Halcyon Gallery welcomes visitors to its latest exhibition dedicated to American pop artist and cultural trailblazer, Andy Warhol. The exhibition entitled “Beyond the Brand” features the full range of Warhol’s pictorial inventions alongside Warhol’s rarely seen original “Ads” paintings, which are all open to the public for the first time in the United Kingdom. Warhol’s “Ads” series, is created both as a portfolio of prints and as a set of ten paintings on canvas. The late Andy Warhol played a pivotal role in shaping the realm of pop art and his work often explored the intersection between art and commerce. This is seen in Warhol’s reimagination of famous marketing advertisements — including Apple computers, Volkswagen cars and the Chanel No.5 fragrance — rendering them with vibrant colours and transforming them into powerful works of art.
Visitors to the gallery will catch a glimpse into the creative genius and indulge in the comprehensive overview of Warhol’s creative life — from his earliest artworks and illustrations to the last pieces he ever produced — an overarching view of his entire career under one roof. In addition to the “Ads” series, many of Warhol’s most famed print portfolios are on display including “Marilyn Monroe”,” Queen Elizabeth II”, “Chairman Mao”, “Muhammad Ali” and the “Endangered Species” collection.
Andy Warhol’s work reached critical acclaim in the 1960s at a time of heightened political, social and technological shifts. The beauty of the pop art genre was its democratisation of art, being accessible to the masses and not only to the elites — often taking inspiration from cultural moments and commercial figures of the day, making them instantly recognisable to the general public. This distinctive, non-traditional style of art challenged notions of capitalism and changed the perception of art while dissecting themes of cosmopolitanism, technology, movie stardom, political power, elegance and luxury.
It is no coincidence that the exhibition is taking place in London. London — the epicentre of the Swinging Sixties’s youth movement — shared its influence on fashion, art and music across the world and is only fitting to be the city that hosts this dynamic exhibition. It is also no coincidence that the exhibition is held at the Halcyon Gallery which has a longstanding history of hosting world-class exhibitions that are freely accessible to the general public. “Beyond the Brand” speaks to the testament of Andy Warhol’s legacy and art which still resonates across demographics and generations, decades after the artist’s death. This exhibition also comes at a poignant time in art where technological innovation and AI are changing the landscape of how art is produced, where authenticity and plagiarism are often called into question. Andy Warhol also had a remarkable impact on his fellow pop art contemporaries like artist Keith Haring and Jean Michel-Basquiat alongside shaping the face of New York’s art scene.
The Andy Warhol exhibition “Beyond the Brand” is open at Halcyon Gallery and is spread across the gallery’s two Mayfair sites at 29 and 148 New Bond Street. The exhibition runs from 18 January to 24 March 2024.
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