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拍品专文
Andy Warhol’s Joseph Beuys (1980) is both a touching tribute and one of the last great portraits of his storied career. The king of Pop Art immortalises fellow artist Joseph Beuys in his iconic felt trilby and fishing gilet. Using a silkscreen derived from his own Polaroid photograph, Warhol depicts Beuys as he might be imagined by a passionate fan. He glamourises his peer, removing some of the wear of age. The German gazes towards the viewer with intelligent, empathetic eyes, in this version coloured in a vivid cerulean blue. Beuys’ face is a smooth, glowing pink, and his hat and waistcoat shimmer in black against the soft burgundy background. He becomes, like Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley and Liz Taylor before him, a Warhol celebrity. This work was acquired by its present owner in 1982, two years after the series was first exhibited at the trailblazing Galleria Lucio Amelio in Naples. An iteration with the same colour-scheme is shared by the collections of the Tate and the National Galleries of Scotland.
Arguably the most influential artists of their age, at first sight Warhol and Beuys might seem to represent polar opposites of artistic production. Warhol created sleek odes to pop culture and consumerism, a glitzy, materialistic realm of surface. Beuys, meanwhile, was an activist and an environmentalist who posited art as a vehicle for social transformation. Yet they had much in common. Both were engaged with myths: Warhol extolled the myth-making power of fame, while Beuys repeatedly revisited the embellished story of his wartime rescue from a plane crash by Tatar tribespeople and promoted the idea of the artist as shaman. They both wore a sort of uniform, consciously turning themselves into larger-than-life characters, and they each attracted their own cults of devotees.
The connection between the two began in 1978, when Warhol created a poster for Beuys’ Green Party. The next May the two artists met for the first time at Galerie Hans Meyer in Düsseldorf. ‘The two cult figures hannd much in common’, writes David Galloway, ‘as they both instantly recognised; the American with the silver wig and the German with the silver plate in his skull shared, indeed, deep-seated philosophical affinities’ (‘Beuys and Warhol: Aftershocks,’ Art in America, July 1988, p. 120). Although they never became close friends they maintained a mutual respect for the rest of their lives. The present portrait is a testament to this improbable international alliance.
Arguably the most influential artists of their age, at first sight Warhol and Beuys might seem to represent polar opposites of artistic production. Warhol created sleek odes to pop culture and consumerism, a glitzy, materialistic realm of surface. Beuys, meanwhile, was an activist and an environmentalist who posited art as a vehicle for social transformation. Yet they had much in common. Both were engaged with myths: Warhol extolled the myth-making power of fame, while Beuys repeatedly revisited the embellished story of his wartime rescue from a plane crash by Tatar tribespeople and promoted the idea of the artist as shaman. They both wore a sort of uniform, consciously turning themselves into larger-than-life characters, and they each attracted their own cults of devotees.
The connection between the two began in 1978, when Warhol created a poster for Beuys’ Green Party. The next May the two artists met for the first time at Galerie Hans Meyer in Düsseldorf. ‘The two cult figures hannd much in common’, writes David Galloway, ‘as they both instantly recognised; the American with the silver wig and the German with the silver plate in his skull shared, indeed, deep-seated philosophical affinities’ (‘Beuys and Warhol: Aftershocks,’ Art in America, July 1988, p. 120). Although they never became close friends they maintained a mutual respect for the rest of their lives. The present portrait is a testament to this improbable international alliance.