The iconic Andy Warhol work will always be his paintings of the Campbell's soup cans. (You can view ones an example of one such work on display at the Museum of Modern Art here: http://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/andy-warhol-campbells-soup-cans-1962) Like many of his works, this appears to be silkscreened. Warhol made many such paintings during his lifetime, but this is the one that I think best captures the themes of pop art such as taking a very common object and depicting it in such a way that it becomes "art".
Granted, Warhol is not alone in this. He certainly was not the only pop artist out there nor did the movement originate with him. Other pop artists did similar things such as Roy Lichtenstein and his comic book panels. However,
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I do not see this that way. Based on everything I have read about Warhol, he was largely apolitical. Instead, I think it echos back to the themes of machines and repetition. It also echos back to Warhol's fascination with fame. He was famously convinced that in the future, everyone would be famous for 15 minutes. Some may argue he was on to something especially now with the rise of reality TV and the number of celebrities who are famous for nothing. By taking this very basic soup can and elevating it to art, Warhol is proving his theory about 15 minutes of fame: this previously utilitarian object suddenly transcends what it was made to do-provide nourishment-and becomes much larger than merely a can of soup. If something as basic as a can soup can become famous or an object of art, then what does that say about people? Of course, Andy Warhol was already aware of how people could be plucked from obscurity and made into "stars". He did that with his Factory Superstars and with himself. The former Andy Warhola from Pittsburgh was now just as famous as the movie stars he read about as a child. While clearly his talent played a major role in this, so did his endless