2 Arts & Lit
Arts & Lit
20th November 2014
Ciara Moloney on Curating Warhol and Morris Olivia Widdowson
St Edmund Hall Olivia: The ‘Love is Enough Exhibition’ is set to be a winter highlight in Oxford. What is the role of a curator of such an exhibition and what is it like to work with an award winning artist such as Jeremy Deller?
glamour and the Kennedy family. We researched Warhol’s fascination with celebrity from when he was a child and charted this fascination into adulthood, culminating in his paintings of female celebrities such as Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe and Joan Collins. Morris on the other hand was fascinated with medieval world. At Exeter College, Oxford, he became friends with people like Edward
ing that published works were a way for them to produce and disseminate their worldview. For Warhol this meant setting up Interview Magazine so that he could design and edit all of the content. In doing this Warhol was really ahead of his time. He foresaw how prominent the idea of celebrity would become in contemporary society. Some editions of Interview Magazine will be presented alongside mate-
In this gallery we look at the ways Warhol and Morris stylised elements of the natural world […] and how these were incorporated within their prints and paintings. Morris’s 30 foot long matchpiece is a length of wallpaper which illustrates each stage of the printing process. Alongside we have a selection of flower prints by Warhol and archival material on loan from the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. Again
Ciara: Modern Art Oxford’s Head of Programme, Sally Shaw invited Jeremy to curate the project. Sally and Jeremy have worked together for over ten years, including on ‘Sacrilege’, a bouncy castle modelled after Stonehenge in 2012. She knew that Jeremy was really fascinated by Andy Warhol and William Morris. He has actually done a few pieces of work on William Morris (such as his ‘English Magic’ installation at the Venice Biennale). When he was a teenager, he met Warhol and went to the Factory in New York. They are very different artists and they would not usually be linked together but their personalities and political stances are exposed through the process of their lives and works. We are looking at what they might have in common and therefore Jeremy’s role is in identifying specific themes that explore the overlaps and divergences between their work.
O: How can students relate to their works and in what way will this exhibition be attractive to students?
O: What was the over all conception of the exhibition and how does love tie into this theme? C: Love is Enough is the title of a play written by William Morris. The play is written in the style of medieval morality play and it is something we come across in a lot of Morris’s work. He idealised the medieval period and he was very interested in the people’s labour and craft. He felt that this period reflected a more honest and true way of working; a world that was much more creative and closer to nature. The examples he would give would be the wood-worker, carving furniture for the church, rather than being in a mechanised production line as it would have been in the 19th century. According to Morris, medieval craftsmen really took care in their work and created goods that were natural and useful. The exhibition is not about romantic love; it is more about the love and passion for a particular way of life. Both Warhol and Morris pursue this throughout their careers in very different ways. The conceptual direction for the first room is the importance of mythology to both artists. This room is has the title of ‘Camelot’. We look at Warhol’s fascination with celebrity, Hollywood,
on this one as the conception of the exhibition was his. Both the artists are really emblematic of the age they lived in. Morris was immersed in the rapid cultural, social, economic and technological changes of the 19th century, an era of widespread industrialisation. His is a voice that called for an awareness of what was happening, one that was asking people to consider the impact of this changing world on society and the negative effect industrialization had on the landscape. He cautioned against the effects of the factories, the pollution and repetitive, mechanised labour. I think that this is something we can relate to today. Warhol is very much associated with a particular era: the swinging 60’s. Again this age was dominated by mass production and mass marketing and so the iconic images of Warhol’s coke bottles speaks to what was happening in the West during this era. Warhol was fascinated with the celebrity, something that is so much part of our culture today. I think people at the time may have thought it was superficial but Warhol was predicted what was to come: a celebrity consumer culture.
PHOTO/Andy Warhol/Modern Art Oxford
Burne-Jones who shared his love of medieval poetry. We see this reflected in works such as the Holy Grail tapestry series, an example of which we have on display in the exhibition. We are proposing that these two men carried their childhood idealism of mythologies throughout the rest of their working lives. The material in the Middle Galleries also explores how both men propagated their particular view of the world through publication and literature. Print was very important to both of them. So here we are argu-
rials from Morris’ publishing venture, Kelmscott Press. In fact, Exeter College in Oxford has lent the last book produced by the Kelmscott Press in Morris’s lifetime: The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer published in 1896. The display in the final gallery, entitled ‘Flower Power’, catalogues the artists’ use of print, pattern, decoration and repetition. This will be one of the most visually spectacular spaces in the exhibition. The walls will be covered in wallpaper designed by Morris with a selection of incredible drawings and paintings placed throughout the space.
we can chart Warhol’s process of making his silk screens, starting from an original photo he took and looking at how that manifests into the final design. Here we are investigating how the two artists worked, each with their very different and distinctive styles, in juxtaposing their work the exhibition reveals many unexpected shared interests. O: In what way were Morris and Warhol the voices of their generation? C: I’m going to paraphrase Jeremy
C: We were at the V&A looking at William Morris works and the curator we spoke to said that the exhibition would be very popular with audiences. Everyone knows Warhol and he is probably one of the most accessible artists - he used and copied all kinds of everyday objects and images and most people are familiar with his aesthetic. Jeremy thinks that both of the artists had a democratic approach to art and art making, they both worked collaboratively and believed that every person should have access to their work. For Warhol this is best seen in his statement “A coke is a coke and no amount of money can get you a better coke than the one the bum on the street in the corner is drinking.” Morris’ democratic approach is seen in his belief that everyone should have beauty in their life. He thought beautiful, finely made objects and interiors should be available to everyone. I hope then that the visual excitement of these two artists will draw in people from a range of backgrounds and age groups. O: Finally, could you sum up the exhibition in a few words? C: Through this exhibition Jeremy Deller offers an unconventional and passionate look at two very different artists who both believed that everyone should have access to art and beauty in their lives.