ANDY WARHOL

Andy Warhol (1928-1987) was a successful magazine and ad illustrator who was considered to be one of the leading artists of the Pop Art movement. He ventured into a wide variety of art forms, including performance art, filmmaking, video installations, writing, and controversially blurred the lines between fine art and mainstream aesthetics. Some of the most famous artworks by Andy Warhol are the numerous variations he created based on Campbell's Soup cans, and of course his portraits of Marilyn Monroe.

Tesco Value Soup Can presents a pastiche of Andy Warhol's iconic Campbell's Soup Can paintings. Tesco Value Soup Can is a remarkable, entirely hand-painted work on canvas (the majority of Banksy's canvasses are made with stenciled spray paint). Significantly, this mirrors Warhol's very first Campbell's Soup Cans – works that were painstakingly executed by hand shortly before Warhol turned to screen-printing for a more facile and factory-style mode of production.

In 1962, Warhol took the universally treasured and quintessentially American design of an inexpensive consumer product and turned it into a paragon of high art; 40 years later, Banksy adapted Warhol's all-American democratic symbol and made it relevant to his contemporary moment. Banksy's Tesco Value Soup Can draws on a more affordable version of Warhol's beloved Campbell's soup; marketed as part of the UK supermarket's Value range, this product utterly lacks the stylish branding that made Campbell's soup a symbol of the booming post-war economy in the USA. By choosing Tesco supermarkets' own-brand of tomato soup and its basic no-bones packaging – a stark contrast to comparative luxury of Campbell's design classic – Banksy's painting speaks to a bread-line culture of austerity and welfare. Herein, Banksy transforms an icon of post-war American affluence into a pithy pedestrian emblem of twenty-first-century cost-cutting.

Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans are perhaps the most well-known and iconic images in American modern art. Initially created as a series of 32 canvases in 1962, the soup cans gained international acclaim as a breakthrough in Pop Art. When the paintings were first exhibited, they were displayed together like products at a grocery store. Each soup can corresponded to a different flavor, and resembles the actual image of the red and white Campbell's Soup cans. Though they appeared identical to the well-known grocery items, the artist's handiwork is made obvious through the slight variations in the lettering and in the hand-stamped fleur-de-lis symbol on the bottom of each can. This juxtaposition between pure replication and the artist's hand makes the series all the more intriguing.

In his Kate Moss, Banksy again pays homage to Andy Warhol's iconic Marilyn Monroe suite, both in its subject and its formal execution. Banksy combines the features of Moss and Monroe, superimposing Monroe's hair onto a grey-scale portrait of Moss, then staining it with vibrant colors. Warhol's portraits of Monroe, like many of his other works, were both a glorification of fame and a satirical comment on it as a spectacle. Kate Moss has been described as one of the most recognizable faces of her time (perhaps Banksy's generation's Marilyn Monroe), appearing on over 300 magazine covers and featuring in Time Magazine's list of the world's “100 most influential people” in 2007. She contributed to the history of fashion for 25 years, and her image became part of global popular culture.

The Marilyn Monroe (Marilyn) screen-prints are one of Andy Warhol's most revered, collectable, and recognized portfolios. Known for his fascination for the glitz and glamour that fame offers, Marilyn Monroe was one of Warhol's earliest muses. Warhol used a publicity shot from Marilyn's movie Niagara in 1953, taken by Gene Korman. Marilyn reached fame as an actress, but Warhol was fascinated about how her fame grew exponentially after her tragic death in August 1962. Warhol immortalized the actress in an almost propaganda-like nature. It has been said that Warhol created an icon out of an icon.

In Sid Vicious, Banksy captures iconic Sex Pistol vocalist and bass player. The Sex Pistols are said to have initiated the Punk Movement in the UK and they have been an inspiration to many alternative rock musicians since.

This artwork is clearly inspired by Warhol's Marilyn Diptych, showing Monroe's portrait in a repetition of 25 screen prints on canvas. In Banksy's version, the glamorous Marilyn is replaced by the notorious bass guitarist and singer of the Punk band Sex Pistols. Banksy presents a satire of the values associated with the Punk movement, such as anti-establishment views, anti-commercialism, and individualism since Pop Art, on the other hand, is interlinked with notions of popular culture, consumerism, and the mainstream.