Andy Warhol

What does one do with Andy Warhol, aka Andy Warhola, aka Andy Varchola? Such a talent! Such a life! Such a perversion!! This past weekend my wife and I visited the Andy Warhol Museum, operated by the Carnegie Museums, on Pittsburgh’s north shore. It took us about 2 ½ hours to get through the thing, and mostly wife told me to get that look off my face.

Let’s start with the facility itself. Costs $15.00 per person to get in (not worth it) unless you are over 55 making the cost $9.00 (worth it) or a member of the Carnegie Museums…free and worth it!! It is in the old Volkwein’s Music Publishing Building on the north shore. There is a parking lot cattycorner with a $6.00 fee unless there is a sporting event at either the baseball or football stadiums about 3 blocks away, then the fee goes to $12.00.

The museum occupies the top four stories of the seven story building, with offices and restoration facilities occupying the bottom three floors. Elevators are available to get you the top. There is “café” snack bar in the basement.

The interior is a minimalist industrial design with lots of steel and other metals. There is no sound absorption anywhere, which makes the place relatively noisy, especially because of the nature of the exhibits which have a soundtrack or other noises associated with them. You will hear some interesting music, reflecting both the likes and dislikes of Mr. Warhol.

For those of you who were children of the 1960’s, you will love this place. It is a trek down memory lane with iconic memorabilia everywhere. The Campbell Soup can is there, along with the S&H Green Stamps, the Heinz Ketchup boxes, and the Marilyn Monroe/Judy Garland pictures. For you underground movie fans, there is the Empire State Building movie and the love making movie and the Rolling Stones in drag movie. What rapture! What joy! Makes me want to get out my pookah beads and sing Hare Krishna!

The art and creative works of Andy Warhol speak for themselves. He was a talented guy, and it shows in his exquisite creativity across a broad genre of art, music, theater, and movies. A word of warning; this is no place for kids. While nudity and works reflecting "out of the norm" sexual behavior are not predominate, they are still there in all of their glory….some of it not so nice!

At the end of the day, Andy Warhol was a sick twist. Looking at his high school pictures, one wonders how such a nice looking high school kid from the ethnic neighborhoods of a gritty steel town, the son of Slovakian immigrants, became the ultimate representative of the alternative lifestyle movement from the 1950’s through his death in 1987. I understand that artists tend to be different, and their lives are a reflection of their art. Creativity is creativity.

But Andy Warhol was more. He epitomized a lifestyle that many people bought hook, line and sinker. While putting on an anti-establishment aura, he made millions upon millions of dollars in very mainstream investments like Montauk real estate on Long Island. He attended the best clubs and hung out with the most beautiful people. He attended the opera. He ate in the best restaurants. Good for him. This is America.

But what about the people who bought what he was selling, and I don’t mean his posters. What happened to all of those kids who tuned out and turned on in a drug culture that cost countless numbers of lives both in death or just simply wasted? What about those folks whose lives were robbed by what he was pandering as the way we should live? Of course, this could be said of any celebrity. But Warhol was different. More than any other person or group of his era, he represented in all mediums a different, perverted, view of life wrapped in an aura of respectability. He took advantage of every opportunity our country and economic system had to offer, and dissed it in his work. That bothers me a lot, talent notwithstanding.

Both in death and in life, Andy Warhol exhibited charity and generosity to numerous causes, and the bulk of his vast wealth was left to foster creativity and the arts. For that, his live is worth looking at. I am not so sure it is worth celebrating. But that’s just me!!! I think I will just keep that look on my face that my wife hates.