New York Post
'I
painted over Andy Warhol'
By Meredith Deliso
Posted:/ 2:30 PM, June 7, 2010
Andy Warhol wasn’t much of a bird watcher. The iconic pop artist
had a
house out
on Long Island — the closest thing we have to the county here
— that was used mainly for parties.
For Bushwick-based artist Mel
Smothers, that facet has inspired him to
conduct
a (metaphorical) dialogue with the pop icon in his series, “Dear
Andy: Postcards from Montauk.”
In his paintings, the artist, and nature lover, has been
communing with
Warhol, traveling to the artist’s eastern aerie and reporting
back what
he
sees. In a direct link to the artist, he is using as the basis for
his
paintings a takeoff of Warhol’s iconic portrait of Mao, but painting
over in
a similar vein to Robert Rauschenberg erasing the Andy Warhol of
his day
— Willem de Kooning.
There are hundreds of these paintings, with slight variations
from one
to the
next, with laughing gulls and abstract lilies painted over the
image of
the Red Chinese leader.
“I’m using a visual image that Andy was famous for, which it was
rumored
he had
assistants print 3,000 copies of,” said Smothers. “And I’m doing
it
with a paint and brush.”
One such painting — the 25th in his series — will be on display
this
month in
the exhibition, “Beyond Warhol in the 21st Century: A Post-Pop
MetaRomantic Retrofit,” running at the Brooklyn Artists Gym Gallery in
Gowanus starting June 11.
The exhibition, fresh off a run in Chicago, features the work of
four
artists,
like Smothers, who react consciously to the work of Warhol.
The timing couldn’t be better — a major retrospective of the pop
icon
himself
is opening at the Brooklyn Museum only a week after BAG’s opening.
“There’s such a close connection between what we’re doing and what
they’re
exhibiting at the Brooklyn Museum,” said Robert Furman, the
curator
of “Beyond Warhol” who sought out a Brooklyn gallery to exhibit
the
show timed with the Brooklyn Museum show. “It was such kismet. I
couldn’t
believe it.”
Beyond Smothers, there are Furman’s own pieces in the show — a
mix of
video and
sculpture that find a kinship in other pop icons, including
Marilyn Monroe. Photographer Peggy Roberts’s series of
storefront photos
reference
Warhol’s days as a window display designers — surrealistic
dream-like
pieces that capture reflections from the street. And lastly,
Pindar Van Arman takes Warhol’s desire
to “paint like a machine” to
heart —
he uses a programmed robot to paint his pieces, which, like
Warhol’s, tend towards portraiture.
While Van Arman embraces this
machination of the art process, it is
something
Smothers reacts to strongly in his own paintings.
“On the East Coast, there’s the phenomena of the artist who
doesn’t even
do his
own paintings,” said Smothers. “I really love painting, and
that’s
my dialogue with Andy Warhol: Is the pop artist just a machine?
Or is pop art really about painting? What /is/ pop art?”
/“Beyond Warhol in the 21st Century: A Post-Pop MetaRomantic Retrofit”
at BAG
Gallery [168 Seventh St. between Second and Third avenues in
Gowanus,
(718) 858-9069], June 11-28 with an opening night party from
6-10 pm. For info, visit www.brooklynartistsgym.com./
mdeliso@cnglocal.com <mailto:mdeliso@cnglocal.com>
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