Recap Andy Warhol: The Last Decade

Andy Warhol returned to painting more than 20 years after announcing he was done with the medium. Turns out Warhol was far from done—his last decade of life was more productive than any other period of his career. This varied, complex, and largely unknown body of work is the focus of the Milwaukee Art Museum’s Andy Warhol: The Last Decade. The exhibit, which opens Saturday and runs until January 3, is the first-ever U.S. museum survey of this Warhol period, and it’s a worthy introduction. (Get a sneak preview tonight at the museum's monthly "MAM After Dark" event.)

A far cry from the Campbell’s soup cans and Marilyn Monroe prints Warhol is best known for, many of the 50 pieces here will likely be new to casual fans. Warhol, particularly in his last decade, was always impossible to pin down. The exhibit features numerous self-portraits, examples of Warhol’s Oxidation Paintings (more impolitely called “piss paintings” because they use a chemical process involving urine), and two imposing, 15-foot, floor-to-ceiling Rorschach paintings.

YarnOther works range from the completely abstract—like the Yarn series, which combines Jackson Pollack-like controlled chaos with the clean lines of silk screen—to raw, hand-painted collaborations with Jean-Michel Basquiat. Some of these look more Basquiat than Warhol, but Arm And Hammer II highlights each artist’s style: Two sharply painted images of the baking soda company’s logo fill the canvas, but one of them is covered by a figure painted in Basquiat’s rough, frenetic strokes. The styles couldn’t be more distinct, and viewers get to see an evolution in Warhol’s work that was partly influenced by Basquiat. At this point, he returns to hand painting, and his work becomes increasingly personal and profound—as distanced from the advertising sheen he’s known for as it is built upon it.

Detail Of The Last Supper (Christ 112 Times)The most personal pieces are the black and white ads and The Last Supper series, which expose Warhol’s devout Catholicism—something he kept under wraps throughout his career. While pop-art images of Christ and a G.E. logo on top of The Last Supper might seem disrespectful, they aren’t meant to be. They simply use Warhol’s established artistic vocabulary in exploring his religion. It’s not inconceivable, however, that while he was a practicing Catholic—one who attended Mass and frequently volunteered at homeless shelters—he also recognized Christ’s image as a cultural icon. The Last Supper paintings and silk screens are enormous—Detail Of The Last Supper (Christ 112 Times) stretches 35 feet. This was the final series of Warhol’s career.

Andy Warhol: The Last Decade—finally ready to be enjoyed after 10 years in the making —is as ambitious as it is enlightening, expanding the dialogue about Warhol beyond colorful portraits and soup cans. It’s a collaborative effort between the Milwaukee Art Museum and Pittsburgh’s Andy Warhol Museum, and the show will be displayed in three cities after Milwaukee. Fans of Warhol’s more well-known works will be pleased to know that the Warhol love is sprinkled throughout the museum. There are enough of Marilyns and Maos in the permanent collections to please fans left craving the Warhol they know.