“I want to be as famous as the Queen of England,” Warhol remarked. This seemingly banal statement could be laden with meaning. He didn't want to be the President of the United States, nor a millionaire, nor a star: he aspired to be the Queen of England. In short, he wanted a past not only with a will, but with a will notarized. He didn't just want to be famous or rich: he aspired to create a past steeped in history—the one he recreated in his home—and he also wanted to be English, embodying the quintessential myth of American glamour.
Who was Andy Warhol, really? Was he the most celebrated representative of pop culture, someone fascinated by advertising and success—the very essence of "Americanism"—a compulsive shopper and consumer, a multifaceted and admired artist? Or was he perhaps the last great painter of the European tradition of portraiture and still life; a being consumed by his possessions, melancholic, nostalgic, who lived life as a race toward death?
In our "Arguments" collection, we revisit *Warhol's Very Sad *, a highly original essay that answers these questions in the form of a story that begins one day in August 1956, when the last Romantic painter, Jackson Pollock, crashes his car on Long Island. Artists such as David Hockney, Jasper Johns, and Tom Wesselmann appear and disappear throughout this story, and around them, a whole series of concepts of modernity—current syndromes of our time—are also configured: nostalgia, melancholy, and death.
The saddest Warhol ends with the artist's death. But, more than a book about him or pop art, this is a bold and revealing story that speaks to all of us, ultimately trapped in these modern syndromes.
Publisher: Anagrama SAU Publishing House
ISBN: 9788433947857
Number of pages: 288
Binding: Paperback.
