| Coverdown first-take |
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| Between 2nd October 2001
and 6th January 2002 the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin
and between 7th February and 1st April 2002 the Tate
Modern gallery in London staged major retrospective
exhibitions of the works of Andy Warhol. The exhibitions were curated by Heiner Bastian, a close friend of the artist, and they were mounted quite deliberately in the first year of the new century as a European review of, and homage to, an American artist who was a defining figure of the century just ended. One of the masterpieces on display at these exhibitions was '16 Jackies' which Warhol created by his unique silk screening process in 1964. Of this creation Heiner Bastian writes in the exhibition catalogue: 'When John F. Kennedy was murdered on 22 November 1963 in Dallas, Warhol recognised the press photographs of the grieving widow, Jackie Kennedy, as the portrait that mirrored the whole of the double-edged trauma that had struck the Untied States. The originals that he used for his silkscreen paintings are the memorable 'face object', in which the inexplicable nature of the event itself and the sense of being damned take on the qualities of myth, since for a brief moment in time the whole world only 'sees' sadness in this face. My collage has Dylan standing in front of one quarter of Warhol's 1 '16 Jackies'. Dylan's deep turquoise eyes look scared, as though he had just witnessed, or is about to witness some terrible deed that cannot be prevented. The mascara and the necklace add a feminine touch and the arrow on the guitar strap points upwards towards heaven. Both 'face objects' are clearly aware of the slow train coming, up around the bend. |
Theo Casamegas |
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