Welcome to Quinn vs. Quinn, your review source for arts, culture, and whatever else we both deem acceptable to bring to your attention! Penned by Erica (Quinn) and (Quinn) Daly.
This week we traveled to Hell’s Kitchen to see the show on loan to Affirmation Arts from our native Pennsylvania– Warhol: Confections & Confessions, 8 × 10 B+W Photographs from The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh. Photographs? Pennsylvania? Andy Warhol? I’m in!
QD: As no stranger to the Warhol museum in our home state of PA, this was kind of a neat little New York diversion. It’s not a statue of Andy or a billboard or a million bags with bananas on them, but a tight little show that showcased an interesting side of the artist.
EQ: Definitely– it was a quiet aside featuring a lot of quiet work: some still-life photographs, some pictures of a table set for what I can only image is breakfast, some mothers nursing and some photographs of…nothing. I think its understated nature was a lot of what made this a worthwhile show for me.
QD: Admittedly, I’m a sucker for Well Organized Groups of Things, so this was a nice show for me to see. Especially after the total shitty-ness of the crowds and people who will fuck you over on a sub-par hotdog (still angry) in that part of town, it’s a little slice of Warhol-induced calm.
EQ: A lot of the work was spare, and full of deadpan symbolism that might seem trite today– if some freshman year art school student turned in a B&W photo of a McDonald’s hamburger with a hammer and sickle you’d be like, “dude, whatever”. But it works here, because Andy Warhol is the one who opened that kind of blatant dialog. I think that’s important to remember. People get down on Warhol but I think he’s cleverer than he lets on. These photos felt like a collection of secrets.
QD: Yeah, I liked that aspect. Context, as always, is a super-important consideration, and this show did a great job of showing off some lesser-known but still extremely intentional works. I’d say it’s a really worthwhile a stop if you accidentally find yourself in that part of town. I’d give it two pretty casual thumbs up. Not like a “GO SEE THIS NOW” thing, but it’s worth a trip.
EQ: Certainly. The same goes for me as well! (This is the problem with having two unfortunately-similar art reviewers doing your art reviewing.) Go see this show if you like hamburgers, screen tests, the 1960s, or breasts. Or even if you don’t like those things, go see it anyway and see if you change your mind.
Quinn vs. Quinn gives Warhol: Confections & Confessions two thumbs up! The show runs through May 5th at Affirmation Arts, 523 W. 37th Street, NY, NY.
(Erica Quinn is a photographer/sad girl poet/cat blogger currently pursuing her MFA at the Pratt Institute and otherwise writing for Finch and Ada.)
(Quinn Daly is a retired horse trainer, writer, and photographer. He enjoys cocktails, food, and “art, in general.”)
