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Andy Warhol Silver Factory
Post #1082 • November 7, 2007, 10:26 AM • 43 Comments
Artblog.net gets hit up to review all kinds of things, lending credence to the observation that media outlets are disappearing. I decline most of them, but one caught my eye - a perfume produced by Bond No. 9 based on Andy Warhol, with the blessing of the Andy Warhol Foundation, christened Andy Warhol's Silver Factory.
I'm constitutionally impervious to developments in fashion, but fortunately there's a female person in the house. A sample and accompanying press materials arrived chez Artblog.net and we sniffed them over. Supergirl was impressed. Perfumes normally give her a headache, but ten minutes after application she was fine. "It alternates between sweet, woodsy, and powdery," she said. "Right from the bottle, bergamot and grapefruit predominate. On the skin the amber and the cedarwood come out, and then the lingering scent alternates between a foresty incense and sweet resin, not as sweet as vanilla, but something in that neighborhood. It reminds me a bit of the Cacharel Lou Lou I used to wear. My head doesn't hurt, so the ingredients must be the best quality. Can you get more?"
Andy Warhol Silver Factory is supposed to be androgynous enough for male use, but its application to my person didn't get a good review. "No, it's a little too sugary and girly," said Supergirl as she whiffed my nape. "Maybe for a gay man like Warhol, it would work."
"I can't say that I'm wild about the bottle, but I guess that's your department." Indeed. The bottle is consistent with the rest of the Bond line, although made metallic, it looks a bit like a dressing mannequin for a robot in the Jetsons. The typography and color scheme derive from a Warholian treatment of the Campbell's Soup can recolored in spearmint blue, butterscotch, and plum. (I suppose the original Campbell's palette would have evoked pureed tomatoes.) Some of the descriptors of the product went over the top in a manner I wish was available to the art critic. "Elusive, metallic iris, smelling the way silver might smell." That's great copy, redolent of heartland blondes in the passionate throes of Poetry 101. And check this (punctuation sic):
This bottle is also an example of meta-design: the co-opting of Warhol's artistic rendering of a world-famous soup can, and its recycling for yet another consumer product. OK, so it's a luxury product, (but once again it has liquid inside!) What's more, taking a cue from the Campbell's label, which proclaims its soups as Condensed, we'll be offering our Warhol fragrances as innovative 28 percent perfume concentrates - in between eau de parfum and and perfume extract. (Thank you, Campbell's, for the hint.)
This is in no way inferior to any brief review in Flash Art.
It's no shame to cash in on the Warhol mystique. Hell, he did it himself. The press release quotes Michael Hermann, director of licensing at the foundation, saying, "Working with Bond No. 9 represents a unique, unexpected, and exciting opportunity to introduce Warhol to an ever-widening audience." Probably no artist's audience wants less for widening, but no matter. There's a whole Louis Vuitton boutique installed next to the Murakami show at the LA MoCA and I'll bet nothing in it smells this good. I look forward to future artists getting the Bond No. 9 treatment. Francis Bacon, for instance.
2.
November 7, 2007, 2:20 PM
sarto, Ha! Very Funny! Pithy!
At least conceptual art has gone comercial. We should be able to get a handle on it now. A nice leather handle.
3.
November 7, 2007, 2:26 PM
A silver leather handle?
4.
November 7, 2007, 2:29 PM
silver leather- a new medium
5.
November 7, 2007, 2:39 PM
Let's spray paint it silver.
6.
November 7, 2007, 3:34 PM
Spray Paint ya,
Crossover-guerilla/conceptual- Art
Double edgy.
7.
November 7, 2007, 3:49 PM
Wait lets over intellectualize this blog for a moment and
Consider my true elitist point of view, for the sake of posterity.
The leather handle first is a representative of the 3rd world, brown skinned man, bolted, enslaved by the commodity market and the insatiable desire of the decadent upper class. The spray paint is a metaphor for the commercialization of pop art's attempt at social commentary regarding the commercialization of art. These two ideas are driven together in a clash of cultural bias under the salvo of “Missiles Warhola“.
8.
November 7, 2007, 6:09 PM
Let's not over simplify this, gentlemen.
9.
November 7, 2007, 6:22 PM
"Maybe for a gay man like Warhol, it would work". Franklin, that comment is not coolsville.
10.
November 7, 2007, 6:56 PM
"Coolsville" is tiresome, storto. It's devolved to a kind or paralysis, a fear of judgement and action. Frozen, nonreactive.
"Hey, like, it's cool, man. Cocks on a plate? Hey, that's cool! Like, no problem!"
No thanks.
11.
November 7, 2007, 7:08 PM
When did Artblog.net start attracting refugees from Artforum Talk Back?
12.
November 7, 2007, 7:37 PM
Franklin, Thanks for the suggestion.
13.
November 7, 2007, 8:12 PM
[Let's reflect for a moment who is the host and who is the guest here. - F.]
14.
November 7, 2007, 9:36 PM
Oh Franklin, I'm so sorry. I promise to behave. It's just that this whole Warhol thing makes me want to twist and shout.
15.
November 8, 2007, 5:12 AM
Sorry but,
What is with this bit of fluff for a Post?
Where is the more meaty art post issues I am used to?
What a great couple of days of posts and now we have this
sweet, woodsy and powdery perfume post.
This is out of character for this Blog.
Where is Franklin and what have you done with him?
16.
November 8, 2007, 7:15 AM
"This is in no way inferior to any brief review in Flash Art."
RL, in case you're serious, this is the punchline.
Franklin, I don't know what you're eating for breakfast, but keep eating it. This blog needs to be renamed "Flamethrower."
17.
November 8, 2007, 7:40 AM
Talk about a consensus problem. If this was a fluff piece then I am on the wrong planet. Hey, maybe that is true.
18.
November 8, 2007, 7:45 AM
I thought this post was pretty great, actually. Very amusing.
19.
November 8, 2007, 8:27 AM
OK
Maybe I was a bit to harsh.
The post was still a surprise.
20.
November 8, 2007, 8:40 AM
Hey RL,
No problem. Don't kid yourself, Franklin is actually really cool. Catch my drift?
21.
November 8, 2007, 8:56 AM
No. I missed the swell.
22.
November 8, 2007, 9:09 AM
I am a female person, and fashion can go suck an egg as far as I'm concerned.
23.
November 8, 2007, 9:29 AM
It's not exactly Supergirl's preoccupation, but she did go through the requisite North American female adolescent indoctrination into cosmetics, hair manipulation, and the depilatory arts.
24.
November 8, 2007, 9:57 AM
There is another blog writting about the perfume
http://fallonandrosof.blogspot.com/
25.
November 8, 2007, 10:03 AM
"Unlike primary or ordinary intuition, the esthetic kind has no limits set to it. Which means that anything that's experienceable at all, anything at all that enters awareness, can be intuited and experienced esthetically."
26.
November 8, 2007, 10:10 AM
A boozy, woodsy Jackson Pollock cologne might be nice. It should come in a gallon can, to be applied flung from a stick. Call it "Autumn Rhythm"...
27.
November 8, 2007, 10:27 AM
I suggest something truly "avant." We've already had canned shit, so let's now have bottled piss (spray-on optional). It could be marketed as Pollock Water.
28.
November 8, 2007, 10:37 AM
"Lavender Mist"
29.
November 8, 2007, 10:44 AM
Marc, What is the limit of primary intuition? sounds ineffable.
30.
November 8, 2007, 10:49 AM
Pollock actually painted a picture named "Scent" in 1955.
Undoubtedly intended for "The She-Wolf"
31.
November 8, 2007, 10:51 AM
Someone should market a bourbon named "Jackson Danlels"
32.
November 8, 2007, 10:51 AM
applause. applause, opie. Good, damn good.
33.
November 8, 2007, 12:23 PM
"Lavender Mist" is good, but sounds strictly for the ladies (or, again, gay men like Warhol). How about "Cedar Street"? Is it too soon to make an Olitski spray?
Marc, What is the limit of primary intuition? sounds ineffable.
Primary intuition "informs, apprises, orients you, and in doing that always points to other things than itself, to other things than the act of intuition itself. Ordinary intuition does this even when furnishing data for pure knowledge, for knowledge valued for its own sheer sake; even here the act points to something other than itself: that is, to data.
The moment, however, that an act of intuition stops with itself and ceases to inform or point it changes from an ordinary intuition into an esthetic one. An esthetic intuition is dwelled on, hung up on, relished—or dys-relished—for its own sole sake and nothing else. The intuition that gives you the color of the sky turns into an esthetic intuition when it stops telling you what the weather is like and becomes purely an experience of the color. The same conversion takes place when the intuition of the taste or smell of wine is received for its own sake as a taste or smell instead of for what it means in the way of allaying thirst."
Effable enough, I'd say...
34.
November 8, 2007, 12:28 PM
Thanks! Everyone. Note Marc was not offended by the question. Everyone note Marc was clear in the totality of his explanation. Excellent.
35.
November 8, 2007, 12:45 PM
Your comments are strange, ekim. I don't recall ever stating I've been "offended" by anyone's questions, including yours. Perhaps you are projecting just a little bit...
36.
November 8, 2007, 2:55 PM
Marc, although I requested everyone to look, the comment was meant for those only who do, unlike you. Who's projecting.
37.
November 8, 2007, 3:01 PM
Sorry marc even that was less clear. What I meant to say is others, unlike you, are often offended.
38.
November 8, 2007, 3:05 PM
Everyone's concocktion mixed into one big vat. Voila, "Eau de Artblog".
39.
November 8, 2007, 6:13 PM
Is it too soon to make an Olitski spray?
Perfect. Packaged in a specially designed spray gun.
("Lavender Mist" and "Autumn Rhythm" work far too well as perfume names, it's a little frightening.)
40.
November 9, 2007, 1:11 AM
too late. everyone is in the latest work by F. holding hands and imagining themselves as pathetic characters in a funny film about sad people.
41.
November 9, 2007, 8:33 AM
Ekim, don't think you're the first one to come here, pick out a pseudonym, and disparage what goes on here.
42.
November 9, 2007, 8:46 AM
F. Disparage what? I am participating.
43.
November 9, 2007, 9:03 AM
What pseudonym? My name is ekim skram just ask otrots leinad or refer to icniv ad odranoel.
1.
Storto
November 7, 2007, 2:17 PM
I guess getting rid of conceptual art didn't work.