F-111 is a ginormous billboard of a painting Pop artist James Rosenquist made in the 60s. On view now at MoMA as it was originally displayed in the Leo Castelli gallery, its aluminum panels wrap around the four walls.
Andy Warhol: The Last Decade is full of surprises for those who aren’t familiar with Andy’s later career, and while the work is far from consistently great, it does pack a few gens in and quite a few interesting moments (i.e. 80s music videos produced by and including cameos of Warhol). The exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum of Art is the first U.S. museum survey to examine Warhol’s later work, a period marked by prolific experimentation.
In October 1982, the Swiss art dealer Bruno Bischofberger introduced Warhol to a young painter of the Neo-Expressionist movement, Jean-Michel Basquiat. The two developed a close relationship that lasted nearly three years. The collaborated on paintings in the studio in the afternoon and went clubbing at night.
Relaxing the extraordinary potential of their collaboration, Bischoberger commissioned a series of works by Warhol, Basquiat and the Italian painter Francesco Clemente. The artists would send the canvas to each other’s studio and work on it in turn. In Origin of Cotton, above, you can see Warhol’s yellow flower, Clemente’s painterly heads, and Basquiat’s white screen printed lines and words. It’s not my favorite work from any of the artist’s oeuvres, but it is fascinating to think of these great artists from different generations and styles working together on pieces.
I didn’t buy the T-shirt, but that doesn’t mean the iconic image of Ernesto “Che” Guevara wasn’t before my eyes everywhere I went the past 10 days. Che has become the definitive symbol of rebellion, a 
legendary leader of revolution, and in this widely reproduced image a 20th c. pop culture icon.
At the right is the popularized cropped version of Guerrillero Heroico, as the photograph taken by Cuban State Photographer Alberto Korda during a speech by Castro at the funeral for the victims of the La Coubre explosion in Havana, Cuba. It was taken on March 5, 1960 and Korda willingly shared the image when anybody he could- gratis- in order to share the ideals of Che. Korda has said that when he shot the picture he was drawn to Guevara’s expression of “absolute implacability” as well as anger and pain.
Slogans, such as “Hasta la victoria sempre” and “una de las mas nobles formas de servir a la Patria es consagrarse al trabajo,” appear next to the image, restating his ideals and beliefs in the revolution. By the end of the 1960s, mass produced posters and lithographs and the adoption of the image by Pop artists, turned the image of the charismatic and controversial leader into a cultural icon around the world. His death in Bolivia in 1967 elevated his status to that of a martyr, and his popularity in Cuba, where his family still resides, remains as high as ever. This image of him was first seen in Cuba at his funeral, and since proliferated there as it has in the rest of the world.
