The Andy Warhol Museum

The Andy Warhol Museum sits unassumingly on a street corner about 2 blocks north of the PNC Pittsburgh Pirate's Baseball stadium. The last time I was in Pittsburgh for a visit, that area was a barren wasteland with the historic Three-Rivers Stadium having just been imploded. I think that's why visiting the Andy Warhol museum then wasn't a priority. In any event, I got to it this time and spent a pleasant couple of hours exploring its offerings.

The visit is designed to begin on the ground floor in a space that gives you a brief overview of the artist's life and artistic endeavors. Afterwards there's no question why this effete international icon should find his final homage in the Steel City.

From there you ride the elevator to the 7th floor and work your way down. There are exhibits of Andy Warhol's art, about Andy Warhol's art, Inspired by Andy Warhol's art and the minutiae of the art's life that he collected and stored and just ended up leaving behind.



One thing I learned more about was his archive of film legacy. I knew that he made a few iconic films, but I didn't realize that he had his own sort of mini-cable TV interview show. One room on the 6th floor contained a couple dozen monitors suspended from the ceiling each playing a different episode. I briefly listened in on his conversation with fellow artist Larry Rivers where he spent most of the time flirting with Rivers, while Rivers offered up that Andy was too thin, and being fat was inherited and couldn't be helped for some people.

Across from this was a larger area where another dozen or so of this longer films and documentaries were playing on a maze of large screens simultaneously. I should imagine that the introduction of a hallucinogenic drug into one's system might have made the experience transcendent in an artistic manner consistent with some of Warhol's own life experience, but as it was, it was just curious and mostly unintelligible.

There were four exhibitions featured at the time of my visit and my favorite consisted of an oversized deck of tarot cards each created by a different artist in homage to Warhol. It was entitled, "Contemporary Magic: A Tarot Deck Art Project".


Of Warhol's actual works on display, there was a gallery featuring a variety of his double portraits of famous people. Another was devoted to his series of images of Mohamed Ali. And a third larger room contained a series of larger paintings of the human skull. Other works could be found in various places throughout the museum. Examples of his sculptures were also on display.

Apparently, Warhol was also something of a collector of memorabilia about himself and his life. A variety of collages and glass cases containing a smidgen of these things could be found on a couple of the floors, as well as a taxidermy Great Dane! He seems to have been very practical when it came to pets.

Warhol with fellow artists Basquiat and Francesco Clemente

Other themes throughout the museum were his quotes and his relationships with and to other artists and those who patronized his work and sought association with his life.

I liked the museum and the other patrons were all of a certain type....adults, which after a morning spent at the zoo was the perfect anecdote.