Pop Life
I just made it to the Pop Life exhibition at the Tate Modern before it ends on Sunday. Some brilliant work in there but truthfully I was mostly excited by the Warhol and Haring rooms. The YBA stuff just isn’t visually exciting to me and I don’t really care about their ‘message’. Plus I guess I grew up with the excitement of Warhol and Haring so they mean more to me emotionally.
There was a reconstruction of Haring’s famous Pop Shop with – genius! – a real life shop within it, as in, a person behind a counter selling Haring merchandise and bringing the concept to life. Keen to participate in the art imitating life imitating art scenario, I made a point of buying my Keith Haring watches from the Pop-Shop-as-Art-Installation instead of the bog standard Tate bookshop downstairs. How very post-post modern of me.
I also adored the Warhol TV clips (Haring and Scharf… together!) although was sad not to see the Curiosity Killed the Cat video that Warhol directed – now that was a work of art. *Sigh*… if Andy Warhol was alive today you just know he would have the best blog of them all.
15 January, 2010 @ 10:59 pm
I'm quite jealous. Sounds like it was an amazing museum day.
16 January, 2010 @ 1:23 am
I actually think I'm going to have to try and squeeze in a visit to this, tomorrow! So annoyed with myself for leaving it so late. That Keith Haring watch looks amazing. Am slowly coming to the end of Warhol's biography – all 800 pages of it – slow but compelling. The Hayward exhibition about Warhol last year was great, too…
16 January, 2010 @ 9:45 am
The Keith Haring room is the best bit about the Pop Life exhibition – which I thought was a bit patchy – though unlike yourself, I didn't buy anything – what I really wanted was a reproduction of one of the small posters in the exhibition. The Warhol stuff is good too – particularly enjoyed seeing him on Love Boat! I used to love that programme when I was a kid.
16 January, 2010 @ 12:53 pm
Oh he would have the best blog because he'd create something fascinating. His culture compass was second to none.