nearly 30 years ago, i rejected outright the mere suggestion that warhol would be mentioned in the same breath as jackson pollock as a major figure in art. i remember arguing w/jerry houston at new college & simply laughing at his assertion that the two of them, pollock & warhol, would divide the art world into their devoted followers. hey, i was a lit major, what the hell did i know? i DO know now that i was wrong. completely.
whether you like it or not, andy is still very much w/us as we approach the end of the first decade of the new millenium. pollock, not so much. if you forget the "pop art" label & seriously consider what this strange little man was up to, you can see very clearly where art went in the late 20th century &, for the most part, where it still seems to want to go in the new millenium. was warhol a continuation of the duchampian stream of anti-aesthetics? maybe.
however, i suspect that hal foster is right & that the "pop art" label was mis-applied to warhol & that his deeper impulses were towards trauma & the abject & the obscene, which is where we've been the last two decades.
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