Human Interest: Portraits from the Whitney’s Collection

Apr 2, 2016–Apr 2, 2017

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Entry Gallery, Floor 6

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Selected works from the sixth-floor entry gallery appear in this section.

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MYTHS, 1981

Andy Warhol, Myths, 1981. Acrylic and screenprint on canvas100 × 100 in. (254 × 254 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art; promised gift of the Fisher Landau Center for Art P.2010.340 © 2016 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./Artists Rights Society(ARS), New York

“More than anything people just want stars,” Andy Warhol once remarked. In Myths he depicts Superman, the Wicked Witch from The Wizard of Oz, and other heroes and villains of American culture (including, on the far right, himself). Silver paint alludes to the “silver screen,” and the vertical rows of mechanically reproduced head shots suggest filmstrips or contact sheets, the sources feeding our obsession with celebrity. Yet Warhol’s title is more complex: “myths” could refer to the “mythic” status of movie stars but it also connotes falseness, the distortion of truth, and the fleeting nature of fame.

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

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