Art in its Time: Theories and Practices of Modern Aesthetics

THE PHILOSOPHY OF ANDY WARHOL
The sign, that is, has been materialized in—or on—a new object. It is the recognizability
of the sign, especially when displayed on an object more similar to
the original carrier of the sign than, say, the soup can paintings are to actual
cans, that allowed Danto to think of the artwork and the original as indiscernible
and the difference between them as therefore problematic. But the point of the
Brillo boxes, it seems to me, is not so much the difference as the more than
visual similarity between the two, which the differences set off.
Warhol’s boxes, knocked off in large numbers, unlike traditional trompe l’oeil
representations of common objects make no claim to the transfiguration of the
commonplace by artistic skill or vision. This is in part because Warhol does not
scorn the so-called commonplace. After all, he had been himself a successful
commercial designer. His reaction when his friend Emile de Antonio explained
to him that his career as a prominent, prizewinning commercial artist was one
reason Johns and Robert Rauschenberg withheld the approval and friendship
Warhol dearly desired is interesting in this regard: “If you wanted to be considered
a ‘serious’ artist,” Warhol said, “you weren’t supposed to have anything to
do with commercial art. De [Antonio] was the only person I knew then who
could see past those old social distinctions to the art itself.” 13 Those social distinctions
continued to have the power for Warhol himself that they had for
others. This is, after all, part of why he was so set on becoming a fine artist, and
why he abandoned commercial art—at least officially—as soon as he succeeded
in making this transition. But at the same time his work emphasizes the similarities
that coexist with the social differences.
For one thing, the sameness of the sign shared by soap pad carton and artwork
draws attention to the fact that the original was already a product of the
designer’s craft (in fact, that of a designer who was himself a “fine” artist). In a
1963 interview Warhol observed, “It’s so funny” that “the shoe I would draw for
an advertisement was called a ‘creation’ but the drawing of it was not. But I
guess I believe in both ways.” 14 Further comparing his commercial work to his
fine-art activity, he said, “I’d have to invent and now I don’t . . . those commercial
drawings would have feelings, they would have a style.” 15
Of course, Warhol’s fine-art use of commercial design had style, too (something
in only apparent contradiction to his desire, expressed in the same
interview, to be a machine). Here a comment of Roy Lichtenstein’s on comic
strips is of great interest:
This technique is a perfect example of an industrial process that
developed as a direct result of the need for inexpensive and quick color-
13 Andy Warhol and Pat Hackett, POPism: The Warhol ’60s (New York, 1980), p. 12.
14 Gene Swenson, “What Is Pop Art?” in Mahsun, Pop Art , p. 119.
15 Ibid., p. 120.
138