Discover the artist who brought soup cans to MoMA and movie stars to the Met. This introduction to Andy Warhol shows us his groundbreaking and prolific work, as well as his relentless questioning of consumerism, materialism and the role of the artist. This title includes more than 100 images of Warhol's work in premium reproductions that retain all the pop character of the originals.

Pop Star

Soapboxes and Celebrities

Andy Warhol (1928-1987) is considered today's leading exponent of pop art. As a creative observer and critic of American society, he explored key themes such as consumerism, materialism, media and fame.
Drawing inspiration from contemporary advertisements, comic strips, consumer products and Hollywood's most famous faces, Warhol proposed a drastic rethinking of the concept of the art object. He made a Campbell's soup and a bottle of Coca-Cola have the same artistic value as any traditional still life. At the same time, Warhol reconfigured the role of the artist. With his famous statement "I want to be a machine", he systematically reduced his own presence as an author by working with images and mass production methods, and with dozens of assistants in a studio he christened the Factory.
This book presents Warhol's extensive and multifaceted oeuvre, which revolutionised the distinction between "art with capital letters" and "art with small letters", and addressed ideas of life, production and consumption that remain central questions of modern experience.

About the author

Klaus Honnefes is honorary professor of photographic theory at the Kassel Academy of Art. He was one of the organisers of documenta 5 and documenta 6 in Kassel and has curated more than 500 exhibitions in Germany and abroad.

Publisher: Taschen