Andy Warhol Challenge: the finalists!
After much consideration we can finally announce the five finalists of the Andy Warhol Challenge. Their work will be showcased in the Andy Warhol Museum on the opening night of RAPID 2013 in Pittsburgh. Murray Moss gives his comments on every entry.
Speaking into the microphone by Luigi Vaghi:
Murray Moss: “This is an interesting take on another artist’s iconic work: Renato Bertelli‘s 1933 ‘continuous profile’, in ceramic, of the infamous Benito Mussolini.”
“The artist here creates a ‘continuous profile’ – this time, that of the infamous Andy Warhol. But in this case, registering the name ‘Andy Warhol’ with a microphone in a computer, a curve was created which was isolated and then used to generate the 3D printed model. Different people speaking the same two words, ‘Andy Warhol’, would create different curves, and therefore unique, one-of-a-kind ‘profiles’.”
“I like the fact that this process infuses a ‘portrait’ of Warhol with the characteristics of each individual maker, in the same (ancient) manner in which each artist throughout history who painted a famous person or sculpted a famous person, did so through their own ‘filter’, their own ‘hand’ – each depiction of Napolean or Washington is different . ”
Tomato Paint soup by Emanuele Niri:
Moss: “This artist writes: ‘Having always been interested in sculpting fluids, I am also fascinated by the power of 3D printing technology, as in the unique ability to freeze the geometry of a dynamic instant in the same way as Pop art is distinctively delivering a message.’
Warhol’s use of mass commercialization of food products as a subject for art has indeed since then exploded, as this work metaphorically expresses; the potential power of a mass brand knows no boundaries and can no longer be ‘contained’.”
Double Elvis by Dominik Raskin:
Moss: “Playing with Warhol’s obsession with fame, this work imposes a modern sensibility to this classic Pop Art icon, applying today’s fashionable ‘reductive’ approach to art and design and thereby stripping the figure of Elvis of his more recognizable and distinguishing features. This famous ‘Elvis’, rendered today, could represent anybody brandishing a gun (or in this case, a banana – a concession to today’s political correctness, even still in art).”
Cowbox by Thomas Cornelis:
Moss: This artist writes: ‘3D printing is something that Andy would have loved. In his factory years he mass produced artworks using his famous silkscreen technique. He tried to eliminate the artist’s ‘craftsmanship’ and ‘personality’ during the process. I can imagine Warhol’s Factory, today, packed with 3-D printers, printing his objects.”
Trash can by Cathrien Orie:
Moss: “This artist proposes that, like the Campbell soup can of 1962 or the Brillo Box of 1963, today’s most celebrated, ubiquitous, mass-produced consumer object might very well be the trash can, born of our waste and overproduction. Composed of 3 elemental shapes: the base, the can, and the lid. If one introduces the possibility of 3 colors in 3D printing this object, it becomes possible to make 27 ‘different’ yet ‘mass’ items.”
