Human Interest: Portraits from the Whitney’s Collection

Apr 2, 2016–Apr 2, 2017

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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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Rosalyn Drexler is usually associated with Pop art, but her work often explores the dark backstories and seedier manifestations of postwar media culture and gender roles. She clipped her subjects from printed materials—here, a news photograph of Marilyn Monroe fleeing the paparazzi with her bodyguard in tow—then enlarged and collaged them onto canvas, and painted over the image. In the artist’s words, her source images were “hidden but present, like a disturbing memory.” On the day this source photograph was taken in 1956, Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller were to announce their upcoming marriage; in the frenzy to cover the event, a car carrying reporters crashed, killing at least one member of the press. Drexler’s painting is an eerie evocation of the sometimes tragicresults of our society’s insatiable desire for celebrity news.

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Human Interest: Portraits from the Whitney’s Collection

Price of Fame

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Marilyn Pursued by Death, 1963

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Human Interest: Portraits from the Whitney’s Collection

Price of Fame

12

Marilyn Pursued by Death, 1963

Artists

Explore works from this exhibition in the Whitney's collection

Explore works from this exhibition
in the Whitney's collection