A Warhol on the wall opens up some of the newly renovated galleries at the National Gallery of Canada (NGC).
Andy Warhol was an American artist best known for spearheading the pop art movement in the second half of the 20th century.
His more famous pieces include a colourful print of Marilyn Monroe and one of Campbell soup cans, but the print currently on display is a little different from those iconic images.
It is a close-up, black and white image of American poet and performance artist John Giorno sleeping, aptly entitled “Sleep” (1965).
The shot is interesting in its simplicity.
“There’s something much more subdued and minimal about this print,” the NGC’s assistant curator of European and American art Adam Welch said.
Warhol was inspired to make the film Sleep, and subsequently the print, after watching Giorno — a member of Warhol’s entourage known as “Warhol superstars” — sleep off a hangover. The print is a still from the nearly five-and-a-half hour film.
“‘Sleep’ shows us a lesser-known aspect of Warhol’s art-making,” NGC director and CEO Marc Mayer said in a press release.
“Unlike his popular images of celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, Jacqueline Kennedy, or even Wayne Gretzky, here Warhol shows real tenderness. We’re afforded a glimpse of Warhol as we don’t often see him.”
And perhaps the tenderness derives partly from the subject. Giorno was allegedly one of Warhol’s early love interests.
The NGC was given the print in 2010 by Marla and Larry Wasser.
It is a single still plucked from the film, which plays alongside the print at the gallery, on loan from the Collection of the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh.
And for Welch, the relationship between the print and the film is important.
“Warhol presented the film first. At one point in the early 1960s he said he was giving up on art and going into filmmaking,” he said. “So the film is the source.”
Welch also says that juxtaposing the film and the print is an interesting way to play with time.
“There’s this interesting temporal thing going on. Five-and-a-half hour film against a single still. A really long duration and a fixed image that was part of Warhol’s project at the time and his interest in celebrity.”
And while the print was donated in 2010, Welch said the gallery chose to wait on putting it on display until the post-war galleries had been renovated.
“Rather than present the recent gift in an old gallery setting, we wanted to wait to borrow the film and to present it in a new context,” he said.
Now the film rests in the newly renovated galleries of Pop, Conceptual and Minimal art, alongside works by artists such as Claes Oldenburg and Frank Stella.
The print will be on display until May 1.
