Picasso’s name still carries much power, although not for the reasons it formally had. Now, he is an aspiration for people. The imagined life, doing very little but acting as one imagines a famous artists to act via cues from TV and movies. Paying for huge bar & restaurant bills via scribbling on a napkin, grabbing your dealer’s or someone else’s wife’s breast and other such bad behavior, all done to endless applause.

Think what you want about the man, he actually worked hard. Those who daydream of reaching his level would give up even earlier than their eventual quitting if they knew the amount of work required to attempt to scale up to his heights.

The best art and artists have an aspect to them in which each fan recreates it in the image they need, their own meanings, regardless of accuracy.

Andy Warhol is another whose name has become totemic for many. The interesting thing about him is that he seems to be made by admirers (and some detractors) into a myriad of bewigged pixies.

With Picasso, whether one is fan or not, the various ways in which he is portrayed always have a main component of him being the conqueror.

Andy though, is legion. Some admirers see him as what he offered up to the world, the public face. Others wanted to dig a little deeper and went by his published diaries, which most likely had been done for eventual public consumption. A further put on or enigma, depending upon which camp one is in.

There is the parable about the six blind men and the elephant. This perfectly sums up Andy. Assuredly, we are told he was:

Master manipulator, someone whose other-worldly boho mien was a sort of act which amused him to do, a long con performance piece.

A true artist whose cool emotional detachment was birthed out of the initial ideas behind pop-art and the booming post war years of consumerism.

An on the spectrum man-child, whose wonderment at some of life’s more mundane aspects truly enchanted him.

Each of these members of an army of Andys have a plausible explanation as to why they are the true Andy.

He achieved such fame and was in the game for so long. There was a sharp eyed cleverness behind everything he did. Part of his genius was in letting others talk for him.

Early on he found a way to to do a put on to the art world which amused him. This was facilitated by letting critics, fans and peers do the talking, coming up with the theories and meanings amongst themselves.

He was a sort of naif. Handlers and an inner circle took care of all practical matters, while he walked through life in a dream like enchantment.

It was all an act which allowed an artist who was mediocre in execution of work and its promotion in the traditional manner to accrue power and money while secretly laughing behind his wig and shades.

Interestingly, the further forward in time we move, the clearer picture of which was the true Andy is formed. All the various Andy’s which people hold dear were aspects of him.

I am actually not a fan. Recently, I had the pleasure of seeing a giant silkscreen by Rauschenberg which i greatly admired. This combined with fact that every time I watch a documentary on anything going on in the 1970’s from clothes, music, photography, night life et al, at the very least during montages, Andy can be seen watching the crowd.

It served to make me think of the nature of his fame.

Don’t hate the player, hate the game

Quick sketch on newsprint