Andy Warhol: Catholicism, Work, Faith And Legacy

My latest piece for ArtWay was originally published by Artlyst and is about Andy Warhol and the Catholic faith as explored in exhibitions at the Andy Warhol Museum, Tate Modern and the National Gallery:

'As Eugene McCarraher has explained, in The Enchantments of Mammon, ‘Warhol incorporated the formal aspects of Byzantine iconography into Pop Art.’ His ‘Campbell’s Soup cans and Coca-Cola bottles – mass-produced objects with no personal signature – recalled the anonymity and deliberate repetitiveness of Byzantine iconographers.’ ‘Warhol explained, “Pop Art is a way of liking things,” a celebration of those “great modern things” that comprise the humble matter of everyday life – a realm where, in Orthodox tradition, the divine always manifests itself sacramentally.’

The critics at the time failed to understand this aspect of Warhol’s work but it was clearly apparent to Sister Corita Kent on a visit in 1962 to the Ferus Gallery in LA to see Warhol’s breakthrough exhibition of Campbell’s Soup Cans. ‘Coming home,’ she said, ‘you saw everything like Andy Warhol.’ Kent found inspiration in signs and advertising for vibrant screen printed banners and posters that provided an opportunity to show the sacred in the most mundane.'

My visual meditations for ArtWay include work by María Inés Aguirre, Giampaolo Babetto, Marian Bohusz-Szyszko, Alexander de Cadenet, Christopher Clack, Marlene Dumas, Terry Ffyffe, Antoni Gaudi, Nicola Green, Maciej Hoffman, Giacomo Manzù, Michael Pendry, Maurice Novarina, Regan O'Callaghan, Ana Maria Pacheco, John Piper, Albert Servaes, Henry Shelton and Anna Sikorska.

My Church of the Month reports include: Aylesford Priory, Canterbury Cathedral, Chapel of St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, Hem, Chelmsford Cathedral, Churches in Little Walsingham, Coventry Cathedral, Église de Saint-Paul à Grange-Canal, Eton College Chapel, Lumen, Metz Cathedral, Notre Dame du Léman, Notre-Dame de Toute Grâce, Plateau d’Assy,Romont, Sint Martinuskerk Latem, St Aidan of Lindisfarne, St Alban Romford, St. Andrew Bobola Polish RC Church, St. Margaret’s Church, Ditchling, and Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, St Mary the Virgin, Downe, and St Paul Goodmayes, as well as earlier reports of visits to sites associated with Marian Bohusz-Szyszko, Marc Chagall, Jean Cocteau, Antoni Gaudi and Henri Matisse.

Other of writings for ArtWay can be found here. My pieces for Church Times can be found here. Those for Artlyst are here and those for Art+Christianity are here.

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The Velvet Underground - Jesus.