “Pop” came from. The term Pop originated in England and reached print by 1957 when English art critic Laurence Alloway was the first to use the term in a 1958 issue of Architectural Digest (Whitely. Pop art and Popular art were both used at this time to refer to the products of the mass media. At that time, Alloway intended the phrase to reference Americanized mass-media popular culture, such as Hollywood movies and science fiction (Whitely). Society developed a tendency to consider mass-produced sign-systems as art, part of an expansionist aesthetics that also held a place for Hollywood (Alloway1). Alloway's working definition of Pop “refers ... to the use of popular-art sources by fine artists” (Alloway 1). Clearly, the work is related to its time, and concerning Pop art, the artist borrows the image directly from his culture
The critical approach applicable in this case is the mimetic one as it is “concerned with the relationship between the work and the world that the work is intended to reproduce” (Class Handout). Concerning his work, Warhol has definitely made copies of copies. It is removed from the source of the image yet so engaging. There is a sense of familiarity in these images because they remain commonplace in postmodern society. While Warhol puts the world of signs and symbols on display, the use of Baudrillard’s theories may aid in determining to what point they exist in reality.
“Andy Warhol has been called a mirror of his age” in the sense that his works reflect the image of an image-based reality (Faerna 4). Ironically enough, modern society looks at life through a mirror and never directly at life itself, and is therefore only presented with the image. Since Reality is processed by the media, the result is a constant torrent of images which detaches us from the real. What with television, computers, magazines, and newspapers, “the outside world has entered the home with a vengeance- in a profusion of media” (Gitlin 15). In addition to Todd Gitlin, the postmodern dissolution of reality has prompted commentary from a variety of widely known intellectuals. The most notable perhaps, due to his philosophical writings on postmodernism, is Jean Baudrillard.
Jean Baudrillard, French sociologist, cultural critic, and theorist of postmodernity, is a professor of Culture and Media Criticism at the European Graduate school in Saas-Fee Switzerland (European Graduate School). Known for his semiotic analysis of culture, Baudrillard came to focus on the concepts of hyperreality and simulation, noting the reproducibility of reality (European Graduate Schol). Stemming from these ideas, the theory of simulacra was born and formed an alternative route for exploring the postmodern. According to Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulation, we live in a world in which the map precedes the territory. The map, which is the sign or symbol of the territory, becomes our reality. Baudrillard then proceeds to ask a vital question: “What becomes of something when it reveals itself in icons and is multiplied in simulacra?” (Baudrillard 8) The answer is: the death of what it represents and the birth of the simulacra. Baudrillard’s simulacra theory is an attempt to characterize the state of society in relation to its notion of reality. Our postmodern culture is made up entirely of signs and symbols that become even “bigger” than their originals. Wheras the sign and symbol employ a referential function, the simulacra ceases to do so. The simulacrum is the simulation of the original, which eventually becomes the only truth, its own entity. The simulacrum is the result of the domination of the image over reality, to the point where the simulacra becomes reality itself. Baudrillard believes that the image goes through a set of phases (Baudrillard 6). Firstly, it is a reflection of a profound reality then it masks and denatures a profound reality. Following this, it masks the absence of a profound reality and by the end of this progression it bears no relation to any reality whatsoever. Finally it is its own pure simulacrum (Baudrillard 6).
Warhol’s work repeatedly evokes this philosophy in its superficiality, and often times, celebration of the image. Warhol seemingly weaves transfixing images appropriated from culture into mantras of captivating rhythms. His treatment is “Pop”, and the images themselves are themselves symbols taken from a wide array of socio-politico phenomena. In accordance with Baudrillard’s philosophy they begin as such but then end up as simulacra.
Warhol’s work presents the media as a system of images, a system of simulacra. A notable series of art work which perpetuated this idea was entitled Death and Disaster. It is widely known that Warhol was an artist who worked at the center of an immense entourage (Ratcliff 37). His Factory crowd was large yet he did not exercise his authority in any domineering way (Ratcliff 37). He was passive instead, a “void to which people would gravitate with their anxieties, ambitions, and occasionally, their useful ideas” (Ratcliff 37). One reliable source of good suggestions was Warhol’s friend Henry Geldzahler (Ratcliff 37) . Warhol says, “It was Henry who gave me the idea to start the Death and Disaster series. We were having lunch one day in the summer [of 1962]…and he laid the Daily News out on the table. The headline was 129 DIE IN JET. And that’s what started me on the death series- the car crashes, the disasters, the electric chairs” (Ratcliff 37). Warhol had done front pages before- A boy for Meg, with a picture of Princess Margaret, appeared in 1961. However, royal figures are, of course, stars, and victims of plane crashes are not (Ratcliff 37). They are anonymous. It is the event itself that “glows in our imaginations, with a ghastly brilliance” (Ratcliff 38). Still, Warhol’s 129 DIE IN JET, is empty of emotions. Concerning the image of the plane crash at the centre of the work, the blank expressions of the witnesses seems to indicate a feeling of helplessness and perhaps even indifference towards the constancy of these tragic events. The fact that the artist kept the original newspaper coloring seems to immortalize the event while the ridiculously bold font seems out of place as it emphasizes the “showcase” aspects of the news along with juxtaposing the sensational (the bold headline) with the serious (the image in the centre/the event itself). Using a projector to increase the image size of the article, Warhol then traced this powerful image onto a large canvas. Conceptually, this piece is striking in the way it was painted, “it blurs the images of the plane crashes, and also reality itself” (Students.Philau).
“Here we see another side of American life. The counterpoint to everyday frivolity” (Faerna 28), yet to some extent still frivolous in the manner in which we process them are the death related themes to which Warhol appeared to be strangely but intensely attracted (Faerna 28). His Death and Disaster series demonstrates how Warhol would obsessively document the world around him. In this case the works are in a sense a documentary chronicle of modern catastrophes, whether they be acts of God or calamities caused by human intervention (Faerna 28). The themes and distinct layout of these images were derived from newspaper articles (Faerna 28). In some cases, Warhol even chose to reproduce, with oil paints on canvas, entire newspaper pages. In most, the artist repeated the same strangely colored and juxtaposed images, which affected the viewer’s reception of the work in numerous ways.
The obsessive repetition of these disasters forces the viewer to scrutinize and ponder the tragedy being depicted over and over (Faerna 28). Warhol’s attitude was typical of his age as well as our own, one in which the public has become numbly accustomed to the most atrocious horrors. Both news channels and the flipping through the pages of a newspaper presents one tragedy after another, and this process has virtually become part of our morning routine. Be it a war, suicide, or riot, we are fed images of these events by the media. We do not know what “war” is. All we do have is a faint conception involving gunshots, drumbeats, and ducking for cover. The image becomes our reality, and in this case, war is the simulacrum. Warhol’s technique of repetition serves to emphasize the public’s desensitization to these many news images. It refers to the frequency and constancy at which society is presented with such images so that they are eventually stripped of any meaning or significance. It also hints at a type of resulting regularity of these events. What with Warhol’s Suicide 1963, (silkscreen on paper) the viewer is presented with an idea or symbol of suicide but is detached from the reality of it. Because of its depiction in the media, suicide has come to be associated with, for example a building and a jump. We come to focus on the sensational aspects of a suicide. Like the plane crash, it comes to have no origin in reality. These are images far removed from their source in the way that they are distributed by the media.
In spite of Warhol’s seeming political neutrality, several of his works, most notably, Small Race Riot 1964 (acrylic and silkscreen on linen), drew inspiration from the problems associated with the racial tension in the United States, specifically the uprisings that had been taking place in Birmingham during the sixties (Faerna 36). The cause of the riot however, gets lost in the manufactured impression of the movement (Gitlin 20) and Warhol, in his artistic technique, emphasizes this quite well. Once again the blurring effect is employed and in turn the image becomes unclear. The police dog which is shown in the foreground, chasing a rioter, is the focal point of the work. The riot itself becomes more prominent in the viewer’s mind than the cause the African Americans are fighting for. Our conception of something is shaped by images and thus the images dictate our reality.
Todd Gitlin, author of Media Unlimited, defines the term supersaturation as “the constant torrent of images and sounds that has become our world” (Gitlin 12). He also specifies that media today encompasses a quest for comfort, convenience, and pleasure. We aim, through the media, to indulge our hungers by inviting images and sounds into our lives, in a never-ending quest for stimulus and sensation (Gitlin 15). Humans possess an innate quest for and longing for feeling. The shallow pleasures of the image saturate our way of life with a promise of feeling (Gitlin 16). Even after a riot has taken place, people turn to their televisions to watch over and over the beatings of protesters, not only for facts but for rituals of shared horror, grief, sympathy, reassurance, and the many forms of solidarity (Gitlin).
There is a strong link between Warhol’s celebrity paintings and Baudrillard’s commentary on the notion of reality as a matter of perspective and existence. Warhol’s portraits constitute a virtual gallery of the most influential and famous figures of his age (Faerna 40). Almost every one of his subjects were emblems of beauty, glamour, or power; and if that was not the case Warhol transformed them into genuine icons through his own work (Faerna 40). “Even though, for the most part, these celebrities already belonged to the imagery of Pop culture”, Warhol’s treatment endowed them with a distinct characteristic. He would first take a snapshot of his subject, then carefully alter it by “dislocating the contours and adding new polishes and colors” (Faerna 40). In many instances, these works are double or multiple portraits. The repetition emphasizes the overwhelming presence of the subject’s already larger than life persona.
According to Baudrillard, consciousness is never the echo of our existence in real time but a screen for the “dispersal of the subject and its identity” (Baudrillard). Due to the media and the general public, the individual becomes a screen, taking in and then projecting prefabricated ideas of the way they should be which is dictated by society. Similarly, Warhol once said, “It's the movies that have really been running things in America ever since they were invented. They show you what to do, how to do it, when to do it, how to feel about it, and how to look how you feel about it” (Brainy Quote). The consciousness no longer reflects our identity, but instead reflects what the rest of society, pop culture, and the media nous renvoie. When it comes to the celebrity, he/she can be considered a screen, and the media, the main conduit for the celebrity and all that he/she encompasses. The image is presented and in turn exploited. Marilyn Monroe is a simulacrum in the sense that her image and implications became bigger than she was. Monroe’s mind became a screen, which presented men’s fantasies. In Warhol’ famous Marilyn 1964 (sikscreen and oil on canvas), the artist focuses on the actress’s image, depicting her as a goddess of sensuality and eroticism (Faerna 41). The portrait emphasizes those features that were most emblematic of her status as a sex symbol, such as her red, sensuous lips and her lush blond hair (Faerna 41). A technique employed to emphasize Monroe’s emblematic features was color imperfection. Upon speculation of the painting the viewer notices that the color is strangely juxtaposed onto the basic outline of the image. This imperfection calls the viewer to pay closer attention. In his diptych of the same actress in 1962, through its endless repetition, Warhol succeeded in transforming Monroe into a sort of holy image, cleverly emphasized by the dual composition of the work which was done in the manner of devotional and sacred diptychs (Faerna 43). The sex symbol has no origin in reality yet Monroe, the simulacra of this concept, is a model of the notion. Using an image of someone that was inherently beautiful (Monroe) and putting the silk screen effect on it made the subject look much more commercial (Philau.Students). The technique results in a mass produced look, much like her very essence (Philau.Students). The colors employed are bright in order to emphasize the commercialization of this famous actress and the overall image is graphic as well, calling to mind an advertisement.
As a result of their fame, the celebrity’s image is vulnerable to perspective. Everyone views the image so it changes accordingly. Warhol’s diptychs reflect this idea in that in each one, not one image is exactly the same. Whether it be the color or amount of shading, there is always a difference. Here, Warhol is suggesting that too much exposure erodes meaning and existence. The simulacra takes over reality and thus becomes reality. This reality in turn, has become a materialistic showcase for images.
Upon the subject of his art, Warhol once declared, “I adore America and these are some comments on it. My image is a statement of the symbols of the harsh, impersonal products and brash materialistic objects on which America is built today. It is a projection of everything that can be bought and sold, the practical but impermanent symbols that sustain us” (Cornelius). What is being bought and sold in America is not the object, but the image; a promise or state which radiates from the object yet is completely separate from it. This is the simulacra. Warhol was clearly aware of the existing commodity culture and the resulting death of the real by the image in that the foundation of our market lies upon buying into a simulacrum. The object transcends into an idea so that the object is no longer the reality, but the idea is (Baudrillard).
Warhol’s first assignment as a commercial artist was a series of illustrations accompanying an article entitled “Success is a Job in New York” which was published in Glamour magazine in September 1949 (Faerna 11). He also did a one-page spread featuring women’s shoes (Ratcliff, 13). Shoes soon proceeded to become the most readily identifiable motif in Warhol’s early work. In his A La Recherche du Shoe Perdu, (watercolor on paper) 1955, depicting various women’s shoes in different styles, the artist implies a type of game involving identifying a specific item of footwear with the person wearing it (Faerna 10). In Warhol’s work, shoes-a sort of “pedestal used by all mortals alike”-are no longer just another wardrobe accessory or pictorial motif, but an extension of the individual in their own right (Faerna 10). The painting also clearly holds fetishist connotations and is suggestive of the shoe as the emblem for eroticism and female sexuality. A year after the showcasing of this painting, Warhol created what would become his most successful series as a commercial artist: The Golden Slippers, which were realized, for the most part, as gold leaf collages. His work entitled Babs, 1956, for example, implies that a taste for golden slippers is an indication of royalty, power, and most of all, glamour, in the way that Warhol bestowed such detail to each shoe (Faerna 11). In Warhol, Jose Maria Faerna writes, “his shoes were works of extreme aesthetic refinement, trimmed with exquisitely fine leaves of gold and silver” (Faerna 11). In our commodity culture the object goes beyond its functional value. The shoes in Warhol’s works, most notably in his Golden Slippers series, embody ideas of simulacra in that these works comment on how in postmodern society, fashion is believed to be an actual extension of the self, with defining capabilities rather than its reality- the exaltation of mere products. The shoes are identified with haute couture and as high fashion items. Elevated from foot coverings, they attain the status of embodying another image altogether. A shoe that is bought for its design and not its functional value, reveals the attempt to acquire or buy glamour. As previously mentioned, the object transcends physical reference or point of mediation to an idea; the idea (or simulacra at this point) becomes separate from the object. The concept, therefore has no origin in reality yet the commodity (fashion item) serves as simulacra to the simulated model of “glamour”.
Just as Warhol’s work comments on how commonplace items such as shoes can come to connote a simulacral concept completely different from its origin, Baudrillard notes that, the “real” economy of commodities is somehow bypassed by an “unreal” myriad of ad-images (Baudrillard). To understand the concept of simulacra, one must understand the concept of communication by association in today’s hypermarket. In his book Signs in Contemporary Culture: An Introduction to Semiotics, Arthur Asa Berger comments on techniques in advertising and defines the term metonymy as “communicating by using associations” (Berger 33). Furthermore, each individual in a given culture posesses a great deal of commonly held information that we use to interpret messages and generate meaning. We may even transfer information we have about one thing to refer to something that is associated or related to it (Berger 33). For example, in our materialistic society we learn that Rolls Royce Automobiles are very expensive, so we naturally assume that those who are able to purchase them are very wealthy. Advertisers, therefore, may use people in Rolls Royce automobiles to suggest wealth, and with this, good taste and sophistication (Berger 34). Warhol’s famous Campbell’s Soup Can painting has come to be associated with things such as the home, the supermarket, middle-class America, wholesomeness and most notably, the American way of life. While Berger acknowledges these associations, Baudrillard takes note of the disassociation that occurs along the way. This famous ad-image becomes the simulacra for “The American Way of Life”, a concept that is not grounded in reality to begin with. People buy into a concept that society itself invents and pins on a product-a phenomenon that Baudrillard dubbed hypercommodity. Our market is not based on buying the product itself (“reality”), but buying into a simulacra, which has become reality for postmodern society.
A mimetic desire is the phenomenon in which people desire things not for their intrinsic value but because they are desired by others (Berger 34). According to Baudrillard, the objects are no longer commodities but are tests in that they interrogate the consumer, who is summoned to answer them while the answer is included in the question (Baudrillard 75). Individuals create false needs and ad-images lead them to believe that these needs can be fulfilled through the commodity, a simulacra for what the individual is “missing”. Just as Baudrillard considers the hypermarket or shopping centre to be the nucleus of the city (Baudrillard 77), Warhol once said, “department stores are kind of like museums”. The artist emphasizes that the department store embodies the ideals we strive for through materialism. For Baudrillard, the hypermarket constitutes the present and future model of social relations since it has taken up such a large portion of our lives (Baudrillard 77). He continues to write that the hypermarket is a model for the disintegration of functions. It is a functioning and dominant unit whose objects are no longer functional (Baudrillard 78). These objects no longer function concerning any intrinsic value but instead, the market’s foundation lies in the image, or more precisely, the simulacra.
Warhol once said, “Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art” (Brainy Quote). Warhol treated his role as an artist much like a business partnership. He acknowledged the fact that one could be creative and make money doing it at the same time. Warhol cleverly began mass-producing his art. This mass-production both maximized his profits and became known as a popular artistic technique. “Which one however, was the artist’s forefront intention only adds to his ambiguity” (Cornelius). Warhol’s method of production is key to understanding the artist’s goal to “release the image from deep meaning and to reveal it as the simulacral surface it really is” (Cornelius).
Once Warhol had achieved success in his commercial work, he had begun to take interest in the fine arts (Smith 96). He had seen artists such as Jasper Johns becoming bigger names and making bigger money, and so the artist decided to devote his artistic efforts solely to the fine arts (Smith 96). It is when the Pop phenomenon came along that Warhol sensed his direction. What Pop art wants is to “desymbolize the object”, that is, to release the image from meaning and into simulacral surface (Cornelius). In turn, as a pop artist, Warhol did not stand behind his work and he himself had no depth. As he was quite inarticulate, the artist was often quiet. When he did speak, it was often vague and by not expressing very much of anything, people thought there was more (Smith 97).
“In his method of production, Warhol managed to function like the machine he famously declared he wished to become” (Cornelius). His artworks were informed by his earlier work in commercial art, employing techniques such as “line, perspective, color, and overall flatness”, all of which can be linked to the realms of advertising and mass-media (Cornelius). After the 1950s, Warhol made a definitive move to producing his works with increasingly mechanical methods. His use of the photographic silkscreen process and the monochrome allowed him to produce nearly identical images at a rapid pace, an allowed him to “get rid of any handmade elements in his paintings in order to remove any subjectivity…producing a painting with mechanical anonymity and precision” (Cornelius).
The Oxford Dictionary of Art defines silk-screen printing as “a modern color printing process based on stenciling” (Chilvers/Osborne/Farr). A cut stencil is attached to a silk screen of thin mesh which has been stretched over a wooden frame (Chilvers/Osborne/Farr). The color is forced through the uncovered areas of the screen onto the paper beneath by using a squeegee (Chilvers/Osborne/Farr). Due to further improvements in the process, the cut stencil was later dispensed with altogether, while its equivalent was painted directly onto the screen, using opaque glue or varnish (Chilvers, Osborne, Farr). This technique has been most commonly used for commercial textile printing but later was developed as an artist’s medium (Chilvers/Osborne/Farr). Interestingly enough, this method also allowed the artist to incorporate the help of others when producing his work.
As Warhol’s fame and stature in the artworld expanded, so did his methods of production. His interest in mass-production led him to transform his studio into the Factory, a site of constant production including paintings, film and music, wherein Warhol employed an entire crew to assist him in the task of creating his works (Smith 49). In The Perfect Crime, Jean Baudrillard writes, “modern art has gone a very long way in the deconstruction of its object but it is Warhol who has gone furthest in the annihilation of the creative act. That is his snobbery, but it is a snobbery which relieves us of all the affection of art, precisely because it is machine-like” (Cornelius). Due to the inhuman factor in Warhol’s work, the viewer is faced with an image and nothing more. Along with this mechanical method, the subject being depicted is stripped of its significance. We live in a culture in which the image is what concerns people (surface/style over substance), and toying with this fact, Warhol would mechanically repeat the same image over and over again. Furthermore, his removal of authorship challenges notions of high and low art, rendering all art on the same level-presentations of an image. Without authorship, the viewer assumes that there was no artistic intention and thus the painting is in a sense, liberated from meaning or significance.
Perplexed by the matter of authorship, Warhol once told a journalist, “Some company was recently interested in buying my ‘aura’. They didn’t want my product…I never figured out what they wanted”. Warhol’s statement concerning that he didn’t know what they meant by “aura” not only emphasizes his blank persona but also indicates the lack of aura in his production (Cornelius). It is this “lack” however, that causes a contradiction. In negating authorship Warhol at the same time emphasized it. The public was intrigued by this “nothingness” that characterized Warhol and his work to the point where this “nothingness” became a recognizable “warholian” factor.
Therefore, if aura is generally understood to imply the symbolic weight of something, “the nothing behind Warhol and his images emerges” (Cornelius). With its authenticity removed, the art object cannot claim any of its own symbolic meaning. In response to this, Baudrillard writes, “Behind [Warhol’s] machinic snobbery, what is really going on is a rise and rise of objects, images, signs and simulacra…Warhol is naturally party to the extermination of the real by the image, and to such an overdoing of the image as to put an end to all aesthetic value” (Cornelius). Warhol was aware that the postmodern condition is characterized by the breakdown of the hierarchy between high and low culture. This view that historical changes are draining the symbolic significance of cultural items is brought up in another one of the artist’s famous aphorisms, “What's great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola and you can know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it” (Brainy Quote). It is the distinguishing traits of mass culture such as its seriality, mass-production, and “sameness” that is the primary interest of the modern artworld. The object, for example, the Coke, no longer serves as an accurate representation of its consumer. Instead, the impression of equality it gives off is expressed in Warhol’s work by its constant repetition in the Coca-Cola diptychs.
Similar to Coca-Cola, Warhol thought that art should be for everyone. In both his methods of production as well as his choice of popular culture subjects, Warhol managed to render his art accessible and familiar in the eyes of America’s general public. By removing aesthetic value in the production of his works, Warhol furthered the blankness of himself as artist as well as of his products as artworks. Instead of the human factor, the viewer is presented with a machinic image. The artwork is seen instead as a mere product and the subject of the work is thus stripped of its original significance. Warhol’s audience is captivated by the rhythm of repetition and becomes entangled in a web of simulacra.
An objection that may arise to the thesis is that Jean Baudrillard’s philosophy is not needed to understand Warhol’s work. In addition to this, one may even argue that according to Aesthetic principles, Warhol’s art should not be considered as an embodiment of Baudrillard’s philosophy. Instead, it should only be judged according to aesthetic appeal. Finally, many critics disregard Baudrillard’s philosophy altogether, dismissing it as philosophical jargon.
In viewing Warhol’s work one can discern the dominance of the image without linking it to Baudrillard’s philosophy of simulacra. Pop art’s direct nature allows the audience to focus on the object. In Pop Art, the images used are a part of popular culture as presented through mass media. For example, “household objects, images from the cinema, images found in the mass media (like comic strips and billboards), food (like hamburgers and coca-cola), and clothing. All of these images become representative of the objects of everyday life and the popularity of these everyday objects brings about iconography. In its presentation of the object, Pop art clearly hails the image.
Furthermore, Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy that is concerned with the nature of art and the criteria of artistic judgment (Hofstadter 1). In general, it has to do with “art and the so-called beautiful, ultimately with the pleasure of contemplating things apart from their being, truth, or goodness” (Hofstadter 1). Aestheticism involves contemplating a piece of artwork apart from its truth, in other words, apart from the meaning and symbolic aspect of the creative piece. According to Aesthetic principles, attaching any type of meaning or symbolism to a work of art is unecessary. The work should be judged purely on its aesthetic characteristics. Aesthetics involves the consideration of surface over substance. Aesthetic thinking would deny that Warhol’s work could communicate a philosophy or be the embodiment of one.
In his article entitled “The Ecstasy of Jean Baudrillard”, Richard Vine claims that Baudrillard should not have achieved such an exalted, intellectual status (Vine). The writer’s main argument in judging Baudrillard’s work as nothing but philosophical jargon is that his publications have been through three phases, characterized by a shift in strategy, tenor, and emphasis rather than content. He likens Baudrillard’s philosophy to “sci-fi predictions” and to sounding like a “Japanese monster movie” (Vine). He continues to write that Baudrillard’s argument, although subject to a dizzying array of variations, remains constant- that we are charmed by appearances only to realize that there is nothing more than appearances (Vine).
In reply to the objections raised, one may begin by arguing that although Baudrillard’s theories on postmodernism are not essential to understanding Warhol’s works, the philosophy however, does articulate some of the ideas presented by Warhol’s works through its key concept of simulacra. It is evident to the viewer that Warhol’s art image, in representing popular subjects or objects that have attained popularity, has taken on iconic significance. However, it is the break from reality and the referent; the birth of a new, separate truth, whose understanding is facilitated by Baudrillard’s philosophy.
In response to the
objection raised by Aestheticism one can discern it as being contradictory. Pop
art exemplifies the reduction of art to flat, non-signifying image. In Douglas
Kellner states that in Baudrillard’s Consumer Society, the philosopher
writes,“Whereas all art up to Pop was based on a vision of the world 'in
depth', Pop on the contrary claims to be homogeneous with their industrial and
serial production and so with the artificial, fabricated character of the whole
environment, homogeneous with this
immanent order of signs: homogeneous with their industrial and serial
production and so with the artificial, fabricated character of the whole
environment, homogeneous with the all-over saturation and at the same time with
the culturalised abstraction of this new order of things”(Kellner). Pop
therefore signifies the end of depth, and the concept of the artist as active
creator of meaning (Kellner). By this, Baudrillard implies that art naturally
progresses according to its time. Being created by an individual, a piece of
artwork must display some aspect of the human condition. Pop art displays
postmodern culture’s image-based reality. In doing so, it simply reveals what
is. Warhol’s art cannot add meaning when displaying a meaningless world.
Instead, he simply displays the meaningless.
Richard Vine’s argument may strike avid Baudrillard readers as slightly superficial. Although Baudrillard’s fundamental argument remains the same, each of his publications constitutes an expansion of this argument. The concept of simulacra for example, only developed once Baudrillard theorized the break of the image from its referent.
In conclusion, Andy Warhol’s art can be considered an embodiment of Baudrillard’s theory of the death of the real by the image. This occurs because of the image’s break from reality. Following this, the image no longer has a referential function Instead, the simulacra is born and thus the boundary between the image and reality implodes. The media can be considered a system of simulacra seeing as how it feeds sensational images of events or people that come to dominate their originals. This is why the simulacra is defined as the copy without an original. Warhol’s Death and Disaster series demonstrates how socio-politico events lose their significance because of the way their images are processed and interpreted. Warhol’s work demonstrates how our commodity culture involves buying into a simulacrum by presenting such notions as glamour, which have no real origin in reality. Even Warhol’s own method of production is key to understanding the artist’s goal to release the image from deep meaning and to reveal it as the simulacral surface it really is (Cornelius). On this note however, there remains an unresolved issue-that of authorship. Was Warhol’s supposed negation of this done purposely to make a bigger name for himself or was it a genuine artistic sentiment and goal. Perhaps it was both, seeing as how Warhol changed his personality as often as he did his wigs.