Andy Warhol
Fundamental Works of Art
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Brillo Boxes, Andy Warhol (1964)
The Brillo Boxes are imitations of the packaging of sponges. They are not the real boxes exhibited as works of art (what would be called “readymade,” the art that is made with something that already exists), but they are wooden cubes (plywood) on which the brand and everything else is printed with the silkscreen printing technique.
These boxes of an everyday consumer product, which are indistinguishable at first glance from real boxes, are considered the highest point of Conceptual art.
In Conceptual art, the work conveys an idea that is more important than the physical work itself (which is often ephemeral; it disappears after a while). It is art that “makes you think,” that triggers questions and meanings, and that acts on reason more than on the senses.
And why are the Brillo Boxes so important?
On the one hand, always bearing in mind that each work is a child of its time (as Kandinsky said), the Brillo Boxes are about a fundamental theme of the postmodern era: the impossibility of distinguishing truth from what is not. The loss of certainties. Art is indistinguishable from reality.
Warhol did not take an original Brillo container and said, “This is art,” as a readymade of his admired Marcel Duchamp would be. (Duchamp had pioneered conceptual art with his readymades half a century earlier). Warhol copied a package and the concept of the work is different: the truth is not distinguished. What is real? What is art?
At the time, this work was so conceptually provocative that the philosopher and art critic Arthur Danto developed a theory that argues that this work determines the end of art.
The death of art? The philosopher does not mean that there is no more art, but that the story of the history of art ends. A history that has been developing as a succession of revolutions, of things that break with the previous ones to demonstrate something new.
The limits of what art is have been expanding to the point where there is no more beyond. Danto’s idea (explained too simply) is that this is where this “evolution” ends; the story goes on until art is indistinguishable from real things.
As of the Brillo Boxes, the artist no longer has to prove anything about art. Now he can continue to create without that burden.
Whether we agree with Arthur Danto or not, these wooden cubes on which the artist imprinted the mark of the sponges have generated an enormous discussion among philosophers, critics, and artists, in addition to whatever each one of us may think. What is not discussed then is that these boxes have become one of the most conceptual of all works of Conceptual art.
Recommended links:
Fountain (1917), Marcel Duchamp.
“In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.”
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