Machines have less problems. I’d like to be a machine, wouldn’t you?
“Paintings are too hard. The things I want to show are mechanical. Machines have less problems. I’d like to be a machine. Don’t you?”
This quote from the American pop-art artist Andy Warhol (°1928, Pittsburgh, VS - 1987, New York, VS) is from 1963. Warhol had a fundamental influence on the way we perceive art today. For him, there was no real difference between art and life. He got his images for his artwork from popular culture and significantly shook the way people traditionally thought about art. Instead of creating a unique image by hand, he mechanically reproduced them. He introduced mass consumption to the elitist art world. Exclusiveness was no longer a criterion and he rendered emotions irrelevant in the process of creation.
The poster for his exhibition in Moderna Museet, Stockholm, succinctly summarizes his views.
