MJJG: intertextual link-o-mania - 115 al fine

Mon Jan 18 09:14:33 UTC 2021

Mark,

My thoughts re. Warhol are sans much knowledge of his personal life. His
art said his ethos directly.  Lifting up advertising to be venerated as art
is a very extreme and deep statement.  His fascinated gaze *portrait*  of a
dollar bill is as bitingly direct as it gets.  Venerating pop culture icons
was the easy part.  Inherent in all these images is deep social criticism.

My calling it cynicism is my bias.  Maybe Warhol wanted me to dislike his
art.

David Morris

On Sun, Jan 17, 2021 at 6:04 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> David,
>
> As should happen in all intelligent disagreement, maybe, one needs to
> get/honor the possible truth on the "other side". Cynicism in Warhol.
> I ended my last mini-essay on Warhol by acknowledging there is
> some cynicism which I preferred to see as satire, dark
> understanding,--picking up from you-- in much of his work.
> Mostly I argued it wasn't all he created.
>
> Yet, you did touch unwanted thoughts and concerns I'm having as I continue
> to read Gopnick's extensive biography of him. Yes, I have to admit, thinking
> we are both using cynicism in the same general way, there is a large
> amount of what I can only call that in the man---and, therefore in some
> ways--in the work per usual.
> There was a certain amoral 'anything for my art' cynicism in him, I will
> agree. Which I say--and did---has to be in the art of a man to whom his art
> was him.
> Who was amoral as we refer to anyone who transgresses certain moral
> boundaries but in unprincipled ways.---That is, the achievement of his art
> was his only principle, basically, so he did not transgress with a
> counter-moral narrative much. Perhaps as Picasso did?, but I know too
> little about him.  I can think of  Mailer and Roth as principled
> transgressors in literary art; Mailer in his work and life, Philip in his
> work and counter-self vision. But the only lame example I can come up with
> this morning is Thoreau's act of peaceful civil disobedience. Law-breaking
> for a larger purpose.
>
> To go back to Warhol: I might argue that his incorporation of images of
> money into his art--his first slkscreens were of the dollar bill--show
> America's obsession with it. So it does, but
> he certainly loved money inordinately too even when he was rich enough to
> not worry about it much anymore. If there is affection in his soup can
> images, there is affection in his dollar bill images. And, for both, if
> there is raising both to iconic meaning, there is also something else."Take
> this and like it" in some sense. Is this at all cynical?  He embraced money
> verbally almost like Trump, say--see many remarks-- and in those
> silkscreens that embodied this cynicism and more if judged whole.
>
> I attended the opening of one of Warhol's sealed time capsules--a box of
> everything swept off his tables and workplaces and the floor and dated---
> one Friday evening in Pittsburgh. Among the ineluctable focus on the
> contigency of the everyday in a found/created echo of someone like Vermeer,
> I say very pretentiously, there was this: circumstantial evidence of what
> we have to call possible tax fraud. (in the bio I learn that when he was
> first audited as a very young new commercial artist in NYC he was very
> uncomfortable and very annoyed that this could be done. I bet he started to
> learn how to beat the system that innocence wanted no knowledge of. There
> is circumstantial evidence in that bio that his dad might have done a
> Trump-like trick with a house purchase. Bought from a relative with some
> dicey declarations of its worth. Gopnick thinks it possible that they
> agreed on a very lowball reported transaction to save on taxes and
> privately squared themselves up in cash).
>
> If shifting positions and some of your friends for opportunistic reasons
> is cynicism, he was, it seems. Hard to tell how much, since hard to get the
> other side in many instances. And he did it all so innocently, LOL.
>
> Thanks for the deepening.
>
> Mark
>
>
>
> On Sun, Jan 17, 2021 at 2:40 AM David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Re. the line about “let’s make a movie. I won’t have to be there,” that’s
>> a line in the Velvet Underground video T-Eck posted.  Watch it again. It is
>> their portrait of Andy in a song.  I think it is brilliant.
>>
>> Re. Pynchon being nihilistic in GR, that never occurred to me while
>> reading it.  It is hilarious and exuberant as needed counterpart to the
>> deadly serious.  Cream pies flying through the sky?  Horrible English
>> candy?  And there are the deep expressions of love and longing.  And
>> Slothup?   I don’t think his disappearance is tragic.  The end of his
>> journey was his liberation, like that of a Zen Master.
>>
>> David Morris
>>
>> On Sat, Jan 16, 2021 at 3:26 PM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Okay we almost agree on the meaning of polemic. I'll mind the gap and
>>> accept.
>>>
>>> But that remark of his you quote has a lot more meanings […]
>>>
>>> Movies made without human beings "having to be there"--did that not
>>> happen in movies soon enough and I don't mean literally. I mean movies
>>> without a human vision, mechanical, people playing puppet-like roles[…]
>>>
>>
>>> PS This is not directed at you about Pynchon, say, or Roth but haven't
>>> we all seen readers who say the Pynchon of GR is not just a cynic but
>>> almost a nihilist? "such a dark book". Is the first thing we point to
>>> Slothrop himself and "Fuck the War, they were in Love?" to refute a
>>> cynical/nihilsitic reading?  Or those, some reputable reviewers and
>>> critics---one in the New Yorker even--who were turned off by the later
>>> Roth's "nihilism"?   C'mon, I say to them.
>>>
>>>   That same anti-cynicism content exists in Warhol from beginning to
>>> end, I say. Along with much cynicism/dark shit/cutting satire about life in
>>> America in our time.
>>>
>>> On Fri, Jan 15, 2021 at 10:09 PM David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> We almost agree.  Warhol very consciously espoused a polemic via his
>>>> art, not via words, but also by his wigged, whispered and shaded mumbles.
>>>> I love the Velvet Underground video that T-Eck posted.  They understood
>>>> Warhol to a T.  The line, "Let's make a movie [...] I won't have to be
>>>> there" is superb for its cynicism.  The cynicism is an amalgamation of
>>>> media and money, celebrity and commerce, consumers and advertising.  It is
>>>> a very dark vision IMHO.  I can't deny it's truth, but I resist it.  The
>>>> art will endure, maybe as a warning, if we survive.
>>>>
>>>> David Morris
>>>>
>>>> On Fri, Jan 15, 2021 at 5:33 PM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I'll agree, I think. The art, the real art, survives. And he
>>>>> polemicized outside of his art hardly at all.
>>>>> He did his art. His art was the revolution. It is overall what I
>>>>> summarized it as, I still think.
>>>>>
>>>>> Sent from my iPad
>>>>>
>>>>> On Jan 15, 2021, at 5:37 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Every revolution requires a polemic.  A part of Pop Art's revolution
>>>>> was valuing ideas over products, thus birthing Conceptual Art and
>>>>> Performance Art, where products fade away.  The only thing ever proved
>>>>> wrong are the polemics.
>>>>>
>>>>> On Fri, Jan 15, 2021 at 4:23 PM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> It wasn't a polemic. It was the revolution he brought to art. Almost
>>>>>> all art movements, literary to the visual thru music do it. No movements
>>>>>> that come later "prove him/them wrong".
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Sent from my iPad
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Jan 15, 2021, at 5:18 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> His polemic was that painting and drawing were dead arts, just like
>>>>>> the abstractionists declared figurative art dead.  Subsequent artists have
>>>>>> proven them wrong.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Fri, Jan 15, 2021 at 4:09 PM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> He kept drawing but yes he knew that was an historically dead
>>>>>>> achievement.
>>>>>>> I disagree that it was drenched in cynicism. A deep satirical
>>>>>>> perspective on his culture often.
>>>>>>> Playful celebration of life and aspects of it too. Deep insight into
>>>>>>> how we are America and it is us overall.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Sent from my iPad
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Jan 15, 2021, at 4:49 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>
>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Warhol’s hand-drawing skills really have next to nothing to do with
>>>>>>> his subsequent Pop Art.  Yes, he had an eye, but he might as well have had
>>>>>>> no hands to make his admittedly breakthrough later art.  His megastar next
>>>>>>> generation Pop Art master, Jeff Koons, never touched the work that made him
>>>>>>> very rich.  Their real value was social commentary, and as such was
>>>>>>> drenched in cynicism.  I much prefer the ultra hands-on work of the
>>>>>>> abstract impressionists that preceded them.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> David Morris
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Fri, Jan 15, 2021 at 12:30 PM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Yes Warhol was, thanks David, I can't take any more crazy.  NOT
>>>>>>>> TURDS, however we argue.....
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> But No, I do not think Pynchon targeted Warhol with that artist in
>>>>>>>> V.: he targeted
>>>>>>>> any of the artists such as in* The Recognitions *who, as Gaddis
>>>>>>>> shows, have hardly had an original brush stroke in their whole career. Who
>>>>>>>> cannot see the origin of what they think is new.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Warhol was not nationally famous until 1964. His NYC and beyond
>>>>>>>> fame earlier was for utter originality and genius. The commercial Tiffany's
>>>>>>>> Christmas window
>>>>>>>> of one silver shoe suspended against an all-black window box; the
>>>>>>>> variety of his pure drawings---he could draw perfect circles at will and
>>>>>>>> any other shapes. Look up his
>>>>>>>> incredible pure pen, pencil or charcoal (I think) drawings of the
>>>>>>>> fifties.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I think Pynchon would know this as in the air and, further, would
>>>>>>>> not see a new pop artist as he presents this nobodaddy epigone in V.
>>>>>>>> Pynchon would have liked pop art, I suggest, loved it even, as he
>>>>>>>> does meaningful cartoons and comics....
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> From wikipedia on Warhol:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> He began exhibiting his work during the 1950s. He held exhibitions
>>>>>>>> at the Hugo Gallery <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Gallery>
>>>>>>>> [31] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Warhol#cite_note-31> and
>>>>>>>> the Bodley Gallery <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodley_Gallery>
>>>>>>>> [32] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Warhol#cite_note-32> in
>>>>>>>> New York City; in California, his first West Coast gallery exhibition
>>>>>>>> [33] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Warhol#cite_note-An38-33>
>>>>>>>> [34] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Warhol#cite_note-L32-34> was
>>>>>>>> on July 9, 1962, in the Ferus Gallery
>>>>>>>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferus_Gallery> of Los Angeles with Campbell's
>>>>>>>> Soup Cans <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell%27s_Soup_Cans>.
>>>>>>>> The exhibition marked his West Coast
>>>>>>>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Coast_of_the_United_States> debut
>>>>>>>> of pop art.[35]
>>>>>>>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Warhol#cite_note-L158-35> Andy
>>>>>>>> Warhol's first New York solo pop art
>>>>>>>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pop_art> exhibition was hosted at
>>>>>>>> Eleanor Ward's Stable Gallery
>>>>>>>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stable_Gallery> November 6–24,
>>>>>>>> 1962. The exhibit included the works *Marilyn Diptych
>>>>>>>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilyn_Diptych>*, *100 Soup Cans*, *100
>>>>>>>> Coke Bottles*, and *100 Dollar Bills*. At the Stable Gallery
>>>>>>>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stable_Gallery> exhibit, t
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> It was during the 1960s that Warhol began to make paintings of
>>>>>>>> iconic American objects such as dollar bills, mushroom clouds
>>>>>>>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mushroom_cloud>, electric chairs
>>>>>>>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_chair>, Campbell's Soup
>>>>>>>> Cans <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell%27s_Soup_Cans>,
>>>>>>>> Coca-Cola <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca-Cola> bottles,
>>>>>>>> celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe
>>>>>>>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilyn_Monroe>, Elvis Presley
>>>>>>>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elvis_Presley>, Marlon Brando
>>>>>>>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marlon_Brando>, Troy Donahue
>>>>>>>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy_Donahue>, Muhammad Ali
>>>>>>>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Ali>, and Elizabeth Taylor
>>>>>>>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Taylor>, as well as
>>>>>>>> newspaper headlines or photographs of police dogs attacking
>>>>>>>> African-American protesters during the Birmingham campaign
>>>>>>>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_campaign> in the civil
>>>>>>>> rights movement
>>>>>>>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_rights_movement>. During
>>>>>>>> these years, he founded his studio, "The Factory
>>>>>>>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Factory>" and gathered about
>>>>>>>> him a wide range of artists, writers, musicians, and underground
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> A pivotal event was the 1964 exhibit *The American Supermarket*, a
>>>>>>>> show held in Paul Bianchini's Upper East Side gallery. "
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Read Danto on warhol; read the great new bio of him by Gopnick.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On Fri, Jan 15, 2021 at 1:10 PM David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>
>>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Clearly Warhol was the target.  I think Pynchon also targets
>>>>>>>>> Warhol in V with the painter in the Whole Sick Crew who painted endless
>>>>>>>>> varieties of knishes (or was it bagels, I forget).
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> On Fri, Jan 15, 2021 at 11:05 AM Thomas Eckhardt <
>>>>>>>>> thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> I did not mean to insult Andy Warhol, if that is what you are
>>>>>>>>>> referring
>>>>>>>>>> to. Also, one would of course have to take into account who is
>>>>>>>>>> talking
>>>>>>>>>> to whom here, and to what purpose.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Am 15.01.2021 um 16:15 schrieb Mark Kohut:
>>>>>>>>>> > HELL NO, IN THUNDER as Melville writes.....
>>>>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>>>>> > C'mon, man....
>>>>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>>>>> > On Fri, Jan 15, 2021 at 10:05 AM Thomas Eckhardt
>>>>>>>>>> > <thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de <mailto:
>>>>>>>>>> thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>>>>> >     pg. 112 in the Penguin Modern Classics edition:
>>>>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>>>>> >     "1 of these days 1 of our sons, perhaps the son of a Polish
>>>>>>>>>> immigrant,
>>>>>>>>>> >     will emerge from some steel town in Pennsylvania and mount
>>>>>>>>>> a turd on
>>>>>>>>>> >     the
>>>>>>>>>> >     wall of a museum and make it stick. . .and when you ask him
>>>>>>>>>> what it is
>>>>>>>>>> >     he will put on his dark glasses and snub you the way you
>>>>>>>>>> did us."
>>>>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>>>>> >     This is, more or less, Andy Warhol, no?
>>>>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>>>>> >       > 8) pg 135 - _Moby-Dick_
>>>>>>>>>> >       > (Musclewhite horrified that a black person dared to
>>>>>>>>>> interpret it)
>>>>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>>>>> >     pg. 114: An anachronistic reference to C.L.R. James'
>>>>>>>>>> "Mariners,
>>>>>>>>>> >     Renegades and Castaways" (1953), perhaps? Or are there
>>>>>>>>>> other candidates?
>>>>>>>>>> >     --
>>>>>>>>>> >     Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>>>>>>>>> >     <https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l>
>>>>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>>>>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>