“I like money on the wall. Say you were going to buy a $200,000 painting. I think you should take that money, tie it up, and hang it on the wall.” — Andy Warhol, 1975

From the day he launched his Pop Art, early in 1961, Warhol played with the idea that he was participating in the money-making values of the consumer culture he depicted. By the end of the 1960s, Warhol was participating in — and played a role in launching — a new trend in conceptual art that saw the vehicles of business and finance used as art supplies.

In Spritmuseum’s exhibition Money on the Wall: Andy Warhol, curated by art critic Blake Gopnik, one of the world’s foremost experts on Andy Warhol, the focus is on what Warhol called Business Art — “the step that comes after art.”

The exhibition begins with a section on Warhol’s work as a commercial artist in the 1950s. This is followed by a section on the classic Pop Art pieces, touching on economics, commerce, and commodification. One of its high points is “Soap Opera,” an early Warhol work that consists of genuine TV commercials combined with scenes improvised by his entourage. The exhibition also includes a selection of Warhol’s purely commercial works, such as video commercials for products ranging from laxatives to ice cream.

The show also looks at a group of postwar artists, including Yves Klein, Chris Burden, and Lee Lozano, who, like Warhol, engaged with business and finance to make art about our economic realities. Finally, the show presents several contemporary artists engaging with similar themes, including Darren Bader, Andrea Fraser, Takashi Murakami, Carey Young, and the American art collective MSCHF.

“These artist’s work provide a context enabling a new understanding of Warhol’s ‘sell -out’ in the 1970s and 80s — including his lucrative portraits, ads for Absolut Vodka, and pastiches of Edvard Munch’s famous lithographs,” — Mia Sundberg, art curator at Spritmuseum.

In connection with the exhibition, Spritmuseum has the great pleasure of exhibiting, for the first time ever, the recovered artwork Absolut Warhol (The Blue Version). The painting is one of the two versions commissioned in 1985 by Absolut Vodka, but which fell into oblivion and were only rediscovered 30 years later. Since 2020, the work is once again part of the Absolut Art Collection.

Blake Gopnik

Blake Gopnik, born 1963, is an American art historian, writer, and critic based in New York. He is one of the world’s leading Andy Warhol experts and has written a comprehensive biography, Warhol (published 2020).

“People who claim Andy Warhol was a sell-out are absolutely right. Business Art was one of his most important and influential art forms. And from the very beginning, the dollar bill was one of Andy Warhol’s favourite motifs.” — Blake Gopnik.

ARTISTS PARTICIPATING IN THE EXHIBITION

Genpei Akasegawa, Chris Burden, Ed Keinholz, Lee Lozano, Robert Morris, Takashi Murakami, Darren Bader, Andrea Fraser, Jens Haaning, Mason Rothschild, Bernar Venet, Carey Young, Andy Warhol, the art collective MSCHF.

THE EXHIBITION IN THE MEDIA

Review in Dagens Nyheter