ANDY WARHOL

Revisiting the earliest meetings of Andy Warhol andJoseph Beuys in 1979, this exhibition at ThaddaeusRopac London brings together a selection of Warhol'scelebrated portraits of Beuys. While the Beuysportraits are held internationally in the collectionsof major institutions – including The Museum ofModern Art, New York, Philadelphia Museum of Art,PA, and Tate, London – this is the first time the groupof works has been presented in a solo focus showsince they were exhibited in the 1980s.

The two giants of art history first encounteredone another in person at an exhibition opening at Hans Mayer in Düsseldorf, Germany. Described bythe American writer David Galloway as having 'allthe ceremonial aura of two rival popes meeting inAvignon,' the moment marked a key point of contactbetween the leading representatives of Europeanand American art. The pair met on several furtheroccasions that year, including on 30 October1979 during the installation of Beuys's landmarkretrospective at the Solomon R. GuggenheimMuseum in New York. The German artist was broughtto Warhol's studio to have his portrait taken, arrivingat the same time that Georgia O'Keeffe was beingphotographed. Warhol used his Polaroid Big Shotto capture the now-iconic image of Beuys dressedin his signature felt hat and fishing vest, which wenton to serve as the source image for the series ofscreenprinted portraits made between 1980 and1986.

The earliest works in the series were first presentedto the public at Galleria Lucio Amelio, Naples inan exhibition titled Joseph Beuys by Andy Warhol,which opened on 1 April 1980. Some of the worksthen travelled to Galerie Klüser in Munich (incollaboration with Jörg Schellmann; 6 May – 9 July1980) and others to the Centre d'Art Contemporainin Genève, Geneva (7 – 30 June 1980).

Repeating Beuys's arresting gaze on differentscales and in different formats, Warhol exercisedhis characteristically experimental approach tomaterials in the portraits. Amongst the paintings,unique Trial Proofs, line drawings, and unique andeditioned works on paper, are examples of some ofthe artist's earliest uses of diamond dust in portraits.These sit alongside images that have had their tonalvalues inverted to give the effect of photographicnegatives. Belonging to the Reversal Series in whichWarhol reproduced key subjects from across hiswide-reaching body of work – including his iconicportraits of Marilyn Monroe, the Mona Lisa and Mao– in reverse, these reworkings of Beuys's portraitdemonstrate the particular value that he placed onhis depiction of the other artist within his oeuvre.

In his portraits, Warhol transformed his photographicsource material through a process of reduction thatresulted in emblematic, icon-like representationsof his subjects, minimising the visibility of his ownhand as he employed screenprinting methods. 'Withsilkscreening,' he explained, 'you pick a photograph,blow it up, transfer it in glue onto silk, and then rollink across it so the ink goes through the silk but notthe glue. That way you get the same image, slightlydifferent each time.' Warhol pursued variation in hisapproach to colour, composition and materials ratherthan in the image itself. He articulated Beuys's headand shoulders against flat, monochromatic groundsas well as gestural sweeps of variegated colourusing his silkscreen stencils. These modificationswere tested out through Trial Proofs: unique printscreated to experiment with different variations of an image. Warhol conceived of these works as acomplementary group to his editions and paintingsand, as the publisher Jörg Schellmann, who workedclosely with Warhol in the 1980s, explains, 'theseTrial Proofs can be seen as essentially the same asWarhol's originals,' evidencing the artist's innovativeunderstanding of the nature of artmaking as hedismantled distinctions between editioned andoriginal work.

'He himself is a sort of ghost, he has spirituality,' saidBeuys of Warhol. 'Maybe this tabula rasa that AndyWarhol does [in his portraits], this emptiness andcleansing of any traditional signature [...] is somethingthat creates the possibility of allowing radicallydifferent perspectives to enter.' Despite the radicaldifferences in their aesthetics and philosophicalapproaches to art, Warhol and Beuys shared analchemical ability to render everyday objects andimages unfamiliar through their practices, as wellas an obsession with self-stylisation: Beuys wasthe shamanic artist whose mythical origins lay in hisrescue from a plane crash by nomadic Tatars, whileWarhol cultivated his public image as the 'Pope ofPop', instantly recognisable in his silver-blonde wig.Uniting his interest in seriality with his fascinationwith celebrity and self-image, Warhol captured theother's self-stylisation through his own distinctivelens as he created a charismatic record of the mostprominent artistic, cultural and political icons of thetwentieth century, guided by his artistic investigationsinto repetition, medium and technique.