Andy Warhol's Influences In Art And Pop Culture

The Question of Authenticity
In the mid-twentieth century, an American artist named Andy Warhol shook the art world like an earthquake. Warhol’s influences in art and pop culture have led him to be recognized as one of the most significant figures in contemporary art and culture. Many of his groundbreaking influences are still seen today, nearly 30 years after his death. Warhol receives credit as being the first to popularize silk-screen printing; a process that utilizes the properties of a stencil, meaning that some areas are blocked out and other areas are painted through (Christie). This screen-printing technique allowed Warhol to reproduce an original image repeatedly. With the formation of so many replicas’, how would the value and the
This causes a problem for viewers because it causes the artwork to lose its authenticity. Although mechanical reproduction and repetition may remind some individuals to pay more attention to an object, it could have the reverse effect by causing them to pay less attention to objects that they see on a daily basis. Attention is critical, because studies, such as the penny test by Mary Ellin Barrett, show that the objects that are not attended to are not remembered. This means that when individuals see something on a daily basis, such as a penny, they are later unable to correctly describe its aesthetic or visual characteristics because they do not focus their attention on it. The same concept applies to artwork. When individuals repeatedly see works of art, such as a can of Campbell soup, they do not pay as much attention to its detail as they would if they were seeing it for the first time. This causes a problem of aesthetic authenticity for viewers because they would have a much different view toward Campbell soup cans or Coca Cola bottles if they did not see them
Copies are very different from authentic pieces of artwork because they lack the same expressive significance. An authentic experience can be very hard to recapture once experienced, although the individual can attempt to recreate the incident. However, authentic experiences are nearly impossible to recreate and a copy will never have the same exact effect it did before. According to Benjamin, “Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be.” He elaborates by saying, “This unique existence of the work of art determined the history to which it was subject throughout the time of its existence. This includes the changes, which it may have suffered in physical condition over the years, as well as the various changes in its ownership