"I like boring things" Andy Warhol @ GoMA

(He's not boring, It's my favourite Warhol quote...)

Spent rather a lot of today at the Warhol exhibition @ GoMA (Gallery of Modern Art). $20 entry fee to the Warhol but it was worth every cent.

The first part of the exhibition was from the 1950s & 1960s. There were some eg's of Warhol's time as a commercial artist and some stuff that 'hinted' at the stylist he was to become.

The beginnings of his Pop Art came next. There were his money prints, boxes, and of course the Campbell Soup Cans.

Warhol’s portraits (my favourites were the screen prints) and images of popular icons of the time are on display, showing his distinct style of vividly coloured backgrounds, and screen printed images in a range of colours.

Many of the commissioned portraits came from sessions in New York photo booths with his subjects taken in a variety of poses and also just talking or laughing.

Many of the photos used for the portraits in the first room of the exhibition were on show in the second room.

Many of the subjects are as interesting as the portraits themselves, with Warhol choosing images of people and things that were popular at the time – Elizabeth Taylor, Mick Jagger(signed by Mick), Marlon Brando, Mao Zedong, images of the hammer & sickle to name just a few.

In between the two main exhibition rooms there was a loung area (beautiful view across the river to the city) where there were strategically placed lounges and coffe tables with Warhol books that you could browse through.

Thisa broke the exhibition up nicely as alongside the lounge was the a/v area with half a dozen tv screens showing Warhol tv shows, interviews, films etc.

There were also a couple of photo booths so that you could try to recreate the Warhol magic yourself.

Then there was a wall of Warhol's photos and portraits, some of which were just stunning and we had a lot of fun trying to guess the fampous person before checking the legend/key at the end of the secion.

The pictures of Marilyn Monroe,were displayed here and there was also a potentially disturbing series called Death in America which also had silk screens of electric chairs, funerals and car crashes.

There was also an extensive piece showing the news and images of John Kennedy’s assassination, funeral, and Lee Harvey Oswald’s shooting by the police.

Also on display was a montage of covers from Warhol's Interview magazine.

There was a lot to takew in so we got our hands stamped and wandered around Brisbane for a while before going back to GoMA to continue viewing the exhibition (really we went and saw it again - starting at the end so as to see it through fresh eyes.)

Absolutely brilliant.

I now have to read at least one biog of Warhol to fill in the (large) gaps in my knowledge...