Beschreibung:

Andy Warhol Gun 1981-82 Synthetic polymer and silkscreen ink on canvas. 16 x 20 in. (40.6 x 50.8 cm). Stamped with the Estate and Foundation seals and numbered “PA 15.002” on the overlap.
Provenance The Estate of Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, New York Exhibited New York, Museum of Modern Art, February 6 - May 4, 1989; Art Institute of Chicago, June 3 - August 13, 1989; London, Hayward Gallery, September 7 - November 5, 1989; Cologne, Museum Ludwig; Venice, Palazzo Grassi, February 25 - May 27, 1990; and Paris, Musée national d’art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, June 21 - September 10, 1990, Andy Warhol A Retrospective Literature K. McShine, Musée national d’art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, eds., Andy Warhol Rétrospective, Paris, 1990, pl. 397, p. 365 (illustrated) Catalogue Essay The Guns and Knives paintings from 1981-1982 are stark reminders of the violent society we lived in then and now. Having nearly been killed by a handgun Andy was able to make paintings of guns as iconic objects. In order to choose which guns he would use we made calls to friends who might know someone with a gun. A few scary people, with first names only, came by and let Andy take Polaroid’s of their weapons. I remember him photographing a sawn-off shotgun. Finally after looking at the different Polaroids, he decided to use high-contrast reproductions of certain handguns, like a Sport King (long rifle) and a HI-Standard .22 Cal (snub-nosed gun) from sporting magazines. The same type of process was used to select the knives. At the beginning Andy wanted to photograph exotic knives and daggers. We knew that Chris Stein from Blondie collected handmade knives and unusual daggers. Chris brought some to the studio for Andy to photograph. But after reviewing the pictures, Andy asked Jay Shriver, his new art assistant, to buy some ordinary kitchen knives from a Bowery restaurant-supply store. Jay came back with some Galaxy 8-inch slicers and, of course, a receipt. Andy photographed the ordinary knives in various formations and they were chosen. How many times does one read about someone picking up a kitchen knife and plunging it into his wife or her husband in a moment of jealous rage? And death by a handgun is a daily reality. V. Fremont, Cast a Cold Eye: The Late Work of Andy Warhol New York, 2006, p.157 Read More Artist Bio Andy Warhol American • 1928 - 1987 A seminal figure in the Pop Art movement of the early 1960s, Andy Warhol's paintings and screenprints are iconic beyond the scope of Art History, having become universal signifiers of an age. An early career in commercial illustration led to Warhol's appropriation of imagery from American popular culture and insistent concern with the superficial wonder of permanent commodification that yielded a synthesis of word and image, of art and the everyday. Warhol's obsession with creating slick, seemingly mass-produced artworks led him towards the commercial technique of screenprinting, which allowed him to produce large editions of his painted subjects. The clean, mechanical surface and perfect registration of the screenprinting process afforded Warhol a revolutionary absence of authorship that was crucial to the Pop Art manifesto. View More Works