Andy Warhol: Shadows Comes to MOCA

Matt McAllister

Andy Warhol is remembered largely for combining the popular and the common with the rarefied and the cultivated.  Indeed, no other artist so easily broke through the barriers that falsely separated the commercial from the so-called cultured.  Anyone attending a Warhol exhibit would expect to see these commercial icons of what are now days gone by: old Hollywood, Mad Men-style advertising print, and, of course, soup – lots of soup.  But for those who make the trek to downtown Los Angeles’ Museum of Contemporary Art between late September and February, they’ll find none of what they expected.  And we can be fairly certain that this would make the artist smirk with puckish pleasure.

Beginning September 20th, the MOCA will show Shadows, one of the artist’s few forays into the realm of abstract art, a genre in which Warhol did not produce a lot of works. Shadows was created during an unusual time in the artist’s career in the late 1970s, between periods of crassly commercial, commissioned portraiture of high-profile subjects during the mid-70s and his reemergence as an iconic and financially successful  leading American artist, during the 1980s.  What marks this period, of course, is its unusual proliferation of abstract art.

Shadows is actually a collection of prints, 102 in number, which are butted up against one another in order to create an enormous, ever-repeating expanse of form and color – an almost serially surreal experience.  At most exhibitions of this work, the number of prints shown is determined by the space available.  Needless to say, the opportunity to see what is regarded as the “complete” work is rare, and MOCA will be only the second museum to accommodate the totality of the installation in a public exhibition since its creation.

The effect of this installation is one that is difficult to hyperbolize.  The enormity and vastness of the hundreds of yards of repeating designs in all manner of color, many harkening back to the days of disco chic, can induce an almost trance-like state.  In fact, the pieces are capable of transcending the category of classical wall “art” and become a total environment – or installation – enveloping everyone and everything in its immediate surroundings.

This is precisely why the show is so moving.  In much of Warhol’s work, particularly his more famous Pop Art pieces, we see objects rendered anew by color, placement, spatial play and perspective.  But with Shadows, it is as though we become objects; the prints play with colors, space and vistas through which we view ourselves and one another, both literally and metaphorically.  While Shadows serialist abstraction is a departure from Warhol’s more common tropes, it still retains the elements that make Warhol our most admired visual artist of the previous century: accessibility.  While many abstract works of art are generally enjoyable and appreciable viewing for the truly knowing, the dedicated and connoisseurs, Warhol’s are inviting and enjoyable, to say nothing of affecting, to both the expert and uninitiated dilettante alike.

Andy Warhol: Shadows is coming to the MOCA Grand Avenue at 250 South Grand Ave, Los Angeles, CA from September 20th until February 2nd.  General admission is $12; $7 with student ID and seniors.  Children under 12 are free.