from a series of canvases of the "Campbell's Soup Cans"

by Andy Warhol from 1962 at the Museum of Modern Art.

One of the really important questions that comes up

especially about modern art, is:

-When you ask me that,

a bunch of things surface in my brain.

It does evoke something in me,

so I'm inclined to say yes,

but then there's a bunch of other things

that say if I didn't see this in a museum;

if I just saw this in the marketing department of Cambell's Soup,

would you be viewing it differently?

- Because it's advertising then. (Yes)

But in the context of the museum,

or in the context of Andy Warhol's studio,

it's not quite advertising, right?

-Even if it's the exact same thing? (Yeah!)

And the idea here is, by putting it in the museum

and saying "look at this in a different way"?

-Well that's right. It really does relocate it.

It does change the meaning. It does transform it.

That's really one of the central ideas of modern art

is that you can take something

that's not necessarily based in technical skill

- because I don't think you would say that this is beautifully rendered -

but it relocates it and makes us think about it in a different way.

-So, I guess, he would get credit

for taking something that was very, almost mundane,

something you see in everyone's cupboard,

and making it a focal point.

Like, you should pay attention to this thing.

-I think that's exactly right.

And I think that he's doing it about a subject

that was about as low a subject as one could go.

I mean, cheap advertising art was so far away

from fine art, from the great masters,

and then to focus on something as lowly

as a can of soup

-- and cream of chicken, no less --

-And a lot of it is: if he did it 50 years earlier,

people would have thought this guy is a quack

and if he did it now,

people would think he's just derivative

and I mean it was really just that time where people

happened to think this was art.

-Well I think that that's right.

In 1962, what Warhol is doing is, he is saying:

It was about mass production, it was about factory,

he in a sense said: "Let's not be looking at nature..."

"...as if we were still an agrarian culture."...

..."We are now an industrial culture."...

"...What is the stuff of our visual world now?"

-I think I'm 80% there.

I remember in college

there was a little student-run art exhibit

and as a prank,

a student actually put a little podium there

and put his lunch tray.

He put a little plaquard next to it

"Lunch Tray on Saturday" or something

is what he called it. So he did it as a prank

and everyone thought it was really funny,

But to some degree it's kind of sounding like

maybe what he did was art?

-Well I think that's why it was so funny

because it was so close.

-And to some degree, when someone took a lunch tray,

and gave it proper lighting

and gave it a podium to look at

and wrote a whole description about it,

I did view the lunch tray in a different way.

That is kind of the same idea.

Something that is such a mundane thing, but you use it every day.

What would you say to that?

Is it a prank, or is it art?

-Well I think it is a prank,

but it is also very close to some important art

that had been made earlier in the century.

He had license to do that because of

somebody named Marcel Duchamp.

In fact, Warhol had, in a sense, the same kind of license,

to not focus on the making of something

not focus on the brushwork,

not focus on the composition,

not focus on the color,

but focus on the re-focusing of ideas.

-And the reason why we talk about Warhol

or Duchamp or any of these people

is that, as you said,

it's not like they did something technically profound.

Obviously Campbell's Soup's marketing department

had already done something as equally as profound,

it's more that they were the people

who looked at the world in a slightly different way

and highlighted that?

-I think that that's right.

Warhol was also very conciously working towards

asking the same questions

the prankster at your school was asking.

He's saying, "Can this be art?"

and in fact, he's really pushing it.

Look at the painting closely for a moment.

This is one of the last paintings

that he has actually painted.

He's really defined the calligraphy of this Campbell's.

He's really sort of rendered the reflection of the tin at the top.

But then he stopped.

He said, "I don't want to paint the fleur-de-lis."

You see those little fleur-de-lis down at the bottom?

He said, "I don't want to paint those."

So he actually had a little rubber stamp made of them

and placed them down mechanically.

What does that mean for an artist, then,

to say "I don't even want to bother to paint these..."

"... I'm just going to find a mechanical process to make this easier."?

Warhol is doing something which I think is important

which is reflecting the way we manufacture,

the way we construct our world.

Think about the things we surround ourselves with.

Almost everything was made in a factory.

Almost nothing is singular in the world anymore.

It's not a world where we would normally find beautiful.

-I don't know, sometimes I feel,

and correct me if I'm wrong,

that a decision was made that Warhol

was interesting or great,

and people will interpret his stuff to justify his greatness.

That, 'oh, look, he used a printer instead of drawing it'

which shows he was reflecting the industrial whatever

but then if he'd done the other way,

if he'd hand-drawn it, or hand-drawn it with his elbow

or you know, finger painted it or something

people would say "isn't this tremendous?"

..."You would normally see this thing printed by a machine..."

but now he did it with his hands!"

How much do you think that is the case?

Or do you think I'm just being cynical?

-Well, no, I think there's value in a certain degree of cynicism

and I think that in some ways,

what we're really talking about here is:

"what does it mean to be an Avant-Garde artist?"

What does it mean to change the language of art

and try to find ways that art relates to our historical moment

in some direct and authentic way?

-Maybe it's easy for me to say this

because I remember looking at this when I took 5th grade art class;

Andy Warhol and all that so now it seems almost not that unique.

But in '62 what I'm hearing is

that Warhol was really noteworthy

because he really did push people's thinking.

-I think that Warhol was looking for,

in 1962, a kind of subject matter

that was completely outside of the scope

that we could consider fine art.

One of his contemporaries, Roy Lichtenstein,

was asked what Pop Art was.

He said, "Well, we were looking for subject matter..."

"...that was so despicable, that was so low..."

"... that nobody could possibly believe..."

"... that it was really art."

And I think you are right.

I think now we look at it

and it's so much a part of our visual culture

that we immediatley accept it.

I think it's interesting to retrieve

just how shocking and radical that was.

-This is fascinating.

It seems like there is a lot of potential there.

That stuff that is pseudo-art made for other purposes,

for commerical purposes,

but if you kind of shine a light on it

in the way that a light has been shown on this, it does --

in your mind would that cross the barrier into being art?

--Well, you mentioned before

that if somebody was doing this now,

it would feel very derivative.

I think that that's right.

I think it underscores just how hard

it is to find in our culture now,

ways of making us see the world in new ways.

-Fascinating.