Readings for Nov. 14

I hope everyone had a great weekend and boy howdy you should be pumped about this week's class. I tell you, whatever you're paying you're getting a bargin.

If you could please READ,PRINT AND BRING the following paragraphs to class:

In her analysis, Dyogot wrote that many Russian critics misunderstood Warhol’s work, seeing it as a celebration of capitalism and of consumer society. Sokolowski said Warhol’s work was much more complex.

“On the one hand he was not praising consumerism in itself, but he was saying that the subject matter of art is daily life — if, in the 19th century, it was about going to the Folies-Bergere or something like that, those were the things that many middle-class people did. If you compare Warhol to [Edgar] Degas or someone like that in the 19th century, an artist who was painting still lifes of fish, cheese, or bottles of wine that comprised a person’s lunch, that was not necessarily a celebration of food or a celebration of opulence, it was something that was quite everyday and commonplace.

“On the other hand, when Warhol was doing an image of a tuna fish can, a few years after he did the Campbell soup, it was called ‘Tuna Fish Disaster.’ He showed the other side of the American Dream, if you will. Many people took jobs because of mass production, many people were able to eat foods that were nutritious and good value, but at the time poisons could get into the food and be passed on — four women were killed eating tinned food, and that was the first time that had happened in America. Since then there have been many other instances.”

“He was looking at both sides. There was a complicated response of good and bad, but it was certainly not just a viscious, negative view of consumerism. I think that wasn’t true at all.”

In Moscow, the Tretyakov Gallery accompanied the Warhol exhibition with a show of Russian pop art.

“It was very interesting. I saw there were a number of young artists imitating Warhol, one person had done Campbell soup art, for example,” Sokolowski said.

“I said someone had missed the point, because if one has to do that in Moscow, one would perhaps want to show a bottle of kvass, or maybe a bottle of vodka, because it would be an object that everyday Russians would use. Campbell soup was perhaps more exotic. So you really need something that was a staple.

“One image that I heard of subsequently was very interesting. There was a large amount of criticism from the Orthodox Church — it was an image of an icon that was sort of reproduced with caviar on it, or something like that. But it was still obviously something religious, and it had a great significance to these religious people and that is the kind of thing Warhol would have done. He would have taken something that was very obvious and very well integrated into our culture and questioned it — and perhaps in that questioning, some problems are created.”


We will be talking about paraphrasing, summary and quoting so keep that in mind!