Warhol’s influence gets focus at Met Museum

NEW YORK (AFP) ― Andy Warhol wasn’t just prolific himself, but inspired the whole field of contemporary art, and now an exhibit opening at New York’s Met traces that influence across half a century.

“Regarding Warhol: Sixty Artists, Fifty Years” opens Wednesday until the end of the year and is being presented by the Metropolitan Museum of Art as the first to examine the king of Pop Art’s wide-ranging legacy.

“Warhol’s work has challenged, inspired, amused, enraged and provoked hundreds of other reactions from artists,” Thomas Campbell, the Met’s director, told reporters at a preview.

About 45 works by Warhol, who died in 1987, are being shown alongside 100 works by 60 other artists from different countries in five thematic sections.

Together they juxtapose Warhol’s paintings, sculptures and films alongside a myriad of responses or reinterpretations.

“There are many conversations going on in the galleries,” Marla Prather, the curator, said. She described the selection of the works as “enormous and complicated.”

The themes include “Daily News: From banality to disaster,” which explores Warhol’s fascination with advertising and news reporting of tragedies, and sees him paired with the likes of Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst.

“Queer Studies: Shifting Identities” sees Warhol paired with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, while “Portraiture: Celebrity and Power” pairs him with contemporary artists including Elizabeth Peyton and Cindy Sherman.

The exhibition had originally been created for the Detroit Institute of Art, but the museum was unable to host the show and it was moved to the Met.