Abstract

Andy Warhol: POMO Pimp, Pop Tart, Meta-Star takes a two-pronged approach in its examination of visual artist, filmmaker and social oddity Andy Warhol. Using both philosophy and biography, it plots the ramifications of Warhol's aesthetics, while using personal data to string together an eminent life. In an effort to separate yet conjoin aesthetic analysis and historical expose, this dissertation divides schematically into two parts, titled "Theories" and "Elements." "Theories" takes to its logical limit art philosopher Arthur Danto's notorious idea that Warhol's 1964 Brillo Boxes ends art. Tracing Danto's conclusion back to Hegel's earlier assessment of Romanticism as bringing the project of art to completion, "Theories" seizes upon the category of the sublime as ideal corrective for Danto's prognosis. Using concepts provided by Longinus, Immanuel Kant and Edmund Burke, it traces out the contours of a postmodern sublimity within Warhol's words, images and appearances. Traveling along another route, "Elements" identifies and fleshes out four Warholian conceptual pillars: counter-revolution, the drug narrative, machinehood and meta-celebrity. Circling these focal points, "Elements" veers from arguments for and against a postmodern sublimity toward Warhol's own ideologies, proclivities and obsessions as these have informed his own creative output. Tracking Warhol's affiliations with conservative political figures , rabid substance abusers , servo-mechanistic equipment and all grades of famous individuals , this portion of the dissertation gazes intently at vital bodies populating Warhol's worlds