Andy Warhol, the genius of pop art, in Istanbul

ISTANBUL

Istanbul’s Uniq EXPO will bring the original works by Andy Warhol, the leading name in pop art, to Istanbul in an exhibition between Nov. 7 and March 29, 2020.

Curated by Begüm Alkoçlar, the exhibition will feature 90 original works by the artist such as the famous ones depicting Marilyn Monroe, Campbell Soup and Flowers, with the motto # SagolWarhol (Thanks Warhol).

The exhibition, which is a homage to Pop Art, will present a giant 1,500-square-meter Pop Art arena in Istanbul’s Maslak neighborhood. Pop Art pioneers Keith Haring, Roy Lichtenstein, James Rosenquist and Robert Indiana’s 40 original works will also be exhibited for the first time in Turkey.

The show will also feature Turkish Pop Art representatives under the coordination of the young artist incubation platform McArt.ist.

With the mission “Let everyone touch the art,” the exhibition will introduce Pop Art and Andy Warhol in all its aspects and present an interactive experience with various workshops and art talks.

The exhibition will be open to everyone, as children will explore Warhol’s colorful Pop Art world and the consumption frenzy of the 1950s, they will also meet the fun and entertaining side of art.

They will expand their imagination in Roy Lichtenstein’s Van Gogh room, have fun with New York street artist Keith Haring’s graffiti and dance in the ’60s discotheque.

In a statement, Mert Öncü, general manager of Odeabank, the main sponsor of the exhibition, said, “We will continue to increase our support for exhibitions that have created a place in the memories of art enthusiasts and create the opportunity to share works by giant artists such as Andy Warhol.”

Also, social media enthusiasts were not forgotten at the exhibition. Visitors will be able to take original photographs and share them in specially designed decors.

Tickets to the Andy Warhol exhibition where visitors will explore Pop Art with a free audio guide are at Biletix.

Andy Warhol

American artist Andy Warhol was born Andrew Warhola in 1928 in Pittsburgh. He was the leading exponent of the Pop Art movement of the 1960s and later became a cultural icon.

Warhol began painting in the late 1950s and received sudden notoriety in 1962, when he exhibited paintings of Campbell’s soup cans, Coca-Cola bottles and wooden replicas of Brillo soap pad boxes.

In 1963, he began mass-producing images of consumer goods and celebrities like Marilyn Monroe and Jackie Kennedy. These prints, accomplished through his use of a silk-screen technique, displayed multiple versions of the same image in garish colors and became his trademark and he attracted dozens of followers.

In the mid-1960s, Warhol began making experimental films. He also organized multimedia events such as “The Exploding Plastic Inevitable” and sponsored the influential rock group the Velvet Underground.

He became a fixture on the fashion and jet-set social scenes and was famous for pithy cultural observations like, “In the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes.” Meanwhile, he continued to produce commercially successful silk-screen prints of entertainment and political figures.
In the 1980s, after a period of relative quiet in his career, he returned to the contemporary art scene as a mentor and friend to a new generation of artists, including Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat. With the rise of postmodern art, he came to be regarded as an archetypal role model by many young artists. On Feb. 22, 1987, he died in hospital of a heart attack shortly after a gall bladder operation.

In 1994, the Andy Warhol Museum, the largest single-artist museum in the United States, opened in Pittsburgh.