Fame Adjacent

*Levi Weinhagen is serving as Artist in Residence for Education and Community Programs from September 2014 through February 2015*

As I was wandering through the Walker library this week, pretending I knew anything about most of the artists written about in the numerous shelves full of books, I started thinking about how important “fame” is to our understanding of art.

While it makes me feel a bit like a cliche, I’ll admit this thought hit me when I noticed that Andy Warhol had hundreds of books on him and his work. One of the first things a young person learns when exploring modern art is that Warhol said, “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.”

What struck me, though, was that there were so many more books on Warhol than all the other artists covered on the Walker shelves. Warhol’s work was and continues to be important and influential to art, artists, and popular culture. But, I think he has so many more books because he’s an art celebrity who transcended the art world and became and pop culture celebrity.

Much like how the people who win the wars are the ones who get to tell the stories of those wars, the people who become celebrities in their fields are ultimately the ones who make up the stories of those fields.  With the ease of finding a voice provided by online tools, there seems to be an increase in people seeking celebrity for celebrity sake without any real concern about making something worthwhile or being know for a skill or ability. This is troubling but perhaps inevitable as the people we hold up as important, even if they’re viewed as important because of what they accomplished, are celebrated as people. We almost always put the people first and then get into the actual accomplishments.

I don’t know that I have any conclusion for this post but I do have a question. Are you able to think about the art that you find compelling or that moves you without it impacting how you think about the artist who made that work? Should you be able to?