INTERNATIONAL Vatican blues, Andy Warhol and a lost LA legend

News / International / USA

October - December 2022

USA

SAM VASSALLO is a Maltese journalist, writer and artist based in Berlin.

VATICAN BLUES, ANDY WARHOL AND A LOST LA LEGEND

Every edition of ArtPaper gives you a thin slice of what is going on in the international art scene. This month, all eyes are glued to a Supreme court case involving Andy Warhol that might change the art world forever, a disgruntled

American in Italy unleashed his fury on a 2000-year-old statue, and the scene lost a great artist with the passing of Billy Al Bengston.

An American tourist smashed two 2,000-year-old statues at the Vatican’s Chiaramonti Museum after his request to speak with Pope Francis was denied. The disgruntled man directed his anger toward an ancient bust, which toppled to the floor, and damaged another while fleeing the scene. The incident occurred earlier around 12 p.m. in the second week of October in Rome.

“The person who knocked down the statues was stopped by the Vatican police and has been handed over to the Italian authorities,” reads a statement from the Vatican. es are “minor works” within the collection.

In other news, Andy Warhol, who lived to cause commotion in the art world, is still doing it more than three decades after his death – this time in front of the Supreme Court.

On 12th October the US Supreme Court will hear arguments whether Warhol violated the Copyright Act when he colored, clipped, drew on, altered and otherwise Warholed-up a photo of musician Prince taken in the 1980s by celebrated rock photographer Lynn Goldsmith.

The case is Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Inc. v. Goldsmith. The justices will attempt to navigate the intersection of art and law in determining whether Warhol changed the original photo’s meaning or message enough to ‘transform’ it into an entirely new work

Museo Chiaramonti, wikicommons

Chiaramonti holds approximately 1,000 sculptures, many of which are busts. The most notable of them is Augustus of Prima Porta (20 B.C.E.), a full-length marble statue of the first Roman Emperor. While it is unclear what the tourist wanted to discuss with the Pope, both artworks are currently undergoing conservation. A museum representative, however, told the Italian publication Il Messaggero that the two damaged piec– or, more accurately, 15 new works, on top of the one for which Goldsmith was paid and credited.

To Goldsmith, the case is a question of justice; her website describes her battle as a “crusade,” an impassioned effort to make sure that “copyright law does not become so diluted by the definition of fair use that visual artists lose the rights to their work.” If the Supreme Court agrees with her, a principle that is central to our freedom of expression and cultural growth will be weakened for decades to come.

Lastly, LA has lost an iconic painter, Billy Al Bengston, who passed away this month at the age of 88 of natural causes in Venice, California. Bengston’s odd yet striking paintings often featured abstracted commercial logos and car parts. The American contemporary artist and sculptor is considered an es-

Prince by Andy Warhol, wikicommons

sential figure of the postwar art scene of the West coast, known most for his use of the radical Californian “Kustom Kar” and motorcycle culture, using psychedelic colours and mandala-like shapes.

Bengston rose to fame in Los Angeles during the 1960’s, with his abstracted paintings of details of cars and commercial logos. His spare compositions and alternative processes got him associated with the Finish Fetish movement, a style of art related to the LA look, a fusion of pop art and minimalism akin to Southern California in the 1960s. The two or three dimensional works were often sleek and had a glossy finish, abstract designs made with fiberglass or resin. Some critics also tie him to the Pop Art movement for his use of commercial goods.