Sunday 7 July 2013

Warhol:Immortal

Living as we do in Freelance/Contractor Land, our weekends don't follow the same shape as others.

Mostly, they're spent in a foggy veil of work.

But yesterday, we downed tools and allowed ourselves a day off. There was lunch, a movie and a chance to finally use up the free media tickets I received to the Warhol: Immortal exhibition at Te Papa.

As the Animator knows, I'm not much given over to galleries: I once whizzed around London's National Portrait Galley in about 15 minutes and a friend and I spent more time scoffing cakes at the Guggenheim in Bilbao than eye-balling the artwork. Perhaps it's because I'm a words rather than a visual person, but galleries leave me slightly bored, something that causes the Animator no end of frustration. If it were over to him, he would spend all day and still only cover one room.

Yesterday, though, wasn't a waste of make-up; this exhibition, which is on loan from the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburg, was a fascinating look at one of the 20th Century's most defining artists. Some of it was plain odd - like the silver balloon room - but his line drawings, colourful canvases and twin obsessions of celebrity and death made for a well curated exhibition.

Most unusual takeaway fact: despite his hedonistic, openly gay lifestyle, Warhol was a practising Catholic. Which, I guess, could explain a lot.

If you're in the vicinity of the world's southernmost capital before the end of August, you could do worse than spend an hour getting under Warhol's skin.

     

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