Andy Warhol— From A to B and Back Again

Andy Warhol has always been one of my favorite icons. Few American artists are so omnipresent and instantly recognizable as Warhol. Through his carefully cultivated persona and willingness to experiment with non-traditional art-making techniques, Warhol understood the growing power of images in contemporary life and helped to expand the role of the artist in society. Warhol was one of the first artists that understood the power of images in contemporary life and headed to explore the role art/design has in society. In a lot of ways, the father of modern art/advertising. I love the way he pushed boundaries and was so unapologetically himself.

I went to the Whitney recently to catch his exhibition. This exhibition—the first Warhol retrospective organized by a U.S. institution since 1989—reconsiders the work of one of the most inventive, influential, and important American artists. Building on a wealth of new materials, research, and scholarship that has emerged since the artist’s untimely death in 1987, this exhibition revealed new complexities about the Warhol we think we know and introduces a Warhol for the 21st century.

I felt as though the overall structure of the exhibition could have been far more innovative, and a certain degree of attention to detail was missing — Warhol is Warhol and you need to up the ante when you do a retrospective on him. However, the work itself was very robust and there was an extensive range - starting with a lot of his early work, to more popular ones we’ve all seen - to the notebook drawings, videos, and random artworks that never saw the light of day. There were 19 overall sections spanning from the 4th to the 5th floors of the institution and covered all important phases in Warhol’s life. Scroll down for 5 lesser known but interesting facts about this interesting human.

5 lesser-known facts about Warhol

1. He was almost murdered by radical feminist Valerie Solanas. She shot Warhol in the torso after he rejected a script she had written. Warhol had several surgeries and needed to wear a surgical corset for the rest of his life.

2. He was a devout Byzantine Catholic. Warhol volunteered at homeless shelters and attended Mass religiously. He was gay, but claimed to be a virgin up to his death at age 58.

3. Warhol had a Permanent Smell Collection. He wished to document and trigger memories by using scents as time capsules. He changed his perfume every three months. During Warhol’s burial, a friend tossed a bottle of Estée Lauder Beautiful into his grave.

4. Andy Warhol’s actual name was Andy Warhola.

5. Andy Warhol sure hated one thing and that was eating leftovers. He had a strong dislike for leftovers and avoided eating them.