Human Interest: Portraits from the Whitney’s Collection

Apr 2, 2016–Apr 2, 2017

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Price of Fame

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In the 1960s, Andy Warhol began to crack the glossy veneer of celebrity culture in portraits of figures like Jackie Kennedy, whose glamour was intertwined with pathos and fragility. Warhol evoked mass media’s transformation of the individual into a consumable icon, a path followed more recently by Anne Collier, Elizabeth Peyton, and Richard Prince. Many of the works in this gallery examine the fantasy of stardom and expose its darker side—the flashbulb’s glare, the menacing intrusions of paparazzi, and the voracious appetites of audiences raised on a diet of pop culture and political disillusionment. Others explore how the glut of media imagery leads ordinary people to internalize the rituals of glamour and fandom by appropriating everything from costumes and makeup to the artificial poses of film stills and headshots. These works may be seen as confirming the insidious influence of the mass-media machine or may point to the liberating possibilities of casting oneself as a star.

Below is a selection of works from Price of Fame.

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Partially Buried Triptych, 1996

Renée Green (b. 1959), Partially Buried Triptych, 1996. Photolithographs, each 22 1/8 x 30 in. (56.2 x 76.2 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with funds from the Print Committee 97.6a–c © Renée Green

Renée Green often draws on archival materials to trace little-known histories. In Partially Buried Triptych Green highlights the suppression and dissemination of revolutionary practices across cultures and over time by exposing connections between the American activist Angela Davis and the German philosopher Theodor Adorno, who is perhaps best known for his provocative critiques of contemporary Western consumer culture. At left, a reproduction of an appropriated 1970 Life magazine cover features the then-fugitive Davis, while the middle panel juxtaposes photos of Davis and Adorno from the mid-1960s, when Davis studied in Frankfurt with the philosopher. In the panel on the right Green illustrates the annexing of once-countercultural symbols, in this case the Afro hairstyle, by contemporary culture.

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Maya Man, A Realistic Day In My Life Living In New York City

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