Self-Portrait with Fright Wig 1986

Here we see Andy Warhol with a polaroid camera creating a self-portrait. What do you think he was thinking? There’s something so immediate about a polaroid, it’s like a thought, captured right there and then. Warhol was obsessed with capturing the moment, which I think is every painter’s dream. He must have loved the speed of this process. Click, flash, done! It reminds me of some of the quick, small, and intimate paintings created by Bonnard. The fright wig against the dark background becomes its own gestural mark, a caricature of how others might perceive him. Warhol’s work asks us to consider what is authentic and what is artificial, and how these things blur together. All artists explore identity but Warhol was particularly skilled at showing us that identity is a performance. He was in conversation with all the other artists who make self-portraits, like Van Gogh and Kahlo. Through his self-portraits, we see the artist as a constant shifting site of inquiry, rather than any fixed idea.