Drella - art is business
"Drella - art is business"
Oil on canvas
200 x 300 cm
in progress
A.
Andy Warhol (cognomen Drella: composed of Dracula and Cinderella):
"Art is business.Big art is big business."
B.
The picture is a sarcastic comment on the economisation of the art market as well as,in general,on the primary of capitalistic laws in all areas of live (among others regarding these laws´ outcome in the current financial crises).
The basic concept was to make the picture appear to look like a bank note or like a share/commercial paper,hence the basic framework with its squares and circles,symmetrical alignment as well as chosen font borrowed from a bank note.
C.
In the centre of the picture,Andy Warhol appears as antichrist,medieval alchimist as well as magician.
Just as during the Muslim Hadsch (pilgrimage) to Mecca when the believer must walk around the holy cubical-shaped K´aaba seven times before being allowed to enter it and touch the Holy Stone of Wisdom,there are seven circles emanating from Andy:
- the outermost circle with Kerboros: the three-headed dog guarding the entrance to Hades
- the large circle with two snakes heads biting their tails (as a symbol of eternal return)
- the two large circles each to the right resp. left of Andy with gorgon heads (Greek mythology);inside them metaphors: to the left Greed,to the right: Vanity
- the two smaller circles,top and bottom,each with three harpils (Greek mythology: ancient Storm/Disaster Godness),hybrid forms composed of woman and birds;inside them two cloud stormers as an allegory of Ambition and Pride (at the top,the female version depicted bearing a pig head;at the bottom,the male version depicted bearing a monkey head).
D.
Buzzing all through the picture are small putti (naked,often winged,children)/genies (winged,lower gods of Roman mythology),their heads being those of bats (Dracula´s companions) flying around Andy who appears with a round neon lamp as his gloriole;they carry
along the sun/a large gold coin and the moon/a large silver coin (in the picture arranged as in the Yin-Yang-Symbol).Yet,they also spill faeces and minhibitedly urinate and dececate.
