Andy Warhol Modernism Analysis

Modernism was introduced to western society as a new way to visualize the world in a simple and innovative way. According to Nigel Wheale, “modernity is defined as the social condition brought about by the development of the Western world’s characteristic economic formation” (Wheale 10). This development occurred after the end of the first World War when people were ready for change as poverty was rapidly increasing and new cost effective ways to design were needed. Modernism was the solution to a social problem of poor design, creating visually appealing but also simplified and minimalistic design. Its goal was not to be a new style, rather a revolutionary idea that changed the arts, design, architecture, literature, film, and many more creative …show more content…
This postmodern art makes the viewer question what they are looking at making them think about how this is art. Andy was one of the first people to create postmodern art as he showed the world a new way art could be expressed. In The Philosophy of Andy Warhol, he states “I think, people forgot what emotions were supposed to be” (Warhol 27), and he wanted to change that. He used mundane objects like his famous Campbell’s soup can and can make it into art and evoke emotion and questions from it. It is through surrealism Warhol is able to capture the viewers attention with his abstract and creative ways of showing something that is already overused. Warhol states in his book, POPism, “When you do something exactly wrong, you always turn up something” (Warhol 289). This is seen through his work from a standard soup can everybody has at home to a celebrity people always know and hear about, he is able to engage the viewer because of his unique postmodern style, as he wanted a reaction, despite it being good or bad. During the time of its creation, the industrial revolution had begun and it seems like this was Andy’s way of showing the world this is the new world we live in, and to appreciate this new form of art in this new age. In one of our readings titled “No More Rules”, Pagner helps the reader understand the contrast of postmodernism as “this could entail the juxtaposition of old and new, or the witty inversion of the old” (Pagner 19). Warhol grasped this concept did this by taking a well known historical face and exploiting it into a piece of art. This is evident in his use of colourful pop art celebrity photographs, such as the iconic Marilyn Monroe and Michael Jackson, who have both passed away but are still idolized and loved as a result of of his work. Because he uses repetition and he created art from things that already existed, he defined the postmodernist movement