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As seen in:
March 6, 2011
Baby, you can drive
his car
Warhol didn’t drive, but his works returned again
and again to the symbol of the American dream
I
n 1998, the Montclair Art Museum acquired but hey, who’s counting — Warhol is always
a canvas called “Twelve Cadillacs” (1962) hyping things, perhaps in honor of his source
by Andy Warhol, a linoscreen (that is, a materials, almost exclusively newspapers in
mechanically reproduced drawing) of the this, his best era. “5 Deaths” is a Ben-Day dot
front end of a gas-guzzler of that era, reprinted smear, prurient and hard to read, like much of
12 times, in four rows of three each. what went into newspapers in their heyday,
The picture was done as part of a project for and all the more vivid for that. Warhol, in the passenger seat with a toy
Harper’s Bazaar, so it blurs the line between “5 Deaths,” like many of the other objects soldier or something stuck in his wig, looks
fine and commercial art in every way. But it here, is on loan from the Warhol Museum in profoundly uncomfortable and a little lost, as
also differs from so many of Warhol’s later Pittsburgh, which cooperated with curator he often did. Warhol and Cars: American Icons
images by not being photo-based. Warhol, or Gail Stavitsky in setting up this show. Like But not out of place. Tony and Keith look
someone he employed, must have done the all the recent Montclair exhibits, there’s delighted to just be in the frame with him, as
Where: Montclair Art Museum, 3
original drawing. an element of set design to “Warhol and they should, hung in a museum against a wall
covered in wallpaper made out of “Twelve South Mountain Ave., Montclair
Though it’s reproduced here over and Cars,” this time a tin foil-covered entrance
over, that distinction in itself blurs Warhol’s (Warhol’s famous Factory walls were coated Cadillacs.” But the only car Warhol could
ultimately standard practice of never with tin foil, too) to a video documenting the possibly look like he belonged in was a joke When: Through June 19. Open
exhibiting anything that might show his own artist’s practice, with a side room filled with by another artist. Wednesdays to Sundays, noon to
hand in a work, instead showing photos, the silvery mylar “pillows” or “clouds” filled Warhol has come to represent something 5 p.m.
image transfers, screenprints, or some other with helium, just like back in the day. very American, something about consumption
mechanical thing. But don’t be fooled: Some Everything else here is about cars of one and selfishness and celebrity, but he was in How much: $12; $10 for seniors
Warhols are more Warhol-y than others. sort or another. But the most interesting himself none of those things, and those of us and students; free for children
“Twelve Cadillacs” is at the center of drawing is a very early one Warhol did in who try to understand his art as a projection of younger than 12. Also free the first
“Warhol and Cars: American Icons,” which the summer he was on probation from the himself need to remember that. As Stavitsky Friday of every month. Call (973)
brings 35 paintings, drawings and maquettes Carnegie school for poor performance, a quotes him in the catalog, his secret to being 746-5555 or visit montclair-art.com.
by the artist, along with photos of him at drawing of his brother’s fruit and vegetable original was in finding ways to distinguish
work, to Montclair into June. It is the first truck and the ladies who came buying himself from his contemporaries, uncovering
exhibition we know of devoted exclusively (“Women and Produce Truck,” 1947). It’s a techniques “where I could come out first —
to Warhol’s imagery of automobiles, which wonderful drawing, based on his summer job like quantity and repetition.”
was a considerable focus of his career. After which might well have become permanent, Many of the car crash paintings repeat
all, one of his car pictures, “Green Car Crash with the curious device of showing the the scene or its details in different sizes on
(Green Burning Car I),” printed just one year women’s bodies as if they were nude through the same canvas. That hints at the ceaseless
after “Twelve Cadillacs,” set the record high their dresses. Warhol used a portfolio of these reproduction in a mass society, just as the
price for a Warhol in 2007 when a Greek drawings to gain re-entry to the school, so slipped registers and blurry printing remind
shipping scion bought it for $71.7 million at everything worked out, but this and a handful us of newspaper processes. Of course, he
Christie’s in New York. of early commercial drawings show Warhol’s always said he liked it that way, but the trashy
The closest we come to “Green Burning line was burglarized from Ben Shahn. How materials and casual choice of subject matter
Car” in Montclair is the luridly red “5 Deaths” the cool once learned from the hot is a demean the seriousness of his approval.
(also 1963), a small screenprint with acrylic revelation. The real subject of the car paintings is the
additions that is based on an Associated Press On the deeper, philosophical question of endless generation of faux individuality in
photo, which is also handily here in Montclair. what cars meant to Andy Warhol, “Warhol the emerging consumer culture. Remember,
From the Associated Press, we learn that the and Cars” is appropriately silent, except when Warhol was turning these things out,
source picture documents just two deaths, to note at one point that his family, all car companies were the biggest corporations
Czech immigrants, didn’t own a talisman in America, paying for all the most popular
TV shows and sponsoring much of what Andy Warhol’s 1962 silk screen “Twelve
of American freedom. They did have his
Cadillacs” is part of the exhibit “Warhol
brother’s truck, but that’s not the same. The would become American culture in the post-
and Cars: American Icons” at Montclair
Chryslers and Cadillacs that fill the walls war years. Their ads almost always featured
Art Museum. Above, a 1985 photo of
in Montclair have some of the unreachable a pretty girl draped over the hood, like an Warhol in a car with fellow artists Kenny
force of the American Dream in them, but accessory you could buy (never mind that Scharf, driving, and Keith Haring, as
they don’t look like the sort of cars Warhol Warhol wasn’t in the market). And they well as Scharf’s wife and daughter.
would himself drive (if he’d known how). offered it all to you, at a reasonable price,
In the foyer, though, there’s a photo of each, as Devo later put it, “in your own
Warhol with Keith Haring and Tony Shafrazi individualized color.”
and his wife and daughter, sitting in the
car Shafrazi decorated with his trademark Dan Bischoff: dbischoff@starledger.com
Warhol’s “Volkswagen” (1985) was Flintstone- and Jetsons-styled paintings. 3 South Mountain Ave., Montclair, NJ 07042
done in acrylic and silkscreen on linen. 973-746-5555 | montclairartmuseum.org
