Video Source: youtube.com
I was in Pittsburgh a few weekends ago, and finally made it to the Warhol Museum. Regardless if you like his aesthetics, Warhol’s influence on post-modern culture is unquestionable. Our current ideas of celebrity, selling out, authenticity, urbanism, mass brands, and cultural production (to name a few) can in some way be traced back to Warhol, whose life was as much of his art as the objects his produced. Many say that if he didn’t do what he did, then someone else would have. But someone didn’t and Warhol did, which makes the point moot.
His appearance on the Love Boat with the parents from Happy Days (which I remember seeing in re-run in the 80s) pretty much encapsulates this influence. From just being on the show, to interacting with middle America sit-com icons to proving the mass appeal of his art, the clip shows it all.