Homage to Andy Warhol
Edding on plastic bags, attached on canvas, stretched on
wooden frames, 18 pieces, each 32 x 37 cm, 2007/2008

My main field of interest is our colorful world of consumer products and advertisement, while especially focusing on the aspect of commercial reproducibility and the influence of commercial aesthetics on each individual’s behavioral patterns. I try to analyze intersections of fine art and commercial consumption, in order to make these junctions visible to the public. I try to achieve this by selecting specific consumer products, which I then interpret and parody by installing them in a new context. I am an artist of commercial “seduction” for which I use different media such as plastic shopping bags, packaging and wrappers from various companies.

My piece Homage to Andy Warhol, consisting of 18 drawings on plastic bags, is an homage to Andy Warhol.

It was during the 1960s that Warhol began to make/ produce (ist vielleicht besser?) paintings of famous American products such as Campbell’s Soup Cans of the Campbell Soup Company as well as paintings of celebrities like Marilyn Monroe. He switched to silkscreen prints which he produced serially, seeking not only to make art of mass-produced items but to mass produce the art itself.
NORMA is the name of an internationally operating food discounter based in Germany. Half a year ago you would/could get plastic bags there with the image of Marilyn Monroe on them, almost the same ones Andy Warhol used for his paintings and silkscreen prints. The Marilyn on these bags seem to say: “Ich heiße NORMA” (“My name is NORMA”) and as a subtitle: “Norma Jean Baker, besser bekannt als Marilyn Monroe” (“Norma Jean Baker, better known as Marilyn Monroe”). I give my reverence to Andy Warhol in the choice of the motive (the plastic bags with a frontal (?)/ portrait (?) of Marilyn Monroe), the number of drawings and the way of arranging them.

My drawings on the Marilyn-bags show porn images from the Internet. Each of the women is giving a blow job at the moment. I left the penis cut out and therefore my so-called candy girlz leave various interpretations to the public. Some seem to sing or shout, others just eat. By the way of arranging them, all of them are connected, turning their heads towards or away from each other.
After drawing them I scratched and distorted the plastic bags - and therefore, my drawings - in order to make the image of Marilyn in the back shine through. Her impression is very erotic which merges perfectly with the sexual images on top. In reduplicating this picture of a heroine and sex symbol shared by millions and the drawings of women doing blow jobs also shared by millions of men over the internet, the nature of women as seen in the society even in our days comes through. Not only should women earn their living, take care of the household, feed and raise the children, they also have to fulfill every sex fantasy of men. Being exposed in this way (in my piece as well as in the Internet) their action becomes humiliating. Some look kind of relaxed and enjoying, others choke or tears and sperm are running down their faces.
“I love to do the sexy thing over and over again.” (Andy Warhol)