Man or Machine?

Man or Machine?

By: Sarah Miller

Man or machine? Paul Bergin analyzed the art of Andy Warhol in his article “Andy Warhol: The Artist as Machine” in the Art Journal. Bergin entered into a debate on the overall point of Andy Warhol’s art. Bergin believed that Warhol centered his art on “the machine”. He believed that Warhol applied this machine theme to every aspect of his art, even to himself. Other art historians believe that Warhol was just obsessed with current events and celebrities. However, Bergin thinks that it is deeper than that and Warhol focused purposely on the machine. Bergin claimed that “the machine is, to the artist, a way of life, representative of a unique field of twentieth-century experience, and all of Warhol's art is a striving to express the machine in the machine's own terms.”

The article consists of multiple references to Warhol’s work and style that represents the machine. He focused on two styles, according to Bergin. The first being: reproduction. He claims, “this lack of consciousness, this emphasis upon mere reproduction of the image without any understanding of its original identity, is the act of a machine”. Also, Warhol came closer to making his art become a machine but using a mechanical aid for his art. He used silk screen, which helped him produce his art in bulk. Bergin believed that Warhol wanted his studio to be more of an “art factory” than an artist’s studio since anyone could use the silk screen to replicate his work. 

Warhol became fixated on the consumer, especially the topic of food. Food was now able to be prepared and be untouched by humans. A machine made this food. This is when Warhol created his “Campbell’s Soup” art. It had no real meaning, except that it was a can of soup that was reproduced numerous times. Also, Warhol created flower paintings. However, these paintings of flowers were unlike what people were used to seeing. These flowers were flat and unrealistic. They were similar to the artificial flowers that are made by “machines”. Once again, Bergin believed that Warhol was fixated on “the machine” when creating this art. 

Warhol eventually moved onto his “death-image” phase. These were the most interesting images to Bergin. “In these pictures, news photographs of suicides and auto accidents are silk-screened onto the canvas, sometimes blown up in size but more often arranged in rows and repeated a number of times”. Bergin then concludes that many people may think that this is proof that Warhol’s point is that the machine will be the death of us, hence dying in an automobile accident. However, Bergin believes that people are not looking far into it. He claims that the pictures were taken with a camera, which is also a machine. These machines do not have feelings and do not have a conscious mind. Bergin believes that Warhol wanted us to see this as just another product of the twentieth-century machine, and not as a good or bad thing. “The death image is neither good nor bad; it is”. 

The final stage of art that Bergin analyzed was Warhol’s famous portraits of celebrities. These included pictures of Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor. Bergin concluded that Warhol was trying to show examples of people that had become “machine-products, commercial property”. Both portraits were silk-screened and were portrayed with multiple colors. Some of the portraits were similar to the actresses but gradually became more obscure. Bergin believed that this showed the evolution of these actresses from the people that they were to the public property that they became. While Warhol showed how these women were used, Bergin believed that Warhol wanted to become a commodity. Through his art, theories, and strategies, Warhol wanted to become the ultimate machine.

While many of Bergin’s interpretations are very thoughtful and intelligent, I am not sure how accurate some are. Since Warhol did not exclusively state some of Bergin’s statements, then it is hard to be sure that everything that Warhol did was solely off the “machine”. However, I do think that this review of Warhol’s art is very thought invoking. I thought that Bergin’s analysis of Warhol’s “Campbell’s Soup” art collection was the best example of the Warhol “machine” theory. I also thought that showing the numerous acts of reproduction within Warhol’s art was helpful in proving this theory. Bergin successfully went into the depths of Andy Warhol’s work and discovered Warhol as not a man, but a machine.

Works Cited:

Andy Warhol: The Artist as Machine.Paul Bergin. Art Journal , Vol. 26, No. 4 (Summer, 1967), pp. 359-363