Andy Warhol and Postmodernism

Beginning with the birth of modernism, Europe would be the birth place of this movement. It later eventually migrated to the United States due to strong cultural traditions that the States had with Europe. New York City then became the center of modernist activity when modernism arrived in America. From this movement sprang new forms of art which broke away from traditional art work (“Modernism and Its Consequences”, pp.15-16).

In viewing modernism, it was seen as realistic, but no where near realistic as its traditional counter parts. The modernist art work contained an impression of the visible world but not always in a literal impression of it. The modern artist usually focused on new references for their work which was looked upon as being naïve or uncivilized. A

The final paradigm of Warhol being postmodern regards lists in postmodern text (“Postmodern: From Elite to Mass Culture”, p.47). Warhol produced repeated images in a large quantity of his work. The images produced are suggestive to lists of words such as they would appear across and down a page. “Marilyn Monroe’s Lips” would be an example of this list style (Fineberg, p.253). Warhol’s “Campbell’s Soup Cans,” a better example of the style, lists all thirty-two varieties of the soup. List from postmodern text, as compared to Warhol’s “Campbell’s Soup Cans,” does not list items in a matter of importance. These lists are not listed in importance because “…they represent blank information, which matches the blank regard of a postmodern consumer” (“Postmodern: From Elite to Mass Culture”, p.47).

In Nigel Wheale’s article, “Postmodernism: From Elite to Mass Culture,” a postmodern artist by the name of Eiko Ishioka made a television advertisement for a department store called Parco. In this advertisement, Ishioka portrayed Fay Dunaway peeling and eating a hard-boiled egg. This advertisement was seen not only as a postmodern work but also as a type of performance art. Ishioka’s concept falls under postmodernism because the art of eating the egg is a routine procedure that anyone can do, rich or poor (“Postmodernism: From Elite to Mass Culture”, pp.33-34). Warhol once made the comment that “a coke is a coke and no amount of money can get you a better coke than the one a bum on the corner is drinking.” He knew, understood and utilized this concept in his postmodern pop art (Fineberg, p. 252).

Andy Warhol used advertisement as images in his work which appeared to come naturally to him since he had worked for numerous years as a commercial artist. Warhol used a graphic style and attempted to simplify the images into geometric forms which made them seem more mechanical like. He would often use a projector to enlarge the piece so t

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