Andy Warhol: 15 min/24fps at CSULB University Art Museum

Margaret Hamilton

The Andy Warhol Foundation has divvied up twenty-eight million dollars worth of Andy Warhol’s Polaroids and black and white prints, and donated them to 183 university art museums. Among the recipients is CSULB’s University Art Museum, which has a selection of Polaroids used to make his iconic silk screens and portraits on view through December 14.

Helium Tanks for Silver Clouds

In an adjacent room, Warhol’s helium-filled Mylar pillows are installed for the full factory effect. On my visit, the show was still being installed.

Divine Warhol

Like seeing Warhol’s Factory pickled in formaldehyde, the show includes Warhol’s working images of Margaret Hamilton (AKA The Wicked Witch of the West), O.J. Simpson and others, along with the resulting silkscreens and paintings.

Raw Materials

Back when I was in high school, O. J. Simpson was the most admired American in a poll of school children. It gives one pause to think how fortunes can change for celebrities and the memorabilia that surrounds them.

Finished Product

As Meg Cranston pointed out with her piles of library books, her 3-D bar graph of books is higher (and lasts longer) for esoteric literary types than it does for celebrities. Monographs for artists collect in libraries and are easily accessible, but hours and hours of courtroom footage and news commentary disappears into the ether. While Warhol's portrait of Marilyn is more iconic than anything written about the actress, some of the wealthy that commissioned Warhol portraits in the 70's and 80's have already been consigned to the dust heap of "Unidentified Blond Woman."

Warhol tied his fame to two different horses, and in a a couple of decades, the slippage is already profound: Ars Longa, Celebrity Brevis.

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