Venue
Tate Liverpool
Location
North West England

 

Entering ‘Transmitting’ is like arriving at a rock gig where all the smash hits are played at the beginning. Straight away you’re faced with Soup Cans, Brillo Pads, Marilyn and Dance steps. Veering off to the right a darkened walkway strewn with gig posters leads to a video installation featuring footage of the infamous New York Factory parties set to the sound of The Velvet Underground. Black and white images merge across the four walls in a hallucinogenic flash back to another time. Larger than life Lou Reed drifts in front of you, Nico idles past the corner of your eye and the empty room becomes a crowded disorientating blur. Anyone who has stayed after- hours in Salford’s Islington Mill would have found this strangely familiar!

The other side of the gallery boasts book and record covers by Warhol, followed by a museum like display of ‘things’ Andy Warhol has produced. Fashion and celebrity worship is accounted for forensically. Like the Factory recordings from the video installation, this assemblage of artefacts from the ‘Warholian’ machine gives you an idea of how far reaching his influence was, but as an exhibit less interesting than the room tucked into the left of the entrance.

It’s the 11th of January, the world’s media, politicians, intellectuals and artists are intoxicated with fear and defiance after the attack on the Charlie Hebdo building in Paris. Social media is a constant stream of viral solidarity and disquiet, prescribing wisdom and critique of the situation, how could it happen, when will it happen again and where, so soon after the hostage situation in a café in Sydney.

Just to the left of the entrance, before the greatest hits, there is a room curated with specific intent. The ‘Electric Chair Portfolio’ (1971) lines the wall to the right in a rainbow of abstract colour washes, cloaking the foreboding furniture, on the back wall hangs the mammoth ‘Gun’ (1981), double printed black and red revolvers, overlapping like the blurred kick back of a discharged weapon, on the back left wall ‘Dollar Sign’ (1981), then two ‘Rorschach’ (1984) and then ‘Statue of Liberty’ (1986) an object gifted to the States by the French as a celebration of Liberty, breaking away from imperial control, rendered here as black and white images stitched together like the ideals of a nation loosely bound, next up is ‘Sunday Brunch’ (1986) with ‘Skulls’ (1976) and ‘The Beatles’ (undated) taking the last wall and in the middle of the room taking centre stage on a white plinth ‘Abstract Sculpture’ (1983).

The closest thing to an object in this room is a screen-printed page from a newspaper, crumpled, but up standing with one side given a metallic finish. The Article headline reads ‘Could This Happen Again’ and the story is about an attack on a US military base during the Reagan era. A truck loaded with explosives had been driven into a military base in the Middle East where it detonated, wreaking havoc, spewing the wreckage of the truck, killing indiscriminately.

The crumpled page now morphs into a piece of this shrapnel, twisted and dented by the artist’s hand, echoing the force of the explosion. The room is a complete meditation on never ending global violence and unrest, our need to psychologically understand the opposing ideologies and the cause and affect of greed and control.

Pieces like ‘Abstract Sculpture’ and ‘Three Brillo Soap Pad Boxes’ (1964/68) are a reminder of how Warhol’s work can be a timeless zeitgeist, taking on new meaning and relevance, decades after their inception and production. They tell a story about human society that does not appear to be changing any time soon. Transmitting offers up different sides of Warhol and depending on what you read about in the news on the way to the show, one of those sides can leave you feeling you have experienced something uncanny.

 

‘Transmitting Andy Warhol‘ runs until 8 February 2015


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