“Don’t think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide whether it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they’re deciding, make even more art.”
—Andy Warhol
I like to play documentaries in the background when I’m photoshopping illustrations. This week I got sucked into the 4-hour American Masters on Andy Warhol. About a 1/3 of the way through, I realized I’d seen it before, back in 2010, and and I’d even taken detailed notes:
It was interesting to see which parts of the documentary still caught my attention after eight years — the quote about letting other people worry about whether it’s art, Stravinsky, being asked what he does when he’s out of ideas (“I wait like an insect waits.”), etc.
It’s also funny, all the connections to Warhol’s work I can make now that I didn’t make then. How I said to myself, “Oh, Dave Hickey is all over this!” How Olivia Laing’s The Lonely City clued me into his touch issues. How much of his diaries I’ve read. How the original soup cans show in LA was the same show Corita Kent saw that led to her screenprints. How many times I’ve listened to Songs for Drella!
He’s one of those artists that gets more and more interesting to me over the years…
