More Than 15 Minutes of Fame

Is it just me, or is everyone else still obsessing about the Andy Warhol Superbowl commercial? I just can’t get over it, because confusing! It was not my favorite commercial by a long shot, but certainly the most effective, as it’s the only one I’m still thinking about let alone blogging about!

In the ad, Andy eats his Whopper from Burger King (who paid for the spot during the Superbowl), but there was much discussion at my house about whether the commercial was for Burger King or Heinz (which also gets featured, and good on them because they did not pay a penny). My kids were confused (“Who is that guy?” “What happened to the color?” “This is boring.”) As were Jim and I (“Is that Andy Warhol?” “Is this brilliant or a total waste of money?” “That reminds me, I think we’re out of ketchup.”)

I don’t think it will have the staying power of PuppyMonkeyBaby from a couple Superbowls ago, but it did get me thinking about Andy Warhol and his affinity for making art out of processed foods.

Warhol reportedly had soup every day for lunch.

This gives new meaning to the term "pop art!"

Though my favorite Warhol paintings are the ones he did of himself. Self-portraits are fascinating anyway, but take a wildly unique personality like Warhol, marry it to some funky hair, and give it a colorful pop art twist and you’ve got masterpiece after masterpiece. Here are a couple of my favorites.

This was Warhol's first self-portrait. It sold for 38.4 million dollars. That would buy a lot of sunglasses.

I'm not saying they're geniuses, but this is the kind of thing my kids do on my phone.

Both of these self-portraits were done in the 1960s. Warhol died in 1987 from complications after gallbladder surgery. Gallbladder surgery! He was only 58 years old., which means today he would be 91, and we would no doubt have hundreds (maybe thousands!) more Warhols to enjoy. Plus, he'd be able to elaborate on that Superbowl ad for us.