The Frist Center for the Visual Arts, 919 Broadway, will open a new exhibit, Warhol Live: Music and Dance in Andy Warhol’s Work, on Friday.
It will remain on display until Sept. 11.
“Warhol’s view of the world and the art he created left indelible marks on our culture,” said Frist Center Chief Curator Mark Scala.
“His genius was to challenge the art world’s sacred cows — originality, the painter’s touch, the belief in art as psychological revelation — which he believed were irrelevant in postwar America, an era defined by materialism and the mass production of consumer goods, an obsession with celebrity and a burgeoning understanding of the impact of mass media.”
The exhibit, organized by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in partnership with the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, features more than 220 works and objects, including paintings, silkscreen prints, photographs, works on paper, installations, films, videos and album covers, as well as objects and documents from Warhol’s personal archives.
It is organized to flow forward through Warhol’s life and career, centering on 10 major sections: Hollywood; Classical Taste; Andy’s Jukebox; Warhol and the Avant-Garde; The Silver Factory, 1964–1968; Producer: Andy Warhol and the Velvet Underground; Exploding Plastic Inevitable; Fame; Ladies and Gentlemen, Mick Jagger!; and Warhol Nightclubber.
“While his innovative responses to the culture are well known, what is so fascinating is the ‘illustrated sound-track’ that accompanies every dimension of Warhol’s work,” Scala said.
“He found inspiration in movie music, opera and ballet; the avant-garde compositions of John Cage and dances of Merce Cunningham; the proto-punk of the Velvet Underground, the rock of the Rolling Stones and the disco scene of the 1970s and 1980s.”
An early highlight in the Warhol exhibit is a selection of album covers the artist designed between 1949 and his death in 1987.
Along with Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, the covers include the music of Count Basie, Artie Shaw, Aretha Franklin, Diana Ross, the Velvet Underground, Blondie and the Rolling Stones, all on loan from Montreal collector Paul Marechal.
Other artwork includes paintings and prints of musical giants such as Elvis Presley, Liza Minelli, Mick Jagger, Aretha Franklin, Michael Jackson and the artist himself.
Guests can view works from the Campbell’s Soup Can and Disaster series along with a collection of minimalist films and walk through a room filled with silver Mylar balloons.
Guests can interact
Along with the exhibit, the Frist is offering several educational programs for visitors including:
A free curator’s conversation at noon on Friday in the auditorium. The event will feature Stephane Aquin, curator of contemporary art at the Musee des beaux-arts de Montreal, and Matt Wrbican, an archivist at the Andy Warhol Museum. Both will offer insights into the exhibit and the artist.
A printing-by-hand workshop at 6 p.m. on July 7. Cost is $25 for members and $40 for nonmembers and includes all supplies and gallery admission. Attendees will learn printmaking, a process that has been around for centuries, from Frist Center educators Stefanie Gerber Darr and Andrea Steele. They will leave with at least one print and the stencils they create during the beginner-level class. Advance registration is required. Call the Frist Center at 615-744-3342 to register.