Andy Warhol - David Bowie - Hunky Dory - 1971

Speaking as I was of artist that I appreciate more than I enjoy, there's always Andy Warhol. It's easy to see him as ridiculous symbol of Boomer Cool. A weird dude with crazy hair, and odd mannerisms, with art that at first seems fairly banal, he is the kind of artist that needs to be taken in context. On one hand, it's really easy to look at his stuff and say "It's a fucking soup can"...but then we tend to think of a can of soup as being a thing that just exists, like a rock or a tree...but at some point, in our culture's past, someone engineered that can. They figured out the design on the label, the red banner over white, the script, the little circle emblem...all of that is design that we take for granted, and it is useful that someone drew attention to that.

Beyond that his ideas on pop culture are what lead us as a culture to believe that there is art to be found in what we consider disposable entertainment. Without Warhol (or someone like him) it's doubtful that we'd ever consider things like The Beatles, The Godfather, Motown, Star Wars, etc, etc to be art. He presented the idea that pop culture was something to be observed.

Now Bowie, on the other hand, is an artist that I immensely appreciate AND enjoy...though I could do without the 52 seconds of studio chatter about how you pronounce Warhol's last name. But whatever, daring artist have some licence to fuck up from time to time.