Andy Warhol (August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987)

Big Torn Campbell's Soup Can

1962

Warhol is someone I don't quite know what to think of; and that is, admittedly, a sort of shrugging, meandering, empty statement–but it's true. And my fence-sitting stems from that ever-present question hanging over Warhol: who was the joke on? Setting the question aside, Warhol was undoubtedly one of the strangest and most interesting characters in the history of American art, who gave rise to two of my favorite quotations (one by association and one personally), which follow later in the post.

Self-Portrait

1967

"What's great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coca-Cola, Liz Taylor drinks Coca-Cola, and just think, you can drink Coca-Cola, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the cokes are the same and all the cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it."

- Andy Warhol