marilyn and elvis and jackie o, oh my...

yesterday, andrew and i, being the good pittsburghers that we are, paid a visit to the warhol museum. i must confess, i'm not a huge fan of andy warhol's work, but i cannot deny his importance as a pop culture icon.

and, the velvet underground were my first favorite band. so i do owe mr. warhol a big thanks for that ons.

the current special exhibition at the warhol is called "John Waters: Change of Life". here's the description from the website:

As he has moved from the avant-garde margin to mainstream culture, John Waters has been a powerful, influential iconic figure in popular culture. Organized by Lisa Phillips and Marvin Heiferman for The New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York City, Change of Life zeroes in on the cinematic mind of John Waters particularly focusing on the early works, both cinematic and still photography that became a basis for his entire career. Waters' longevity as a cultural figure is based in his unique ability to tap into our most private attractions to the erotic, perverse, sleazy, and tasteless and harness them to the fictional and conceptual devices that drive both popular entertainment and art. The show will contain 76 photographic works along with five sculptural installations as well as the first showing of his early extraordinary underground films.

i liked the six floors of warhol's work at the museum, but i LOVED the john waters exhibition! it's simultaneously hysterical, grotesque, irreverent, provocative, clever, and timely. it's what you want (or maybe what i want) from contemporary art -- the show has the ability to take itself seriously and be "artistic" without having that annoying air of tortured-soul, misunderstood-artisan that spoils so many university MFA/BFA shows.

oh no, there goes my snobbery again...

i just want things to be authentic. i like to see worlds that blend creativity and originality with honesty. i know you can't completely divorce the audience from the artwork, but the work i enjoy most is the kind that enables me to feel less like a viewer and more like a voyeur, like the piece/object/song/poem/prose was created _only_ for the artist, as something that s/he needed to get off of her/his chest, and my experience of it is merely incidental.

eh, what do i know? i'm just a silly lawyer-in-training from a small town in mississippi.

the point, though, is that anyone reading this who is in the pittsburgh area should get thee to the warhol museum to check out the john waters exhibition. run -- do not walk! the exhibition is only around until september 4th.