Fluxus Thoughts on my recent visit to the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh:

When events occur dur­ing one’s con­scious­ness, said occur­rences become com­mon­place, the every day back­ground influ­ence of the every day. I sus­pect ⁹⁄₁₁ will become such a phenomenon.

Take World War II, for exam­ple. To my par­ents, the great­est gen­er­a­tion, the War defined the remain­ing decades of their lives. A lurid past expe­ri­ence that both tainted and enhanced every event. War never leaves. This cur­rent set of wars, the Iraq and Afghanistan con­flicts wherein the term “war” is often mis-​used yet omnipresent, affects us all yet the per­cent­age of fam­i­lies who per­ceive direct influ­ence is misconstrued.

This was, then, the con­struct upon pay­ing the fee and wan­der­ing free through­out the Andy Warhol Museum. Oddly, try typ­ing Warhol… the brain wants my fin­gers to type Warhold. That silly “d” keeps pop­ping up requir­ing either a macro-​based edit­ing func­tion or care­ful re-​read.

Back to the Warhol-​esque memo­r­ial ideas. As a child of the 50s and 60s, the influ­ence is daily. The soup cans, the Heinz cat­sup boxes rep­re­sented the mun­dane every day of art. The were def­i­nitely no observed by a 1^st — 6^th grader as astute, life-​changing, or even rad­i­cal. These Warhol con­tri­bu­tions merely “were” “are” the “is hap­pen­ing” of the decade. The same idea occurs with Wood­stock­ian ref­er­ences or 1968 Demo­c­ra­tic Con­ven­tion cru­elty. So when recently I viewed the Warhol, it became clear. The insid­i­ous back­ground that was “his” art did so influ­ence us.

And the com­mer­cial Warhol dif­fers so very greatly from the artis­tic Warhol. There appear to be a plethora of sides to this man. Gen­tle dis­si­dence, quiet con­fi­dence com­pounded by a scream­ing lack of self-​esteem. No direct knowl­edge of self-​worth. Sadly mis­taken, he was, of course, influ­en­tial and yet dis­eased. His tal­ent for mak­ing money seemed to con­fuse his true artis­tic bent.

I am aware of the good-​time-​boy Warhol, the Mar­i­lyn Mon­roe party acqui­si­tions. And the dark of Warhol with his death pho­tos. Com­pelling, the woman who appar­ently leapt from a build­ing, falling smashdab onto the roof of a car. She wore white gloves, much as I was required to do for church, in 1963, we all wore our white gloves as proud Pres­by­te­ri­ans which we became with the appalling lack of Uni­tar­ian obfus­ca­tion in Fort Smith, Arkansas in the 1960s. Later Epis­co­palians upon the death of Carol Ann Cross when I became a 7^th grader… we fol­lowed the social nor­malcy of the day. Pleated plaid skirt, knee-​high socks, red blazer, proud proud blazer, white oxford shirt. Every Sun­day. Repeated, like the Nicene Creed, my out­fit. My par­ents. My brother.

So Warhol did make me what I became. Did influ­ence my being. With­out con­scious­ness, he became what was con­vo­luted and as such, did make my Artis­tic Knowl­edge one of Fluxus and relevance.

My irrel­e­vant self super­im­posed upon the mon­u­men­tal under­tak­ing of via­bil­ity and rel­a­tiv­ity. Dying and liv­ing, danc­ing with Shaker pre­ci­sion, loose and unfree. Fet­tered by expec­ta­tions and bound by mon­e­tary exe­ge­sis. Ephemera becomes me as it did Warhol. Cookie jars. Knick­knacks, frip­pery unfounded. I could not have loved that man, but appre­ci­ate him, like the faux-​homemade cup­cakes sold in his base­ment amid pipes and wires and ducts of air.

Yes, I drank from a bot­tle of water just out­side the fourth floor ele­va­tor. Thusly chas­tised, I swal­lowed my pills dry and choked on Warhol.

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