Back in the early 1960s, the Pop Art movement began to be talked about in Europe, with the usual delay and a certain indignation. The rumor was that the New York Pop artists were a gang of irresponsible party animals who had gotten rich overnight by creating vulgar and unserious art. However, no one can deny today the importance that the emergence, in the sleepy world of abstract art, of those immense tubes of toothpaste by Oldenburg, or of Andy Warhol's gigantic Campbell's Soup cans, had on our visual sensibility. Of those now acclaimed artists, the one who perhaps exerted the greatest influence throughout the 1960s was precisely Andy Warhol. In his "Factory" (a huge workshop-studio where he met to work and socialize with anyone who, in those crazy times, was directly or indirectly related to art), he painted, made films, watched television, organized parties, slept, and worked, surrounded by the most eccentric characters a city like New York could produce. Today, Andy Warhol, now a producer and promoter of musical groups (Velvet Underground among them), films, and art, has become that indispensable charismatic figure at the international jet-set parties, where, because they are so boring (according to him), he dedicates himself to being their most sarcastic observer. My philosophy from A to B and from B to A is a veritable potpourri of irreverent, acoustic, always ironic, and, above all, terribly sincere ideas and reflections. Andy Warhol delves into American life and its unbreakable taboos (work, success, fame, love, beauty, etc.) with the seriousness of someone who knows full well that the deepest depths often border on laughter. By weaving together highly peculiar theories about everyday life, generally unexplored, about himself, about famous people, and about our visual environment, Andy Warhol gradually shapes his personal vision of today's world, exorbitant, villainous, and often grotesque.
