As I noted in my earlier post, there must have been some kind of karmic connection between Andy Warhol and Steve Jobs – one I hope they are now fully enjoying, wherever it is they may be. You can’t help but wonder what they might have come up with, had they had a chance to come up with it together.
So it kind of gave me a thrill to see the Warhol Art App announced by the Andy Warhol Museum last week. Promising an in-depth experience of Warhol’s art, with “behind-the-scenes” peeks into the major, iconic works, audio from museum curators, and a chance to view rare archival materials, it could be as close to Andy-Warhol-As-i-Pad as you could get – particularly given the flop that the “DIY Pop” App turned out to be.
And even as an author and bibliophile, I have come to see, recently, where apps can and even sometimes should replace traditional books – and apps for artists are a prime example. No more skipping through chapters. No more unwieldy tomes with expensive reproductions that result in outrageous prices no student can afford. With a touch of a screen, you can see the art and the artworks that preceded them; read the letters artists wrote while developing their ideas; view the sketches that became the masterpieces we now know – and the ones, perhaps, that failed; listen to the artist themselves speak, or the reminiscences of their assistants – all while reading critical examinations and explications of each painting, sculpture, performance, what-have-you.
Developed by the Warhol Museum in conjunction with Toura, a New York-based company that offers web platforms it describes as “web-based content management systems that allow users to easily [sic] build apps at their own pace,” the Warhol Art App integrates some of these possibilities: touch the image of a Warhol “flowers” painting and you get a text describing the origins of the series, the photograph on which it was based, and the fact that the artist created hundreds of versions of the image. Touch “related works and archival material,” and you land on a working sketch; but what that sketch was for – instructions for the silkscreeners, perhaps? – remains a mystery. As for that photograph on which the iconic paintings were based – neat. I never knew about that. But there’s no image of that photo, and I wanted it. (On the other hand, the notes on the sketch provide a nifty look at the early life of the artist: “For now, do only top; I will have the bottom done when I have more money. Make it accurate as the whole picture will someday be one picture.”)
I tried the “Jackie” series. Here, after skimming a text that told far more about Jackie Kennedy Onassis (she was a style icon. She remains an important figure in American culture even a decade after her death) than about the art work or why Warhol was so obsessed with her, I swiped to, yes, the photographs on which many of the “Jackie” portraits are based.
And there it stopped. There was no mention, say, of the many “Jackie” prints that are so emblematic of the period, or the process of creating them – something I’d especially hoped to find here (I have personal reasons for this: they were published by my mother).
An audio discussion of the series was barely audible – muffled and delivered in a tired monotone.
What works well is the small section about the “Time Capsules,” an oft-overlooked series that in some ways represents Warhol’s finest works. These boxes included ephemera from advertisements and flyers to the artist’s correspondence, gifts from friends and fans, and more. But again – a single photograph of one single opened Capsule left me eager for more – and more was not to be had, here as elsewhere in the app.
And generally speaking, the entire ‘70s section offers a lot more than the part about the ‘60s. The information is newer and more in-depth, and there seem to be more works included. Unfortunately (in a big way), 30-minute films are abbreviated into 30-second film clips, which serve absolutely zero purpose at all. Either show the films or don’t, but this doesn’t work.
In the end, what you get is a kind of Warhol Monarch notes. If you’ve got an art history exam you haven’t studied for enough, this will do the trick. If you are looking for what Toura CEO Aaron Radin called “an in-depth collection of Warhol’s work, coupled with quite detailed interpretive content in text and audio” – you’re better off, by far, surfing the Web. According to the museum, original plans for the app included some 200 works. They ended up with fewer than half that amount. There, I think, is the root of the problem: it’s just, overall, too thin. It’s Campbell’s Tomato Soup with too much water, so you hardly taste the tart sweetness of tomato.
Tech problems here and there don’t help, particularly in a clumsy navigation system. Case in point: the final page of the “how to use this app” chapter, which advises “to finish this tutorial, tap the ‘x’ button at the top of this page.” Except, um, there is no “x” button. Not at the top of the page, the side, bottom, center, or anywhere else.
All that said, though, the app does offer an inviting and enticing early introduction to the works of an artistic genius, and a mind that defined an era – told through the genius and the mind that defined the next one. It is, you might say, a match made perfectly in heaven – or wherever it is creative geniuses go to after they leave here. Somewhere in that miraculous place, Andy and Steve, I’m sure, are smiling. (“Everyone,” said Andy Warhol, “needs a fantasy.”)
