Eighteen years after his death, Andy Warhol's stature has only increased, said Benjamin Genocchio in The New York Times. A silkscreen of Elizabeth Taylor he made in 1963 sold for $12.6 million at Sotheby's New York last month, while his influence stretches to nearly every celebrated artist today. This show of his paintings, sculptures, films, and memorabilia is a 'œshrine to the ever-growing worldwide cult of this contemporary-art saint.' It revolves around 30 silkscreen celebrity portraits'”of Liza Minnelli, Farrah Fawcett, Aretha Franklin, and Truman Capote, among others'”which 'œadd a welcome note of color, lightness, and sociability' to Dia:Beacon's temple of minimalist art. They also help contextualize the important permanent Warhol installation there, 'œShadows' (1978'“79), a series of atypical paintings that seem like abstract color studies.
Warhol established the new art persona'”as a cryptic, wide-eyed, socially selective scene-maker'”as much as he determined the latest art fixations, said Elisa Pritzker in the Poughkeepsie, N.Y., Journal. He changed the way 'œwe perceive mass culture,' by making the ephemeral photographs of news and celebrity magazines seem permanent and monumental. As if to make the point literal, portraits are displayed against wallpaper he designed featuring a repeated sketch of the Washington Monument.
The 'œSkull' canvases also on view here look like jokey artifacts of 'œancient celebrities,' said Celia McGee in the New York Daily News. The skulls and the portraits 'œreally pop' against the wallpaper. The monument sketch also resembles a crucifix or a fighter plane seen from above. Another highlight of the show are the 'œTime Capsule' boxes opened hourly in the museum's basement. Warhol saved everything, and some of the pop detritus of his day'”playbills, candy wrappers, snapshots'”is on view for the first time since he collected it.
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