THE WARHOL UNIVERSE
THE VELVET UNDERGROUND
Velvet Underground live At Warhol’s Factory,
“The Velvet Underground & Nico” is the debut studio album by the American rock band the Velvet Underground and German singer Nico, released in March 1967 through Verve Records. It was recorded in 1966 while the band were featured on Andy Warhol’s Exploding Plastic Inevitable tour. The album features experimental performance sensibilities and controversial lyrical topics, including drug abuse, prostitution, sadomasochism and sexual deviancy.
The Velvet Underground & Nico 1967
RECYCLING WARHOL
Album cover Andy Warhol 1967
Göran Ahlgren 2014
Maurizio Cattelan 2019
Andy Warhol:
“I will go to the peeling of anything, including a banana!”
Göran Ahlgren:
“I will go to the peeling of anything, including a banana!”
Maurizio Cattelan:
“Life is often tragic an comedic at the same time.” “To me, Comedian was not a joke; it was a sincere commentary and a reflection on what we value. At art fairs, speed and business reign, so I saw it like this: if I had to be at a fair, I could sell a banana like others sell their paintings. I could play within the system, but with my rules.”
Göran Ahlgren 2013
YELLOW OBJECT
” I will go to the opening of anything, including a banana!”
Andy Warhol
Göran Ahlgren 2014, Netflix
Göran Ahlgren 2014, Netflix
Göran Ahlgren 2013
“What’s great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coca Cola, Liz Taylor drinks Coca Cola, and just think, you can drink Coca Cola, too. A coke is a coke and no amount of money can get you a better coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the cokes are the same and all the cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it.”
— Andy Warhol
prize realized $57,285,000, 12 Nov, 2013
price $2.00, deposit $57,285,000
Göran Ahlgren 2014
Göran Ahlgren 2014
Göran Ahlgren 2014
Göran Ahlgren 2014
Göran Ahlgren 2014
Göran Ahlgren 2014
Göran Ahlgren 2014
Göran Ahlgren 2014
Göran Ahlgren 2014
Göran Ahlgren 2021
Göran Ahlgren 2021
FLOWERS
Andy Warhol 1965
Elaine Sturtevant 1965
Göran Ahlgren 2014
Andy:
”I like painting on a square because you don’t have to decide whether it should be longer-longer or shorter-shorter or longer-shorter: it’s just a square” and ”any side up” (Andy Warhol, “The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again”). Sturtevant used a silkscreen that Warhol had given her to create further versions of the composition; famously, when asked about his own technique, Warhol was reported to have said, “I don’t know. Ask Elaine”
Elaine:
The work cannot be treated in a material or non-intellectual way
I am not Anti-Art
I am not saying anyone can do it
I am not “poking fun at the artist”
I am not “reporting the current scene”
I am not in the process of celebrating process
I am not making copies
I am not making imitations
I am not interested in painting sculptures or objects
I am not interested in being a “Great Artist”
That’s real medieval thinking.
Pierre:
60 years later, Göran Ahlgren is setting the stage for the murder of modernism. In the process he appropriates postmodernism. In his world it’s his.
The conclusion: The wheel is invented. Everything is said and done. Every thought has been thought, every word has been spoken. And where are we? Here and now or then and there? What is real and what is fake? Art history being rewritten!
His flower works would easily find their place in a pots & plants catalogue of a nearby nursery. The photography medium ensures unlimited perfect copies, although numbered and signed. The flower specimen is Impatiens Hawkeri, a species of flowering plant in the family Balsaminaceae. It is native to Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.
“Flowers” is available at any size, and was transpired during the same period as the Campbell soup cans, the Brillo box and the Coke bottles. It is also available in a wallpaper format.
Göran Ahlgren converts iconized art objects. But to what? To their original anonymity? Is such a reversal possible and desirable? In true anarchistic tradition, he deconstructs the Art World and rebuilds it to his own design. A full circle. He is presently preparing to go public. We are proud to be the springboard in this process. After the fact, the world will never be the same.
Pierre Menard
Editor in chief, The Factory Publishing
FOR SEK 4.84 MILLION
Göran Ahlgren 2015
Göran Ahlgren 2014
CAMPBELL
”Campbell Soup Company is a global manufacturer and marketer of high-quality foods and simple meals, including soup, baked snacks and healthy beverages”.
Pierre Menard.
Hang-in, 22 sept 2013, Moderna Museet
Inkjet print, 600×400 mm, Ed. 7000000000, 2AP
© THE FACTORY PUBLISHING
100 DELANCY ST
NEW YORK 10002
212-253-0270
Hang-in 22 September 2013 ModernaMuseet
Inkjet print, 148×105 mm mm, Ed. unlimited, 2AP
© THE FACTORY PUBLISHING
“I will go to the opening of anything, including a can of tomato soup.”
Göran Ahlgren
Pierre:
”Göran destabilizes the concept of identity. He acts as mirror reflecting the art world and even yourself as a viewer. I last saw him a couple of years ago at Raul’s having dinner together with Elaine. I can’t forget the unsettling feeling afterwards. Something was missing me. Where was my identity? It took me about a year to regain it. Or have I?”
BRILLO
Göran Ahlgren 2014
Bukowskis presentation 2014
Pasadena Art Museum 1970
BROOKLYN, N.Y.
Nonautenticity claim 2013
Göran Ahlgren 2013
”I think everybody should be nice to everybody”
— Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol 1967
Göran Ahlgren 2008
Andy Warhol 1978
”How is the world?” Who am I? Where is God? What is death?”
— Andy Warhol?