$12 a can? The price of "Warhol"

It appears that the commodification of art did not die with the 1980's, instead it simply was the start of a whole new phenomenon of commercial takeover of art. As written in the recent ArtNews cover piece "Warhol Inc."

http://www.artnews.com/issues/article.asp?art_id=2784

As a tribute to Andy Warhol and the famous appropriation of the Campbell's Soup logos in his works, the company recently released a limited supply of soups that had the label color-scheme resembling that of the artist's silk-screens. Although the soups were sold at a number of Pennsylvania and Ohio supermarkets, the price of the label entailed buying more than just soup but rather Warhol's Campbell's Soup Magnets as well as a free pass to the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. Afterwards, collectors and regular art enthusiasts alike jumped on the bandwagon and began ordering the soups at $12 each.

What is interesting about this phenomenon is that these tomato soup labels are of several degrees of separation from Warhol's actual works. Therefore, in a way these cans represent another take on the readymade paradigm, for they are a version of an actual product whose logo is appropriated in Warhol's silk-screens. These silk-screens, however, are the product of a machine and thus deviate from the tradition of painting and authorship. It is simply the association that is being bought and because of its limited-edition status these objects are considered valuable.

The sales of the actual soup-can silk-screens benefited from this supermarket hype as well. Such response from both high and low culture indicates that art is nowhere near the autonomous, self-referential status that it had throughout Modernism but rather infiltrates pop culture, consumerism, and most importantly, people's lives. This is not the first time that objects associated with Warhol's name have been put on the market, but the soup cans are simply something new and in our fame-obsessed culture, commodities are the new priced possessions.