Andy Warhol would have been 80 next summer. His soup cans and Brillo boxes, Jackies and Elvises are nearly half a century old. They have lost none of their graphic force, but what about their original content? What has time done to an art based on images that were once so familiar anyone could ‘recognise them in a split second in the street’, as Warhol said, but which are now instantly recognisable only as Warhols?
Take this huge show in Edinburgh – A Celebration of Life… and Death, as it is portentously titled. There are a good many works here that can have no split-second factor at all. How many visitors under 20 will recognise the numerous pictures of Grace Jones, say, or Keith Haring or Nico? Can anyone spot the venerable Man Ray? And Del Monte’s peach halves may still be global business, but Mott’s apple juice? Did it make it over here? Who has ever heard of Eighties DJ Juan Dubose?
more from The Guardian here.