"An artist is somebody who produces things that people don't need to have"

Because this blog is supposed to reflect some area of pop culture, I thought that discussing Andy Warhols minipulation and use of pop culture to change the art world.
The original pop art movement started in England in the mid 1950's and consisted of recreations of everyday items.
During the 1950's and 1960's in America, consumerism was on the rise. It seemed appropriate to capture in a painting what the general population was already consuming.
Andy Warhol began painting pictures of Coca-Cola bottles, Campbell's soup cans, money,

His first art show consisted of 32 canvases, each with a different flavored soup can on it. The collection sold for over 1000 dollars, which was unheard of at the time.

Warhols creation of "pop art" causes me to wonder that if there had been no such fascination with "pop culture" would his art ever have meant anything?

His paintings soon became in such great demand that simply painting on canvas became too time consuming and was a hinderance to meeting the demands for his product.

In 1962 Andy Warhol created the process silk screening which involves a stencil that recreates an image multiple times. This technique allowed him to create one painting and multiply it many times with little effort.

In a way, the whole idea of silk-screening taints my view of Andy Warhol. I feel that a true artist would place more value on the quality of his work rather on the quantity of it.

Or perhaps this was the genuis of Andy Warhol. Maybe the joke is on us as consumers?

As a society our infatuation with pop culture has led to a general decline of the value of things in which we regard as quality. Can anyone really blame Andy Warhol for realizing the stupidity of Americans and cashing in on it? Concepts that are so simple and objects that are so common have been turned into some of the greatest works of art in the 1960's.

Whether or not what he created was "true art", the fact of the matter is that we bought it, we loved it, and we continue to love it today.

Andy Warhol himself has even been quoted as saying: "Art is what you can get away with". And obviously he got away with it.