'Seeing Double' shows Warhol's influence moving into future
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Recent work by Rob Pruitt is part of an installation on the fifth floor in "Seeing Double" at The Andy Warhol Museum.
Click photo for larger image.
It seems hardly possible that The Andy Warhol Museum has been up and running a mere 10 years. In that decade, the North Shore organization has established itself as an essential presence in Pittsburgh's cultural and social worlds and as easily the most provocative institution of its kind here.
Concluding a series of exhibitions and events organized to mark the 10th anniversary, the current show, "Seeing Double: Encounters with Warhol," singles out a number of traits basic to the artist and his work and then matches them to personalities he admired (and perhaps imitated) and to younger contemporary artists (young enough not to have known Warhol) who claim some affinity with the older master's work. The mix is enriched by the inclusion of creations by a group of CMU students working at least for the moment under the guidance (spell?) of the school's famous alumnus.
It is a complex show in which the elaborate network of artistic cause and effect is never a simple one-to-one relationship. The museum boldly uses the word "influences," a term that I thought had fallen into disrepute through gross overuse by art historians. Yet it is certainly just the right word to describe the connections traced in the show's conception and organization.
The list of Warhol's saints/sources runs the gamut from Truman Capote to the Virgin Mary by way of such personalities as Diana Vreeland and John Singer Sargent. Each of these inspirations is represented in a large, collage-like installation facing the elevator lobby on each floor. These were designed by Steve O'Hearn of Squonk Opera, who has been doing some exhibition and gallery designing for the museum. These constructions reach outrageous levels of cleverness and wit and now and again threaten to capsize the boat. In addition to orienting us, somewhat, in the show's points of view, these frontispieces also serve as reminders of Andy's early career as a display designer.
First Published April 16, 2005 12:00 am
