For centuries all the way to today people commissioned artists to create any number of things for them, personal portraits for example. The Mona Lisa was one such piece, a noblewoman, Madame Lisa, (Mona means Madame) commissioned da Vinci to create it. It has directly caused the creation of legendary works of art. But, never has art become a downright industrial product on complete purpose.
Andy Warhol is the founder of the genre of Pop Art. Pop Art means popular art derived from pop culture and the zeitgeist of an era. His most famous work is likely the Campbell’s Soup Can. Warhol is a talented creator, his art is clearly, well, art, he also directed films and produced them.
During his life, Warhol made an extremely concerted effort to make countless prints of his art to share them with the world. Popular art and the population are inherently connected so it was a reasonable move. But, a commodity is defined as “A raw material or agricultural product that can be bought and sold, such as copper or coffee” This is where my issue with Warhol’s work comes in. No matter his talent or intention, mass production of art creates a truly industrial process. It didn’t take long for the prints to become a product because of his own plan. Using the widely agreed definition above we can equate mass-produced art to a commodity.
Selling art as a product, especially if it’s by the artist, subtracts from the meaning of art. Art is human expression, and human emotion, and is by definition unique.
Warhol’s art and immediate and extensive printing of his art, as an accidental or intentional product, defies that definition. If you can buy art at the store then it no longer is a human expression because it isn’t a human’s expression or a human’s emotions, it’s a printing press’s expression. The reason art being commodified matters so much is because art, something so fundamental to the human experience is stripped of its emotion and expression by definition, it’s to be bought and to be sold, not to express.
Andy Warhol commodified art and thus stole so much meaning from it. Many artists, particularly recently, have done this but Warhol serves as a prime example. Pop Art is an entirely viable style. I don’t like it but I understand its popularity. But just because it’s “popular art” does not mean it should be such a, well, Campbell’s Soup Can.
