Recently, I viewed “Andy Warhol: The Last Decade” at the Milwaukee Art Museum which focuses on his work in the 1980s leading up to his untimely death in 1987. The last time I saw a major Warhol exhibit was in Chicago in 1989 — which was more of a tribute to his seminal work in the 1960s.
This all got me googling (that really is a word now, right?) the years 1969 and 1989 and what some of the major pop culture references were for those years — since Warhol is the King of Pop Art. Here is what I found…
1969 – Warhol has already exceeded his self-described 15 minutes of fame with his iconic screen prints depicting celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley. He has just survived a near-fatal shooting the year before by a disgruntled associate, Valerie Solanas, immortalized in the 1996 movie “I Shot Andy Warhol” starring Lili Taylor.
In 1969 Mick Jagger first asked Warhol, who began his career as a graphic designer, to design the album cover for “Sticky Fingers” and you can see Mick’s letter here.
The top movies (wikipedia.com), top TV shows (trivia-library.com) and Billboard top songs (musicoutfitters.com) for 1969 were:
1.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In
Sugar, Sugar – The Archies
2.
The Love Bug
Gunsmoke
Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In – 5th Dimension
3.
Midnight Cowboy
Bonanza
I Can’t Get Next to You – The Tempations
(Honky Tonk Women – The Rolling Stones came in a close 4th)
Color trends in 1969 according to the Kohler Design Center meant you might have been enjoying Goldie on Laugh-In from your Avocado couch in your Cerulean Blue living room.
1989 – It has been two years since Warhol passed away due to complications from gall-bladder surgery and the Museum of Modern Art New York curates a retrospective that will also run at the Chicago Art Institute.
The 1980s were a perfect back drop for his earlier candy-colored bovines and shocking electric chair paintings. But little did people know that Warhol was a devout Catholic who collaborated with artists like Jean Michel Basquiat in the last decade of his life and that is what the MAM exhibit will commemorate in 2009.
A recent high school graduate from Milwaukee would take the train to that ’89 Chicago exhibit and write about it 20 years later on her Tessera Design blog on what was then just emerging as the World Wide Web.
The top movies, top TV shows and Billboard top songs of 1989 were:
1.
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
The Cosby Show
Look Away – Chicago
2.
Batman
Roseanne
My Prerogative – Bobby Brown
3.
Back to the Future Part II
A Different World
Every Rose Has Its Thorn – Poison
“Say Anything” was my personal fav that year and also featured Lili Taylor. (To see the original movie trailer, click here.) Lloyd Dobler probably wasn’t aware that the color trends that year were jewel tones, as seen on this Benetton site, but the last of the 80s was about to give way to the recession and the plaid grunge of the 90s…
2009 – The Milwaukee Art Museum organizes the first U.S. museum survey exhibition on Warhol’s last 10 years. It features more unknown works like his Oxidation Paintings, Shadows Paintings and Camouflage Paintings and explains a personal side of Warhol that is rarely seen.
Milwaukee County residents can view the exhibit FREE on Wednesdays with proof of residency through January 3, 2010.
In 2009, the top grossing movie is about a robotic car that is definitely not the Love Bug. The top pop culture revolves around “Dancing with the Stars” and “American Idol” — not Westerns or Cosby family values. Bret Michaels and Bobby Brown are darlings of surreality TV and the tween bop of today cannot hold a candle to the Stones.
So if you are a Milwaukee resident, please take advantage of those free Wednesdays to see some real art, and if you aren’t, “Andy Warhol: The Last Decade” will be coming to Fort Worth, Pittsburgh, Brooklyn and Baltimore.
Self-Portrait (Strangulations), 1978 (detail). Collection of Anthony d’Offay.
© 2009 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
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