To the editors:
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
The controversiality of Andy Warhol is, by no means, an indication that his works are important, or that he is an artist [“Andy Warhol: A Long, Close Look,” June 2]. What is disturbing is not the banality of Warhol’s work. Modern art forms, even if they only deserve to be called “expression,” have few traces of originality. I suspect artists of Warhol’s ilk have no desire to compete with the Renaissance masters. Both reverence and contempt for Warhol is silly. His product is symptomatic of the age in which we live. But his expression, like the rest of us who stake out a patch of dirt, is only as worthy as it strives to become human.
Artistic lightweights, Warhol in particular, have an artificial glow that seems to impress those in awe of whatever drivels from the east and west coasts. This dog-like reverence is hysterically funny. Do you think it’s an accident that Andy Warhol, Lou Reed and Velvet Underground records are popular? Warhol, that gadfly, took the Velvets under his wing in their shaky beginning. There’s as much a market for the New York brand, made-for-TV nihilism of Warhol as there is for older art forms. Cutting edge? Ha, Ha, Ha! The joke is both on Warhol’s bandwagon and on the traditionalists who scoff at his superficiality.
