Regarding Warhol at The Met in NYC: Sixty Artists, Fifty Years
The massive, glorious Regarding Warhol exhibition, just opened at the Met in NYC and running all the way through to New Years Eve, is clearly the blockbuster museum show to beat this season. Featuring nearly 150 works–usually of the large, colorful and expensive variety–by both Andy Warhol himself (there are about 45 of these) and an all-star roster of artists whose creations were influenced by the man (more than 100 of these), all sprawling through a dozen or galleries, cleverly curated and hung to maximize epiphanies of connection with viewers, Regarding Warhol offers both an excellent survey of well-known contemporary art (there'll be a thousand class trips here, guaranteed) and is hugely entertaining, to boot.
Opening Day at the Regarding Warhol Exhibition
We went to Regarding Warhol at The Met on opening day and wandered with the hordes (expect plenty of those for the next three months) for about an hour, having a great time and taking it all in. The Andy Warhol artwork here are all of the crowd-pleasing sort–there's Big Campbell's Soup Can, 19¢ (Beef Noodle); the Brillo Soap Pad Boxes; Marilyn, Jackie, Liza, Elvis, and Mona (Lisa); the Cow Wallpaper, on and on–and the other 59 artists include such art stars as Jeff Koons, Barbara Kruger, Richard Avedon, John Baldessari, Alex Katz, Richard Prince, Gerhard Richter, Nan Goldin, Andreas Gursky, Cindy Sherman, Gilbert and George… really, pretty much everyone here is fabulously famous. But just because you may have already seen most or even all of these Warhol works before, doesn't mean they can't still pack a wallop when they're all together, live and in person.
Supporting Artists Shine at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
To take just one of many, many examples: Chuck Close's portrait of Philip Glass, a totally iconic work, you've seen it reproduced a million times, and yet, when confronted with the piece ten feet high, brilliantly lit, well… it's just awesome. Ok, here's another: the gold-leaf-plated Jeff Koons porcelain sculpture, Michael Jackson and Bubbles, which we had never witnessed in the flesh (so to speak) before, and were kind of blown away by just how insanely gaudy it is in person. You can't take your eyes off this thing. And beyond just the inherent awesomeness of much of the individual pieces in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Regarding Warhol show–Ai Weiwei's Neolithic Vase with Coca-Cola Logo! Edward Ruscha's Burning Gas Station! Karen Kilimnik's Paris Hilton as Marie Antoinette!–there's all of the great, suddenly-so-obvious connections you make as you roam through the often-themed galleries. A fun exhibition, and one that's sure to be hugely popular.
Regarding Warhol: Sixty Artists, Fifty Years at the Met Details
The Regarding Warhol exhibition will be at the Metropolitan Museum of Art through December 31. The Met is open Tuesday through Thursday, and Sunday, from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., and on Friday and Saturday from 9:30 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. The museum is located on Fifth Avenue at 82nd Street. As always, the price of admission to the Met is "suggested." For more information about Regarding Warhol, please see the Met's website, here.
Posted in NYC Events | Tagged andy warhol • Andy warhol artwork • Regarding warhol • Regarding warhol exhibition • The met • The met in nyc • The met museum nyc • The met nyc • The metropolitan museum of art
