![]() Roughly chronological, the show has its first two spaces lined floor to ceiling with silver foil, recalling his Silver Factory studio of 1964-68. ![]() Also on display are examples of the types of cameras Warhol used between 1969, when he began colour Polaroid photography, and 1987, when he died unexpectedly from cardiac arrest following gall bladder surgery, aged 58. Part of his brilliance lay in using the medium to expose the artifice of identity and self-image.ĭesigned to accommodate the display of works large and small, still and moving, the show comprises 285 photos – many of them unique – alongside paintings, screenprints and experimental films, as well as archival material, books and magazines. Warhol used cameras in an obsessive, diaristic way, prefiguring their omnipresence in our day-to-day lives. In so doing, it constructs a kaleidoscopic portrait of a shrewd, analytical, industrious and collaborative artist – a social chameleon, in fact – who anticipated our age’s tech-fuelled anxieties around identity and self-image. The fruit of 10 years’ research by senior curator Julie Robinson, with assistance from a small army of curatorial colleagues and research volunteers, this immersive, playful and well-paced exhibition reveals the extent to which Warhol’s prolific output was anchored in a career-long use of the photographic image. By the end, we come to appreciate that the ringmaster of fame had a knack for being in the right place at the right time and for predicting the tenor of the times that lay ahead. It takes considerably longer than 15 minutes to get through A Social Media, and that’s a good thing. Look – there’s Bianca Jagger shaving her armpit Truman Capote at his plastic surgeon’s Yves Saint Laurent gossiping with Lauren Bacall a lovestruck Jack Nicholson and Anjelica Huston Dolly Parton and Keith Haring posing like teenage besties. We get stars galore, from Debbie Harry to Mick Jagger, John Lennon to Liza Minnelli, David Hockney to Diana Ross. The sensitive, softly spoken boy from working-class Pittsburgh, who went on to effect a paradigm shift by shaping the raw materials of pop culture into high art, doesn’t disappoint. It’s about being in the right place at the wrong time.” Approaching the bright yellow entrance to Andy Warhol and Photography: A Social Media, one spies a quote on the wall: “My idea of a good picture is one that’s in focus, and of a famous person doing something unfamous.
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