Warhol in Fort Worth

I am so excited to say that this week I had the absolute privilege of seeing the Andy Warhol exhibit at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. What better adventure is there than getting to see firsthand the original artwork of one of the most iconic artists in American history? I can’t think of many things that would be better.

I love going to the Modern because not only is it only $4 for students, it is one of the most gorgeous buildings. Just walking up to the building, it’s apparent that you are someplace special, even if you have no idea that it’s a museum.

The architecture is stunning, but the most amazing part is after you walk in. The entire backside of the building is floor to ceiling windows that is situated right next to a shallow pond that stretches from the side of the building to halfway out in the yard.

The building itself puts any visitor in the mood for art and I started getting really excited to see the exhibit as soon as I walked in. I paid for my ticket and headed upstairs and walked right into the first room that introduced the exhibit.

“Andy Warhol: The Last Decade” is a travelling exhibit that features collected works from the last eight years of Warhol’s life. In the introduction, it explains that many people consider this period the most productive time of his career.

It was evident in the first room that this was an extremely bright and introspective time in Warhol’s career. He was still playing with his silk-screen printing process that made him so famous in the beginning with pieces on Marilyn Monroe and Campbell’s Soup cans. The beginning largely consisted of silk-screen self-portraits and incredible original pop art pieces of iconic figures like Santa, Mickey Mouse, and Dracula.

The next room looked into the oxidation process and Warhol’s foray into abstraction rather than straightforward pop art that focused on the manual art process and less on the mechanical process of screen-printing. There were floor-to-ceiling hand crafted studies on inkblots as well as more hand-painted pieces in the same room.

The next room had many examples of his camouflage pieces as well as more self-portraits.

After that there was a room that had many pieces from a set of collaborations Warhol did with Jean-Michel Basquiat. These are largely opinionated views of American culture and life in the 1980’s. Also in this room are some of the black and white advertisements that Warhol recreated to comment on the commercialism of society.

The final room has a large collection of Warhol’s last subject, recreations of “The Last Supper”. These are some of his largest and most striking pieces. All along the way, I learned more and more about the iconic artist.

Along the side of the exhibit are some examples of early work, like his flower series (my personal favorite, I would love to put them in a kid’s room) and some examples from the Campbell’s soup series.

Warhol’s style is so entrenched in our society today that there is even a Photo Booth setting on Macs that allows users to create their own Warhol-style series of pictures of themselves. His images are everywhere in our culture, and it was such a privilege to see some of his influential pieces firsthand.

I highly suggest that all of you take some time to go through the exhibit at the Modern while it is here. It goes until May 16, so there is plenty of time to get over there and have your own art-filled adventure!

Adventure on,

Katie