Notable Figure

Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol, with Archie, 1973

Andy Warhol (August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American artist who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationship between artistic expression, celebrity culture and advertisement that flourished by the 1960s. After a successful career as a commercial illustrator, Warhol became a renowned and sometimes controversial artist. The Andy Warhol Museum in his native city, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, holds an extensive permanent collection of art and archives. It is the largest museum in the United States of America dedicated to a single artist.

Warhol's artwork ranged in many forms of media that include hand drawing, painting, printmaking, photography, silk screening, sculpture, film, and music. He was a pioneer in computer-generated art using Amiga computers that were introduced in 1985, just before his death in 1987. He founded Interview Magazine and was the author of numerous books, including The Philosophy of Andy Warhol and Popism: The Warhol Sixties. Andy Warhol is also notable as a gay man who lived openly as such before the gay liberation movement. His studio, The Factory, was a famous gathering place that brought together distinguished intellectuals, playwrights, Bohemian street people, Hollywood celebrities, and wealthy patrons.

Warhol has been the subject of numerous retrospective exhibitions, books, and feature and documentary films. He coined the widely used expression "15 minutes of fame". Many of his creations are very collectible and highly valuable. The highest price ever paid for a Warhol painting is US$100 million for a 1963 canvas titled Eight Elvises. The private transaction was reported in a 2009 article in The Economist, which described Warhol as the "bellwether of the art market". Warhol's works include some of the most expensive paintings ever sold.

Read the text and decide whether the critics in Russia is similar to the one in the US.

American Critics

During many intense months that Robert Hughes spent on the road filming a new eight-hour television documentary about American art called ''American Visions,'' he frequently yearned for a break from his role as both scriptwriter and host. ''He'd always say, 'Let's not bother with this, let's go fishing,' '' the program's executive producer, Nicholas Rossiter, recalled recently.

That ambition, to tell the history of art in the United States from the Spanish pueblos of the 16th century to the massive art installations so common today, is coming true in several dimensions. ''American Visions,'' the 648-page book from Alfred A. Knopf, landed in bookstores in late April. The television series makes its debut on PBS on May 28. A home video edition will soon be available, Time is publishing a special bonus ''American Visions'' issue, and what not… America's art, still considered by many to be inferior to Europe's, has never had so much attention. And not since ''The Shock of the New,'' Mr. Hughes's 1981 PBS documentary about modernism, has art captured so much television time.

Pulling off this multimedia blockbuster, four years in the making, was no easy feat. Mr. Hughes and Mr. Rossiter, who works for the British Broadcasting Corporation, were determined to avoid a dull, static museum tour. So they filmed at more than 100 locations from Maine to Malibu – without the Hollywood conveniences. ''Whenever I'd see movie crews in SoHo, with their mobile toilets and makeup vans, I'd get jealous,'' Mr. Hughes recounted. ''Our makeup van was carried by a production assistant in her handbag. And when I was dripping in sweat, someone would produce a ratty package of Kleenex.''

The sheer volume of work was a bigger strain, threatening Mr. Hughes's marriage and sending him to a psychiatrist for the first time. ''After finishing the series about a year ago, I had severe depression,'' he said. He blamed overwork, a crisis of confidence and postpartum blues.

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The history of American art criticism from the Armory Show through the end years of the Depression charts a diversity and continuity of attitudes toward art. Published in newspapers, general periodicals, and art magazines, art criticism has been written by professional critics, art historians, artists, collectors, and writers specializing in fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. Essentially these critics wrote in response to single and group exhibitions in varying degrees of depth. Specific paintings are barely discussed. Similarly, developed theoretical essays are rare. Issues are stated, left undeveloped, and continue to be controversial.

The major issues that American art critics debate during this period relate to both the particulars of America and universal ideas about art and culture. These include: 1. academicism vs. modernism 2. representation vs. abstraction 3. a socially useful art vs. art for art's sake 4. a national American art vs. internationalism in art.

Moreover, critics are uneven in their treatment of artists and exhibitions. For example, conservatives are enthusiasts of traditional art and write infrequently and cursorily about modern art. On the other hand, modernists expound on the significance of modern art and hardly comment on traditional academic art. As reporters and makers of taste, critics tend to spend the best of their energies on what satisfies their own taste. As such, it makes sense to examine the history of American art criticism in terms of its major contributors. This approach respects the integrity of each critics ideas, using entire and varied contribution as the basis for interpretation. In this dissertation the writing of representative critics for each decade are analyzed in depth. Each has been chosen for his relatively moderate viewpoint and writing on the widest range of topic within his representative category. Their writing is synthesized and related to sources and parallels in art and cultural history. It is interpreted as an individual's contribution as well as a reflection of the on going variety of general ideas.