We’ve been busy in Star Studio during Andy Warhol Enterprises…then again, it might be more accurate to say that our visitors have been busy. Star Studio is a space designed to encourage visitors of all ages  to participate in hands-on exploration of works of art on display at the IMA.  Star Studio projects encourage visitors to think about art by making art of their own, by creating in dialogue with the work on display.  Andy Warhol Enterprises has definitely sparked quite a few of those creative conversations in Star Studio.  We’ve divided the activities in Star between making art and writing about the intersection between art and commerce.

Visitors who are willing to leave with a little crayon under their fingernails can make a series of rubbings inspired by Warhol’s silkscreen prints.  The images for the rubbing plates come from one of Warhol’s favorite subjects – the one dollar bill.  We select a few of each day’s rubbings to add to our wall of visitor created artwork.  Visitors who want to try their hands at another way of transforming everyday images into artwork can trace projected clippings from newspaper ads.

It seems like most people have something to say about Andy Warhol, and about what role money and self-promotion ought to play in the life of an artist.  We’ve printed a series of questions suggested by the exhibition on “dollar bills,” where visitors can write a response (and sometimes pose a question of their own).  We’re posting those responses in Star Studio, and creating a kind of slow motion conversation about the intersection of art and business.  If you are in the area before Andy Warhol Enterprises closes on January 2nd,  (and if you haven’t  seen the show, you really should add a trip to the IMA to your holiday to-do list) stop by Star Studio, and add your voice to the conversation.

What is the project?

This is the title graphic for Andy Warhol Enterprises, an exhibition curated by Sarah Green and Allison Unruh, exploring the commercial component of Andy Warhol’s work. For the title graphic, we wanted to explore a design that referenced formal aspects of Warhol’s art including repetition, vibrant colors, and a tight grid. The solution we created, made up of 4000 posters and combined into 20 pads, also provided a unique opportunity for visitors to take a part of the experience home with them.

How did you think of this idea? Why did you do it for Warhol?

I like design that serves double-duty. The invitation I designed for the opening party unfolded into a poster, and I was interested in continuing that re-use wherever it was appropriate. I showed several ideas to our chief designer, David Russick, and we both agreed that creating an interactive title graphic served the functional needs of identifying the exhibition while also exploring how design can be used in a museum to engage visitors in a unique way. Not every exhibition lends itself to this type of treatment, but what could be better than Warhol  for exploring creative design solutions?

How has it been received?

It was installed just prior to the opening party on October 9th, and has been a big hit ever since. One of the things I was interested in documenting was which letters were removed first. The ‘A’ in Andy was nearly depleted during the opening weekend! I was surprised to see the more-difficult-to-reach posters on the top row being depleted first until a visitor pointed out that they wanted part of Andy Warhol’s name.

Will you ever do an ‘interactive’ title graphic again?

I would like to, although the needs of every exhibition are unique and some curators are more willing than others to explore innovative environmental and graphic design. Now that Andy Warhol Enterprises is open and the sky hasn’t fallen, hopefully in the future there will be more opportunities to create memorable and engaging design solutions.

The Stable Gallery opening wasn’t as commercially successful as Warhol had hoped, but the night wasn’t over then. Stable Gallery owner Eleanor Ward and Warhol patron Ethel Scull had organized a big party at the Factory, and those invited traveled from the warehouse-like display of box sculptures within the Stable Gallery to the festivities at Warhol’s studio. The party guests, which included fellow Pop artists Roy Lichtenstein and Claes Oldenburg, were present for the debut of Warhol’s studio, which served as a social destination as well as a place for artistic production throughout Warhol’s career.

Warhol once said of his studio,

“Factory is as good a name as any. A factory is where you build things. This is where I make or build my work. In my art work, hand painting would take much too long and anyway that’s not the age we live in. Mechanical means are today, and using them I can get more art to more people. Art should be for everyone.”

Similarly, my workplace will transform into a social destination this Saturday at the opening of Andy Warhol Enterprises. Come see the IMA’s reinterpretation of a Factory-style party on October 9th, where you can review the exhibition before the public opening, then join the party in Pulliam Great Hall. Mod dress appreciated!

Bringing all of these materials together has required a lot of collaboration between departments within the IMA, as well as public institutions and private collectors nationally. Two trucks full of Warhol works and archival materials have arrived at the IMA from the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, the contents of which are currently being unpacked and carefully inspected before being installed. Individual works from the other institutions as well as private collections will continue trickling in in the weeks leading up to the exhibition’s opening.

This amalgamation of ads, window displays, and awnings from the fifties, studio works from throughout his career, and films and TV episodes within the exhibition demonstrates the complexity of the artist we know as Andy Warhol. I think one work in particular demonstrates this best, titled Myths: The Shadow (1981).  This is one of ten works, and the only self-portrait, that comprise Warhol’s Myths series. Other “portraits” within the series include Santa Claus, Mickey Mouse, The Wicked Witch of the West, and other fictional archetypes within American popular culture. While referring to The Shadow, a character popular in comics, novellas, and the subject of a radio show from 1930–1954, who solved mysteries and fought crimes, Warhol is also alluding to his own largely unknown personal identity. It’s interesting that Warhol decided to include a self-portrait in the Myths series, but, as with The Shadow, Warhol adopted a variety of personae throughout his career, beginning with his transition in the late 1940s from his birth name of Andrew Warhola to Andy Warhol.

Warhol revealed little of his private life. Even his diaries, which are typically the most confidential form of documentation, personal information can scarcely be discerned.  Warhol talks about mundane, everyday things, like how much he spent on taxi fares or what parties he attended, but there’s barely any mention of his artistic practice, his company Andy Warhol Enterprises, which he founded in 1957, or his past. It seems that Warhol must have known his diaries would be published after his death and that they were merely an aid in constructing his public persona, in addition to serving as an unconventional record of financial information. After his death his studio and home were cleared, some of the contents sold, and the Andy Warhol Foundation was established. Many of Warhol’s records and personal items are housed in the archives at the Warhol Museum in “time capsules”—ordinary cardboard boxes that contain everything Warhol had amassed, anything from McDonald’s wrappers to Clark Gable’s shoes. But despite all of the material collected or created by Warhol that survived him, the real Warhol remains as he always was—elusive, mysterious, mythic.

We’ll never have certain insights into Warhol’s life, but while working with the curators to implement certain aspects of the exhibition as well as the accompanying catalogue, I’ve found myself constantly in awe of the genius that is Andy Warhol, whoever he may be.

Intrigued? Get your ticket to visit Myths: The Shadow when the exhibition is unveiled October 9th at the Warhol Soiree.

Have you checked out our fall calendar? Schedule your cultural adventure now. Here are the trailers to whet your appetite:

Wilber the English Bulldog

Most of us are familiar with one scene or another from our friend’s basement game room of dogs playing poker. The prints are likely knock-offs of a series of sixteen oil paintings by C. M. Coolidge commissioned in 1903 by Brown & Bigelow to advertise cigars. According to Wikipedia, the paintings “have become derisively well-known in the United States as examples of mainly working-class taste in home decoration.” In 2005, two of the original Coolidge paintings fetched more than half a million dollars at auction.

"A Friend in Need" by C. M. Coolidge. Photo: The New York Times

Clearly, in the 1900s artists of all types were drawing upon man’s best friend as subjects to convey pop culture, humor and politics of the day. (Note: it’s the bulldog smartly passing the card under the table with his toes above.) But when did this canine imagery begin?

I was surprised to find an entire exhibition on the subject by The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston called Best in Show: The Dog in Art from the Renaissance to Today. The museum features online slideshows and a great podcast interview with their Curator of European Art Dr. Peters Bowron.

Down through the centuries, other than the horse, perhaps dogs are the animal that has most widely been represented in every culture and practically every medium. And that’s the goal of this exhibition, to present the variety and above all the quality of images and affection and admiration with which the dog has been received by human beings. — Dr. Peters Bowron

What a fascinating way to look at social concerns in Western culture through the years. The MFAH exhibition depicts “the nobility and drama of the hounds of the hunt in Renaissance and Baroque art; the cozy domesticity of Dutch mutts and the pampered luxury of French Rococo and Impressionist lapdogs; the studied modernity of animals of the Machine Age and the febrile angst of Expressionism’s curs; the wit and irony of canine imagery in the eras of Pop, Postmodernism, and their aftermath…” George Stubbs, Andy Warhol and David Hockney all painted pups!

So what does our canine imagery say about us today? By looking at Jeff Koons’ twisty-balloon dogs or William Wegman’s photography of sometimes costumed Weimaraners, future generations might say we lean toward extravagance and eroticism. A few months ago, Michael Schaffer was interviewed on NPR’s Fresh Air about his new book One Nation Under Dog, documenting how the $43 billion industry “reflects our evolving ideas of consumerism, family, politics and domesticity.” Obviously, dogs are still man’s best friend. And now you know mine — his name is Wilber, and he would like to lick you.

Wilber as "Man's Best Friend"

(Wilber is currently contemplating a career in guerrilla marketing, life as the official ArtBabble.org mascot, or acting as an understudy to Butler University’s Blue II.)