Commonist painting: Andy Warhol, the technocracy and the counter culture

Initially, Andy Warhol wanted to call his art “Commonist Painting,” a pun intended to compare the totalitarian nature of communist and capitalist cultures. However, scholars have generally agreed that Warhol was apolitical. This dissertation challenges the consensus and attempts to restore the meanings of “Commonism” by placing his oeuvre in the context of writers who analyzed the technocracy and shaped the counter culture.; Chapter One argues that the crisis in humanism, which is today associated with post-modernism, was in fact a widespread phenomenon, precipitated by the Cold War and the technocracy. Warhol demonstrated a sophisticated awareness of this crisis by mimicking its effects and questioning his own authority as an artist. Chapter Two focuses on Warhol's relationship to the Abstract Expressionists and shows how he debunked their notion of the artist as heroic genius. Members of the older generation emphasized their heterosexuality and implicitly associated it with nature. Warhol, in turn, subverted their aims by denying the idea of expression and showing how genius was a cultural construct.; In Chapter Three, our attention turns to his homosexuality and how he related to early stages of gay liberation. His “Commonist Paintings” are interpreted as coded messages with homoerotic content which subverted the humanist idea of an essence by positing multiple meanings of common objects like Campbell's soup cans and Coke bottles.; Warhol participated in the anti-psychiatry movement, the main issue for radical homosexuals, and the topic of Chapter Four. Psychiatrists controlled “deviant” sexual behavior by classifying it as mental illness. Warhol disliked psychiatrists, resisted their interpretative methods in his art and feigned schizophrenia as a commentary on society.; In Chapter Five, we explore Warhol's responses to the political turmoil that surrounded the sexual revolution, especially his images of race riots and other current events. Warhol wanted to raise the consciousness and shift power to the people; he hoped they would participate more in the democratic process and develop a new sense of humanity that valued individual differences.