140320 – Just Snapshots – Warhol, Tate Modern, London > words
A camera is a powerful tool, it captures a still in an instant and immortalises for an eternity. The camera is incessant, rolls of film, hundreds of Polaroids, images created in each micro second, in sequence, to record the day. Many of these images are abandoned, rejected, nothing but a passing fragment of time, a micro moment, a twitch, an expression, where the artist selects which image will be eternal, which image will become history, the image of relevance. In framing history one selects the subject of relevance, this may be the irrelevant that is then lifted to the status of the historically relevant. The Soup Can, the Brillo Box, the Coca-Cola Bottle, all commercial celebrities, popular and accessible. All recognisable, pre-loaded with their own popular democratic fame. ‘Lifted’ onto a plinth or into a frame, elevated to the gallery, the auction house, immortalised in our history books but all of these images, are no more than, Just Snapshots
Images – Just Snapshots of Snapshots
1. Warhol, Marilyn Monroe, 1967
2. Warhol, Liz Taylor, 1963
3. Warhol, Debbie Harry, 1980
4. Warhol, Mao Tse-Tung, 1972
5. Warhol, Marlon Brando, 1966
6. Warhol, 13 Most Wanted Men, 1964
7. Warhol, Andy Warhol, 1986