All the Colors of Warhol exhibition – works of one of the most important artists of the 20th century in Belgrade this month
We have excellent news. The exhibition All the Colors of Warhol will be opened at the SALON gallery of the Belgrade City Museum (Bulevar Kralja Aleksandra 30) on the 8th of July at 6 p.m., organized by the Belgrade City Museum and the Belgrade Festivals Centre – CEBEF, and will run until the end of the month.
Visitors to the exhibition will have the opportunity to view 40 prints of the celebrated pop-art artist, which were carefully selected by Lazar Vujić, one of the most prominent European gallerists. The iconic portraits of Marilyn Monroe and Martha Graham, famous Campbell's Soup Cans, as well as Space Fruit, Flowers and other works will be presented. It is interesting that the painting of Marilyn Monroe was sold in 2022 for 200 million euros, which makes it the most expensive piece of art of the 20th century.
Vujić met Warhol while working on graphic designs for the Winter Olympic Games in Sarajevo in 1984. Among the graphic solutions, he wanted to include Warhol’s work.
‘Warhol's original idea for the Olympics was a ski jumper; however, I preferred a skater and, in the end, we decided on that motif,’ said Vujić in one of the interviews.
Andy Warhol was an American artist, painter, film director, and writer. He is considered the most famous and successful artist and a true representative of the pop art movement. He graduated with a degree in commercial art from the Carnegie Institute of Technology, now Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh in 1949. He did advertising illustrations for the likes of Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, The New Yorker, and Glamour. Until the beginning of the 1960s, Warhol was a successful advertisement illustrator, who was not recognized as an artist. He tried in vain to get his work accepted into galleries, which persistently rejected him. Therefore, he began to analyse the relationship between commerce and art and, instead of seeing them as mutually exclusive, he simply began to bring them together, becoming one of America's most famous artists. His first solo pop art exhibition was held in New York in 1962 and featured some of his best-known works, including Marilyn Diptych, 100 Soup Cans, 100 Coca-Cola Bottles, and 100 Dollar Bills. During that period, he created works that defined his career, such as numerous illustrations of typically American objects and famous personalities – Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley and others.
Warhol's studio, the Factory, with different locations in New York, was an iconic gathering spot that brought together and promoted a wide range of artists and celebrities of the time, and it was known for its parties in the 1960s. The 1970s were much quieter years for Warhol. He began to round up new, richer personalities, whose portraits he painted. His famous portrait of Mao Zedong was made in 1973.
Andy Warhol died on 22 February 1987 in New York, at the age of 58. His best-known statement is that ‘everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.’
The All the Colors of Warhol exhibition is the private property of the Visconti Fine Art collectors Živa Škodlar Vujić and Lazar Vujić from Slovenia.