I think you are a pretty interesting guy. I wonder if your insistence that there was absolutely no meaning or intention beyond the surface of your work (or do you insist?), is merely a ploy to make people curious or if the art community has thrust its own intuition and symbolisms upon it.
-Roshelle
"I've been quoted a lot as saying, ' I like boring things.' Well, I said it and I meant it. But that doesn't mean I'm not bored with them. Of course, what I think is boring must not be the same as what other people think is, since I could never stand to watch all the most popular action shows on TV, because they're essentiall the same plots and the same shots and the same cuts over and over again. Apparently, most people love watching the same basic thing, as long as the details are different. (Campbell's Soup Cans) But I'm just the opposite: if I'm going to sit and watch the same thing I saw the night before, I don't want it to be essentially the same- I want it to be exactly the same. Because the more you look at the same exact thing, the more the meaning goes away, and the better and emptier you feel." (Five deaths Seventeen Times)
-Andy Warhol
After doing the research I have come to the conclusion that he was absolutely right about the mass production aspect of Andy Warhol, however, I have come to a different conclusion about it's worth. It speaks profound truths about our consumeristic, desensitized society. The Campbell's Soup Cans and the Marilyn Diptych appear to be different subject matter on the surface, but if you take a deeper look, you will come to find that celebrities, in this 'modern' era, are just as much a commodity as Campbell's Soup. "Five Deaths Seventeen Times" features a picture of a horrific car crash repeated seventeen times. This repetition could represent the overexposure and, therefore, desensitivation of our society due to mass media.
" I represent the U.S. in my art but I'm not a social critic. I just paint those objects in my paintings because those are the things I know best. I'm not trying to criticize the U.S. in any way, not trying to show up any ungliness at all. I'm just a pure artist, I guess. But I can't say I take myself seriously as an artist. I just hadn'y thought about it..."
-Andy Warhol
hmmmmm.....