WARHOL’S SERIES ‘SHADOWS’ SHOWN IN NEW YORK

The Dia Art Foundation has invaded the New York City with its extra-ordinary installations of Warhol’s ‘Shadows’ this October.

Dozens of the series’ brightly colored canvases have been installed according to the artist’s instructions – to be installed edge to edge.

‘Shadows’, is a series that comprises of 102 canvases which signify obsessive repetition. Two photographs of shadowy forms are printed repeatedly in colorful shades of aqua, violet, coral and yellow. Unity is this series’ uniqueness unlike most of other series by Andy Warhol that have been split and sold.

Dia Art Foundation which owns the works purposes to represent the series’ distinctiveness as well as its uniqueness in each piece. The Foundation also focuses on bringing out the artist’s first presentation of the ‘Shadows’. “We all think of Warhol as the artist who worked with serial images” said Dia’s director Jessica Morgan, “but we rarely see the way he first presented this work”.

Andy Warhol (1928-1987), helped usher in an era of Pop art using variety of cultural iconic images in his works. He introduced his widely known “Mao Series” in 1972 when he took back into painting after having announced an end to his painting career in 1968. He continued to introduce new ideas and just before his death, he produced his last series based on Leonardo da Vinci, “The Last Supper”.

We could say that New Yorkers will be getting a double dose of Andy Warhol’s work: Shadows will be on view as from (today) 26th October – 15th December, at the Calvin Klein headquarters, while the Pop art will be on view at the New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art from 12th November – 31st of March 2019.

‘Shadows’ was last shown in New York at Dia’s former Chelsea Headquarters in 1998 – 1999. It became the only work by Warhol after Dia donated the rest of his works to Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh.

Co – organizer of ‘Shadows’ Donna De Salvo, approached Dia with the idea of having the work back again in New York and the deputy director of the Foundation Courtney Martin, after overcoming the only roadblock of finding a place to have it showcased, decided on the ground floor space at the Company’s headquarters. She said that found it fit as “it is an industrial building without too much distracting detail”.

Courtney however said that the canvases had damages with most of it confined to the edges and the corners. One of the conservators hired to work on the repairs Nadia Ghannam introduced a new way of hanging them, using a handle mounted on the back. To have the paintings installed, one would not necessarily be required to grab them. She is also introduced the use of new dry cleaning techniques that can be said be gentle on the works.

Calvin Klein which is helping support the project through its sponsorship.

It has always been Dia’s goal to show as many canvases as possible says Courtney Martin. Shadows will be reinstalled at Dia- Beacon in New York in 2019.