Revelation: A Conversation on Andy Warhol and Religion

Over the course of a prominent and prolific career, Andy Warhol both pictured religious subjects and practiced his religious faith. Yet in 20th century histories of modern American art, religion is largely excluded. Warhol was perhaps doubly excluded, as a gay man, and a believing Christian, whose identity in the art world and in American society was made complicated by those identities.

This conversation between Erika Doss, professor of American studies at the University of Notre Dame, and Paula Kane, professor of religious studies at the University of Pittsburgh, considers what religion meant to Warhol, how his religious beliefs shaped and directed his art, and why religion “matters” in the history of American modernism.

Presented in conjunction with the exhibition "Andy Warhol: Revelation", on view from October 20, 2019–March 1, 2020.

About The Andy Warhol Museum
Located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the place of Andy Warhol’s birth, The Andy Warhol Museum holds the largest collection of Warhol’s artworks and archival materials. We are one of the most comprehensive single-artist museums in the world and the largest in North America.

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[margietally]

I found this conversation to be really interesting. As a protestant, it illuminates a great deal about the relationship between Catholicism and Protestant belief. Also, how religious belief is expressed through an artist's work is fascinating to me. I found this presentation to be very timely and relevant.

[globaldenny]

The final question at the end was brilliant

[monus]

Thank you for this talk, but I still agree with the last question and commentary asked. Although I was born long after Vatican II and was raised in the Catholicism that came out of that for a few years I was part of the Latin Mass world that was indeed in the first years after the council pretty reactionary against the changes, and I feel that the explanations given about it are a bit simplistic (perhaps as usual from liberal outsiders, as many Catholics see it). That goes for the council itself as well, indeed as I found things were much more complicated as the religion was thrown into a very rapid pace of change relatively speaking. Ideally a bit more should've been mentioned about those Byzantine practices, since they are very different from even the pre-Vatican II practices.

Possibly the most important moment that put a stop to the liberalism of the moment (and I think is also going to ultimately fail if it hasn't already, since the Church has become more conservative in many aspects since then, and as you should've seen the Latin Mass is making a comeback) was pope Paul VI issuing his encyclical against contraception just a few years after the council ended, so who knows if Warhol thought anything of it. Didn't he also go to a parish where the priest was pretty homophobic?

Otherwise I think this was a great talk, thank you for posting.

[fatimaabat]

This conversation is what it sounds like when two people have nothing of substance to say but are very skillful in saying that nothing.