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Acrylic on mounted gessoed aluminium panel, 14 x 11"
Painting #294, 2023
Some of the first consumer inspired products that made it's way into Andy Warhol's artwork during the very early 1960's included the Campbell's Soup Cans, Heinz Tomato Ketchup and the iconic Coca-Cola bottles. During the winter/spring of 1964, he started producing more sculptural pieces. Life size replica boxes of Brillo soap pads followed by Campbell's Tomato Juice, Del Monte Peach Halves, Heinz Ketchup, Kellogg's Corn Flakes and Mott's Apple Juice. Warhol hired carpenters who constructed plywood boxes in the exact same size of the depicted products. The Factory (his art studio) assistants Gerard Malanga and Billy Linich then hand-painted each box, before Warhol and Malanga silkscreened the graphic logos onto them.
Self at the Danubiana Meulensteen Art Museum
Bratislava, Slovakia - May 5, 2023.
These were first shown in his second exhibition at the Stable Gallery in NYC during the spring of 1964. Eleanor Ward, the art dealer of that gallery at the time remembered that the Brillo Boxes were "very difficult to sell. We had visions of people walking down Madison Avenue with these boxes under their arms". The various boxes were priced between $200 - $400 depending on the size. It also cause controversy with critics stating, "How can this be art?"
Preview of the HBO documentary
Brillo 3¢ off by Lisanne Skyler
What Andy Warhol and Eleanor Ward had envisioned would take 50 years to materialize. In 2013, artist Charles Lutz (b.1982) was asked by the curator of the Armory Show in New York City to create an art installation. The Art Fair was held from March 7-11. The installation using Brillo cardboard boxes was entitled Babel, based on Pieter Bruegel's famous painting, The Tower of Babel (c.1563). The boxes were referred to as Stockholm Type since they were an exact replica of the Brillo Boxes that Andy Warhol had shipped from Brooklyn to Stockholm for his show at Moderna Museet in 1968. According to Lutz, the idea was to "disseminate the Brillo Box to the masses". "Each day a new Babel tower was erected out of the Brillo Boxes and visitors were encouraged to take one, fulfilling Warhol's idea of everyone in New York City carrying around a Brillo Box".
Pittsburgh, PA, March 29, 2013.
The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, PA held an exhibition entitled "Regarding Warhol: Sixty Artists, Fifty Years" from Feb. 3 - April 28, 2013. The same "Babel" (Brillo Stockholm Type) by Charles Lutz was set-up in the main lobby of the museum. That year, joined by my wife and son, we just happen to spend the long Easter weekend in Pittsburgh. We did a whole lot of walking and sightseeing during this jammed-packed mini-vacation. We were lucky enough to watch Sidney Crosbie play hockey when the Winnipeg Jets were in town to play against the Penguins. We also got to see Green Day rock the Consol Energy Center and attend a performance of the hilarious touring Broadway Musical, The Book of Mormon. We took the funicular, visited the Frick Mansion, the Carnegie Museum of Art, the Carnegie Museum of Natural History and the spectacular Cathedral of Learning. I visited the Andy Warhol Museum on March 29. Upon entering I was told that photography was only allowed on the first floor. Before leaving, I asked the security guard if it was OK to take a picture of the Charles Lutz's Brillo Boxes, to which he replied, "Yes, and you can take one with you when you leave". I had to ask him to repeat cause I couldn't believe my good fortune! I had to cut the tape and carefully detach the side where it was glued to fold smaller in order to bring in with me on the plane ride back home to Canada. It's been keeping me company in my painting studio ever since.
Self Portrait, 1967 - ANDY WARHOL
Synthetic polymer paint and silkscreen on canvas
Tate Modern, London - visited May 26, 2018
The background for my painting is from a page of the 2017 Andy Warhol calendar printed by Galison. For the exception of the red and yellow version on the top right, I took the liberty to change a few of the colours. Warhol created a very large series in a multitude of colours of this self portrait in 1966-1967, all based on the same photography.
The wooden blocks under the IKEA glass cloche dome are made by a company named Mudpuppy. They come in a box of 8, of which only one is yellow. In reality, Andy Warhol's yellow Brillo Box (3¢ off) are rarer and fetch higher prices at auction. Once hard to sell, they would later found themselves in many of the most prestigious art museum around the globe. The yellow base is actually The Andy Warhol Diaries with the book jacket cover removed.
In response to the art critics, Andy Warhol once said, "ART IS WHAT YOU CAN GET AWAY WITH".
This painting is currently on view at the Fog Forest Gallery.
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