The first U.S. museum survey exhibition to explore the work that Andy Warhol produced during his final years begins its national tour at the Milwaukee Art Museum September 26, 2009–January 3, 2010. Andy Warhol: The Last Decade reveals a mature artist in full command of his complex repertoire, mixing forms and media with audacious fluency. Created amidst the bustle of Warhol’s Pop celebrity, the works on view illustrate as never before the artist’s vitality, energy, and renewed spirit of experimentation.
Milwaukee Art Museum. Photo: Timothy Hursley
Warhol created more new series of paintings in the last decade of his life, in larger numbers and on a vastly larger scale, than during any other phase of his 40-year career. But far from a period of “Factory” production, it was a time of extraordinary artistic development for Warhol, during which a dramatic transformation of his style took place alongside the introduction of new techniques. The artist confidently utilized and combined hand painting, mechanical reproduction, representation, and abstraction. Collaborations with Jean-Michel Basquiat, Francesco Clemente, and Keith Haring were central to his pursuit of new ideas, and stimulated the artist to return to painting by hand.
The exhibition includes nearly 50 works lent by private collectors and institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Baltimore Museum of Art; and Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh. Along with an introduction to Warhol’s oeuvre, it is divided into thematic sections based on significant Warhol series: abstract works, collaborations (featuring Jean-Michel Basquiat and Francesco Clemente), black-and-white ads, works surrounding death and religion, self-portraits, camouflage patterns, and a concluding section of the artist’s Last Supper series—the largest series that he produced in his entire career. Several large-scale works 25 to 35 feet in width punctuate the exhibition. In 1984, Warhol purchased a new studio building where he had the luxury of an expansive space in which to work. The paintings created there mushroomed in size to monumental proportions.
Andy Warhol: The Last Decade is organized by the Milwaukee Art Museum and guest curated by Joseph D. Ketner II, Lois and Henry Foster Chair in Contemporary Art, Emerson College, Boston. The exhibition is coordinated at the Milwaukee Art Museum by John McKinnon, assistant curator of modern and contemporary art.
EXHIBITION SPONSORS
Andy Warhol: The Last Decade is generously sponsored by Sue and Bud Selig, Debbie and Mark Attanasio, Donald and Donna Baumgartner, Christine Symchych, the Milwaukee Art Museum’s Friends of Art, and an anonymous foundation. The exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and Humanities. A film program in conjunction with this exhibition is sponsored by the Johnson and Pabst LGBT Fund at the Greater Milwaukee Foundation.
EXHIBITION ITINERARY
Milwaukee Art Museum (September 26, 2009–January 3, 2010)
Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (February 14–May 16, 2010)
Brooklyn Museum (June 18–September 12, 2010)
Baltimore Museum of Art (October 17, 2010–January 9, 2011)
ABOUT THE MUSEUM
The Milwaukee Art Museum’s far-reaching holdings include more than 20,000 works spanning antiquity to the present day. With a history dating back to 1888, the Museum houses a Collection with strengths in 19th- and 20th-century American and European art, contemporary art, American decorative arts, and folk and self-taught art. The Museum includes the Santiago Calatrava-designed Quadracci Pavilion, named by Time magazine “Best Design of 2001.”
www.mam.org
