I do not understand, I really do not understand Andy Warhol’s success (1928-1987). So many exhibitions and books about his works, no one work with a minimum of sensitivity, no ‘joie de vivre’. When the artist wants to give some human touch to these cold, impersonal pictures, he merely uses photomechanical tricks (some golden strokes for instance) and it turns to be much worse. One cannot help thinking these are works undertaken by a man who’s been shot. Warhol is Nosferatu, the Un-dead, hobnobbing Goya or Paul Klee, unapologetic, in every Art History book. We like the tomato soup bin however let us acknowledge that Pop-Art has always been some minor art movement; we would not have gotten any news if it hasn’t come from Anglo-Saxon culture.
Andy Warhol had bad luck. The first one who discovered the aesthetical potential of cartoons and comics, the first one who ventured to enlarge the image with a Projector Prism Artograph (opaque projector) and noticed that once enlarged everything changed. The right idea, the right moment, so easy to carry out but then, he met Leo Castelli, an art dealer, and found out that a certain Roy Lichtenstein had beaten him: ‘I do this too’. Dick Tracy by Warhol has been done prior to Look Mickey by Lichtenstein, but Roy Lichtenstein knew better how to take advantage of that idea: he was a better painter. Powerful Castelli made it clear to Warhol: there’s only room for one!