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Comment by mediachimps | Hacker News Reader

That's the deluxe paint Venus! https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=deluxe+paint+venus

Andy added an extra eye though...

edit: as did everybody with deluxe paint.

I loathe the way that gets counted as "art," yet the people who used the Amiga for art in movies, graphic productions, etc. are marginalized.

Hey art historians: That computer was DESIGNED for art, and designed and USED for much better works that touched many more people's lives than Andy Warhol cloning an eye on a corporate sales demo image.

People actually spent hours and days and years making refined aesthetic choices, putting their bodies and hearts into works and gaining commercial popularity and telling stories using that computer. Most importantly, they used it in ways that were previously unknown, unlike using one of the most popular launch titles to edit a "launch image."

Believing that these images have special powers b/c of the person who made them is textbook fetishization.

Why valorize $famous_guy's random scribbles over the rest of the corpus of works in the medium? Just because it's easier to say, "Well it's from Him, so it's famous," rather than to examine and /critique/ other works made on the machine?

Ever wonder why art historians make such low salaries and have difficulty paying their loans? How about creating some value for other people by understanding, critiquing and explaining the vast body of Amiga works rather than echoing to each other and telling us, "yup, that one's important cuz it's by that famous guy."

Tell us something we don't know. Give us some bread and not candy and you will amply rewarded. It's not George Bush's fault.

In my opinion lot of "art" is pretentious celebrity culture for snobs. I went to a Warhol exhibition recently. It was basically a load of photos of a group of people like you would expect to see on some hipsters facebook page. But because of the name behind it certain people assume some greatness to it.

I went to the Warhol exhibit at the Dali museum a few months ago. I never was a big Warhol fan before going, but perhaps viewing an entire exhibit devoted to his work might give me a better appreciation. I now theorize that Warhol's artistic life was one big piece of performance art. "Can I become famous and revered by hanging out at the right NYC parties, and immortalizing famous people in what is otherwise the visual equivalent to sampling?" Ignore "Marilyn" where he just silk screens over a photo, and pay attention to the fact that he's famous for it.

Polaroid photographs? If they were photographs of your friends, no one would care. But when the pics are of Mick Jagger at Studio 54 or Jackie O, and Andy Warhol took them, now you've got art. Why? Because famous people.

It seems he his overall theme was fame. His most famous quote even deals with that. So it seems fitting that he is famous not for being a great artist but because he hung out with famous people and made art that involved them.

That's the theory I'm sticking with, anyway. It's either that or take the cynical view that the art world is more shallow than I previously thought.

Afterward we revisited the Dali side of the museum. Holy crap, now there's an artist.

"Can I become famous and revered by hanging out at the right NYC parties, and immortalizing famous people in what is otherwise the visual equivalent to sampling?"

That sounds pretty like celebrity culture to me. Is that not more or less why people like Kim Kardashian are famous?

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famous_for_being_famous

Can a low-res digital image really capture Warhol's unique gestural moves? I won't even go there but my personal opinion is Warhol was more a conceptual artist who just happened to be "on the scene" in NY around the time modern art was on the way out and post-modern (more conceptual) was on the way in.

I'm more passionate about modern art, which I think is more in line with the "refined aesthetic choices" you're talking about. I think Warhol was better known for his ideas, he just happened to know how to draw/paint to execute what was on his mind. I can't read your mind but your "random scribbles" comment caught my attention. Not speaking to you specifically, but I think with the right teacher anyone can see there's more to so-called random scribbles aka abstract art. Even the nutty Jackson Pollock who made his own rules, I got to respect he trained under Thomas Hart Benton, etc.

I think most American universities teaching drawing/painting (fine art) today, the professors are students of students of students of Hans Hoffman (directly or indirectly) who was himself a student of Picasso, Matisse and other undeniably talented giants. Personally, not a huge fan of Hoffman's work but if I had a time machine, I would want to be there in one of his classes. I don't think the secrets are closely guarded, it's more like esoteric nuance. If you read old graphic design books, you'll find some of the concepts underpinning great abstract paintings. If I find time, maybe I'll post YouTube videos explaining how to see abstract art through the eyes of an artist.

Warhol might have agreed with you. I believe he started out drawing ads. He was definitely thinking about commercial popularity throughout his career. I think "popularity" was the subject of much of his art. Maybe because he felt so unpopular early in his life/career. I think most artists would tell you, the best art is not concerned with commercial popularity, but that's debatable I suppose. I believe the truly great "random scribbles" reach toward truths and concepts that can't be expressed well with words, or the words may not yet exist.

I really appreciate this post for a number of reasons, but you should be aware of some irony in what you write, particularly as it relates to Andy.

Andy Warhol's entire worldview as an artist revolved around the parody of fame and "art". He was primarily an unmasker of those with a certain view of "art" as a precious, special thing. He would be laughing at the idea that anyone took his images for "art"! The fact is made even more delicious by the insanely high value placed on his images of ridiculously mundane stuff.

That said, Andy, probably much to his own chagrin (although there are few artists who don't occasional marvel at their own skill!), was a brilliant graphic artist. His work is immaculately designed, beautifully proportioned, elegant and indeed, very "special" (in the sense of art, the craft without the air quotes). This is a double or triple or Nary entendre, if you are Andy Warhol: You are commenting on the ridiculous qualities of "art" while at the same time creating exactly the type of "art" that you are parodying - and loving every minute of it! Genius! Someone has to do it!

Please don't think that the fixation on people like Andy means that others are lesser. All are not. Like any other discipline, some are, some aren't. Andy just happens to be famous! And dead, of course.

I don't think that art historians have really caught up with the digital age. It's kind of funny that 99% of all of the images we see today have been manipulated by computer.. you think that some of them might have figured that out! Either way, Andy elevates all digital artists by creating digital art on the Amiga. I'm very glad they discovered it.

Give the art historians a little time. They'll figure it out eventually.

Damn, beat me to it. I was scrolling down expecting Tut with a palette shift to appear.

Yeah i was thinking the same , hardly momeumental.

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