An illustrated examination of a work--a Warhol that isn't by
Warhol--that embodies a shift in attitudes about artistic authorship and
originality.
Warhol Marilyn (1965) is not a work by Andy Warhol but by the artist
Elaine Sturtevant (1930-2014). Throughout her career, Sturtevant (as she
preferred to be called) remade and exhibited works by other contemporary
artists, among them Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, and Robert
Rauschenberg. For Warhol Marilyn, Sturtevant used one of Warhol's own
silkscreens from his series of Marilyn printed multiples. (When asked
how he made his silkscreened work, Warhol famously answered, "I don't
know. Ask Elaine.") In this book, Patricia Lee examines Warhol Marilyn
as representing a shift in thinking about artistic authorship and
originality, highlighting a decisive moment in the rethinking of the
contemporary artwork.
Lee describes the cognitive dissonance a viewer might feel on learning
the identity of Warhol Marilyn's author, and explains that mistaken
identity is part of Sturtevant's intention for the operation of the
work. She discusses the ways that Sturtevant's methodology went against
the grain of a certain interpretation of modernism, and addresses the
cultural significance of both Warhol and Monroe as celebrity figures.
She considers Dorothy Podber's shooting a bullet through a stack of
Warhol's Marilyns (thereafter known as The Shot Marilyns) at the
Factory in 1964 and its possible influence on Sturtevant's decision to
remake the work.
Lee writes that Sturtevant's critical reception has been informed by
some fictional forebears: the made-up artist Hank Herron (whose
nonexistent work duplicating paintings by Frank Stella was reviewed by a
fictional critic), and (suggested by Sturtevant herself) Pierre Menard,
the title character of Jorge Luis Borges's "Pierre Menard, Author of the
Quixote," who recreates a section of Cervantes's masterpiece line by
line. And finally, she explores installation contexts and display
strategies for Sturtevant's work as illuminating her broader artistic
aims and principles.
