Andy Warhol (1928-1987) was an American artist who played a significant role in the development of pop art during the 1960s. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Warhol showed an early interest in art and design, attending the Carnegie Mellon University before moving to New York City to pursue a career in commercial art.
In the 1950s, Warhol began working as a commercial illustrator and quickly gained recognition for his unique style, which featured bold colors and graphic imagery. He eventually turned his attention to fine art, creating works that celebrated consumer culture and explored the relationship between art and commerce.
One of Warhol’s most famous series of works was the Campbell’s Soup Cans, which consisted of 32 paintings that depicted the iconic soup cans in a style that mimicked commercial advertising. He also created portraits of famous people, including Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, and Mao Zedong, that were made using silk-screening techniques.
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Throughout his career, Warhol became known for his avant-garde approach to art, his collaborations with other artists, musicians, and filmmakers, and his controversial personal life. He founded the Factory, a studio that served as a gathering place for artists, musicians, and other creative types, and produced experimental films such as “Sleep” and “Empire.”
Warhol died in 1987 at the age of 58 following complications from gallbladder surgery. His legacy as an influential artist, filmmaker, and cultural figure has continued to influence contemporary art and pop culture to this day.
Delve into the intriguing mind of Andy Warhol as he shares his captivating insights on consumer culture with these thought-provoking quotes.
Famous Andy Warhol Quotes
1. “Art is anything you can get away with.”
2. “You need to let the little things that would ordinarily bore you suddenly thrill you.”
3. “I am a deeply superficial person.”
4. “The idea is not to live forever; it is to create something that will.”
5. “Don’t think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.”
6. “It would be very glamorous to be reincarnated as a great big ring on Liz Taylor’s finger.”
7. “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.”
8.“I love Los Angeles and I love Hollywood, they’re beautiful. Everybody’s plastic, but I love plastic… I want to be plastic.”
9. “They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.”
10. “Don’t pay any attention to what they write about you. Just measure it in inches.”
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11. “People should fall in love with their eyes closed.”
12. “When people are ready to, they change. They never do it before then, and sometimes they die before they get around to it. You can’t make them change if they don’t want to, just like when they do want to, you can’t stop them.”
13. “They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.”
14. “Art is what you can get away with.”
15. “As soon as you stop wanting something, you get it.”
16. “I think having land and not ruining it is the most beautiful art that anybody could ever want.”
17. “The idea of waiting for something makes it more exciting”
18. “I never fall apart, because I never fall together.”
19. “It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop.”
20. “I’m afraid that if you look at a thing long enough, it loses all of its meaning.”
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21. “You have to do stuff that average people don’t understand because those are the only good things.”
22.“I wonder if it’s possible to have a love affair that lasts forever.”
23. “Beauty is a sign of intelligence.”
24. “An artist is somebody who produces things that people don’t need to have.”
25. “I think everybody should be nice to everybody.”
26. “Everybody must have a fantasy.”
27. “Sometimes the little times you don’t think are anything while they’re happening turn out to be what marks a whole period of your life.”
28. “Being born is like being kidnapped. And then sold into slavery.”
29. “I just do art because I’m ugly and there’s nothing else for me to do.”
30. “People sometimes say that the way things happen in the movies is unreal, but actually, it’s the way things happen to you in life that’s unreal. The movies make emotions look strong and real, whereas when things really do happen to you, it’s like you’re watching television — you don’t feel anything.”
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31. “Every song has a memory; every song has the ability to make or break your heart, shut down the heart, and open the eyes. But I’m afraid if you look at a thing long enough; it loses all of its meaning”
32. “It’s not what you are that counts, it’s what they think you are.”
33. “I like to be the right thing in the wrong place and the wrong thing in the right place. Being the right thing in the wrong place and the wrong thing in the right place is worth it because something interesting always happens.”
34. “I have Social Disease. I have to go out every night. If I stay home one night I start spreading rumours to my dogs.”
35. “I like boring things.”
36. “A picture means I know where I was every minute. That’s why I take pictures. It’s a visual diary.”
37. “I’m not afraid to die; I just don’t want to be there when it happens”
38. “I always notice flowers.”
39. “Just because people throw it out and don’t have any use for it, doesn’t mean it’s garbage.”
40. “I always hear myself saying, ‘She’s a beauty!’ or ‘He’s a beauty!’ or ‘What a beauty!’ but I never know what I’m talking about.”
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41.“People need to be made more aware of the need to work at learning how to live because life is so quick and sometimes it goes away too quickly.”
42. “Sometimes people let the same problem make them miserable for years when they could just say, ‘So what.’ That’s one of my favorite things to say. ‘So what.’”
43. “I can never get over when you’re on the beach how beautiful the sand looks and the water washes it away and straightens it up and the trees and the grass all look great. I think having land and not ruining it is the most beautiful art that anybody could ever want to own.”
44. “If you can convince yourself that you look fabulous, you can save yourself the trouble of primping.”
45. “Everything has it beauty, but not everyone sees it.”
46. “Death means a lot of money, honey. Death can really make you look like a star.”
47.“I’d asked around 10 or 15 people for suggestions… Finally one lady friend asked the right question, ‘Well, what do you love most?’ That’s how I started painting money.”
48. “I love Los Angeles. I love Hollywood. They’re beautiful. Everybody’s plastic, but I love plastic. I want to be plastic.”
49. “I’m afraid that if you look at a thing long enough, it loses all of its meaning.Money has a certain kind of amnesty.”
50. “Exposure and attention make a work famous – the more you talk about it, the more attention it gets, the more validity it achieves.”
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51. “I wanted to paint nothing. I was looking for something that was the essence of nothing, and the soup can was it.”
52. “Bad taste makes the day go by faster.”
53. “When you work with people who misunderstand you, instead of getting transmissions, you get transmutations, and that’s much more interesting in the long run.”
54. “Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.”
55. “Pop art is a way of liking things.”
56. “An artist is someone who produces things that people don’t need to have but that he – for some reason – thinks it would be a good idea to give them.”
57. “Why do people think artists are special? It’s just another job.”
58. “Business Art is the step that comes after Art.”
59. “Employees make the best dates. You don’t have to pick them up and they’re always tax-deductible.”
60. “They always say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.”
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61. “Success is what sells.”
62. “I want everybody to think alike. I think everybody should be a machine.”
63. “I read an article on me once that described my machine-method of silk-screen copying and painting: ‘What a bold and audacious solution, what depths of the man are revealed in this solution!’ What does that mean? “
64. “Paintings are too hard. The things I want to show are mechanical. Machines have less problems. I’d like to be a machine, wouldn’t you?”
65. “If you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface of my paintings and films and me, and there I am. There’s nothing behind it.”
66. “Fantasy love is much better than reality love. Never doing it is very exciting. The most exciting attractions are between two opposites that never meet.”
67. “In the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes.”
68.“When I have to think about it, I know the picture is wrong… My instinct about painting says, ‘If you don’t think about it, it’s right.’ As soon as you have to decide and choose, it’s wrong. And the more you decide about, the more wrong it gets.”
69“They always say new art is bad for a while, that’s the risk – that’s the pain you have to have for fame.”
70. “So a ‘pop art’ should be flattering, in the sense that it’s a reflection of a positive part of the person’s personality.”
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71. “Every song has a memory; every song has the ability to make or break your heart, shut down the heart, and open the eyes.”
72. “Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art…but making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.”
73. “My idea of a good picture is one that’s in focus and of a famous person.”
74. “Isn’t life a series of images that change as they repeat themselves?”
75. “Once you ‘got’ Pop, you could never see a sign again the same way again. And once you thought Pop, you could never see America the same way again.”
76. “I’d asked around 10 or 15 people for suggestions. Finally, one lady friend asked the right question, ‘Well, what do you love most?’ That’s how I started painting money.”
77. “People should fall in love with their eyes closed.”
78. “The most exciting attractions are between two opposites that never meet.”
79. “I had a lot of dates but I decided to stay home and dye my eyebrows.”
80. “I’m the type who’d be happy not going anywhere as long as I was sure I knew exactly what was happening at the places I wasn’t going to.”
81. “Employees make the best dates. You don’t have to pick them up and they’re always tax-deductible.”
82. “And your own life while it’s happening to you never has any atmosphere until it’s a memory.”
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83. “Someday everybody will just think what they want to think, and then everybody will probably be thinking alike; that seems to be what is happening.”
84. “I thought that young people had more problems than old people…”
85. “I don’t believe in it, because you’re not around to know that it’s happened. I can’t say anything about it because I’m not prepared for it.”
86. “I always think about the people who build buildings and then they’re not around anymore.”
87. “If I weren’t famous, I wouldn’t have been shot for being Andy Warhol.”
88. “When a person is the beauty of their day, and their looks are really in style, and then the times change and tastes change, and ten years go by, and if they keep exactly their same look and don’t change anything and if they take care of themselves, they’ll still be a beauty.”
89. “I have no memory. Every day is new because I don’t remember the day before. Every minute is like the first minute of my life.”
90. “I like money on the wall.”
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91. “People sometimes say the way things happen to you in the movies in unreal, but it’s the way things happen to you in real life that’s unreal. ”
92. “I always wished I had died, and I still wish that, because I could have gotten the whole thing over with.”
93. “I never understood why when you died, you didn’t just vanish, everything could just keep going on the way it was only you just wouldn’t be there.”
94. “What’s great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest.”
95. “I used to think that everything was just being funny but now I don’t know. I mean, how can you tell?”
96. “Those who talk about individuality the most are the ones who most object to deviation, and in a few years it may be the other way around.”
97. “It’s the movies that have really been running things in America ever since they were invented.”
98. “I think everybody should like everybody.”
99. “I’m the type who’d like to sit home and watch every party that I’m invited to on a monitor in my bedroom.”
100. “I’ve decided something: commercial things really do stink. As soon as it becomes commercial for a mass market it really stinks.”