Monday, December 1, 2014

NEVER EXPECT ART #4: ANDY WARHOL'S "OXIDATION" PAINTINGS


Done between 1977 and 1978,  Warhol's OXIDATION or PISS paintings somehow managed to push the artist into the field of abstraction while returning to the seriality of his earlier works and forging a more expansive and dare I say, transgressive technique (water sports,  anyone?). The series was produced when Andy instructed others to urinate on surfaces prepared with wet metallic paint which would cause splattering oxidation of the surface.  His "technique" seemingly obliterated the self-importance and heroic romanticism forged by critics (thanks Clement Greenberg) and a generation of Abstract Expressionists. The idea of the "artist's touch" was hijacked,  yet almost no viewer could react unfavorably to their inherent beauty until one smelled the traces of the "brush".

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