Andy Warhol
Velvet Rage and Beauty

“Andy Warhol is arguably one of the most widely known and discussed artists of the twentieth century. While his depictions of consumer products and celebrities became household famous, there is a newly identified red thread through his career, starting in the late 1940s until his untimely death in the 1980s: a continuous searching to visualize his ideal of beauty, mostly male beauty, finding form and creating lasting images of what Warhol desired. Neue Nationalgalerie is for the first time putting together a large survey focused on Warhol’s search for a certain ideal beauty and shows that it is a central aspect and red thread throughout the artist’s different production phases and stages of career, from the 1940s to the 1980s. Bringing together more than 300 works, paintings, prints, drawings, photographs, Polaroids, films and collages, the exhibition allows an expansive and inclusive insight into a Warhol, that during his lifetime never had a real “coming-out”. …”