Why is this art? Andy Warhol, Campbell's Soup Cans | Art History | Khan Academy 

"Art it whatever you can get away with" Andy Warhol

I have to admit, it's a well painted can of soup.

Reason can be given to anything.

Uncanny, really. Thank you for condensing this. You've really boiled this down; taken all of the ingredients and made them into something greater.

I'm not a big fan of "art", but I really like this. "It makes you feel good and empty", as said by Andy Warhol. This strange repetitiveness makes you feel good.

The comments here reveal that the same issues that existed back in the 60s in the popular conception of art (Artistic elitism, extreme conservatism, etc) are still well and alive today. Art as it was understood (as sculpture and painting, namely) reached their breaking point by the time the Dadaists and the abstract expressionists were doing their thing; stuff like pop art, conceptual art, performance art, video art (all things that people don't like because they're "not art"--a silly, lazy and deeply ignorant statement, in my mind) was an attempt to find NEWNESS in different modalities outside the traditional one. People (or respected artists, at least) don't paint like the masters anymore because it's a dead and mined out process. Sure, you could make something shockingly dramatic like a Carvaggio and it would be impressive on a technical level but impossibly boring on every other level. People like Warhol made different art reflecting not only the current state of art as well as the industrial consumerist culture surrounding it--their intention was both progression and subversion, to make art into something new that wasn't just an endless recycling of the Hellenic style. James Joyce and TS Eliot and the other famed modernists and post-modernists did the same thing; elevation of the crude and the "non art" to levels of high art. In effect, they were sticking up a middle finger to the late 19th century Victorian snobs who said "ART MUST BE BEAUTIFUL BUT ALSO I DON'T WANT TO HAVE TO THINK ABOUT IT." It's so strange to me that people will readily accept their methods of subversion but entirely reject people equally as brilliant like Warhol or Lichenstein because they have some strange pent up ideas about what visual art SHOULD be. That's exactly the problem that existed back then; you are exactly the people that every significant artist of the past 100 years is making fun of and trying to push past.

As an artist I think these guys are over thinking it. Sometimes it's fun just to put together a bunch of sit and watch everybody gawk at it like it's a masterpiece and try to put so much meaning into it when it really means nothing at all.

Andy said, "if you 'get' my art you don't get it and if you don't you do."

“Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.”

This is such a fantastic and enlightening discussion on the motives and intentions of Warhol. You've really helped me gain a more concise understanding and foundation to build upon when further viewing his works, thank you!

people sitting around intellectualizing stills of soup cans.

Pop Art is about simple consumerist icons that we live amongst in our daily lives but pay no attention to the importance behind the objects. I suppose none of you like the work of Lichtenstein either? It would be a sad world if the only "good" art in the world was a landscape painting of the countryside.

Andy Warhol's work was satirizing popular art. You have artists who are literally selling their artwork; marketing it to galleries and rich snobs who will buy it for lots of money. He was mocking that. Art isn't about marketing your work and making money, its about creation and the ideas that spring forth from them. This idea seemed to be lost by many people. This video is bad, it tries too hard. Yes there are multiple interpretations, but that doesnt mean some dont make more sense than others.

I see a lot of people hating this series. Like... why? Because it's not Da Vinci or Michaelangelo? Because it's not a pretty field with bright happy colours? Because it's not art? Why? Why is it not art? Wasn't art suppost to be a thing that bringa forth emotions? Well, if it is, then this is art. It doesn't necessarily bring forth the positive ones, but Andy knew it. That's why he made this. Same with Duchamp's urinal.

bet campbell's didn't complain. prob paid him too

Now you're an artist, because your art made me feel humorous joy. Humorous joy is a type of emotion right?

If you think he was trying to make a critical statement by painting those cans, consider this: Andy Warhol got one of his filmmakers to film him eating a cheeseburger while taking pauses to smirk and dab his face with his napkin... for nearly five minutes.

Ten years ago, I took a page out of Andy Warhol's series of Campbell's Soup Can paintings and did paintings of soda cans in my painting class at an art studio that used to be in the town I currently live in (I live in Medina, NY - I used to live in Albion, NY). There was Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Sun Drop (a soda that's not too common in WNY), A&W Root Beer, Dr. Pepper, and, for you fans of Futurama, a Slurm can (it's highly addictive!). I guess you guys could call it "Soda pop art".

Sal, you ask all the right questions man. Love it.

my art teacher making me sit around and watch a can of soup, and write 5 facts about it. Imma write it on a napkin...

Not all opinions are equally valuable. Pretentious, while being an overused word, is exactly the word needed to describe people who find this "art" worthy of this much attention.

I like Khan Acdmy.. But this is the most exaggerated, pretentious discussion. Interpreting anything that Warhol did as greatness. This painting is 100% about the artist and not about the art at all. Changing how you look at something isn't art. This happens everyday. If that was the reasoning, then lets put any everyday photo or object in a gallery(& this happens). When nothing can't be art, then nothing can really be art. What is and isn't art is completely meaningless. Let's just stop using the word.

I'm pretty sure it's art cause he painted what he loved. It's as simple as that. There is no deeper meaning.

Sorry, Im from the group that thinks Warhol is shit, 1 name for that Robert Hughes

I think that both voices complete encapsulates the work of andy, but not in a….🤔 that makes me roll my eyes. Well done.

The reason it is iconic and important and it is considered Art is, Andy used a medium for Mass Production, Silk Screen Printing, to produce prints of mass produced consumer products, and No one had ever done that.

Its art because it brought modern art back into the scene after abstract art. Abstract art was the rage..... then BAM !!! ANdy says welcome to POP

From my point of view, this is art in the sense that it makes me laugh. It's like visual comedy and sarcasm. What makes it most interesting is that one does not know what to think of it: is it a serious work or is the author just trying to make fun of how seriously artists take themselves?

"The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common." - - Ralph Waldo Emerson

I am writing about Andy Warhol in one of my chapters of my Fine Art dissertation, After dismissing him for years as POP, I am absolutely blown away by his work. You just wouldn't realise that most of his work is about death , especially relating to the mass consumerism, celebrity and media control. Totally mind blowing and clever beyond clever.

art is what ever you perceive as art...

If you scratch a little deeper, Warhol is also making a very witty comment about the genre of Still Life for a modern industrial world.

I like how there is only 301 views (so far) and yet there are 71 comments. That says something.

i love you for being honest. yay!

The same reason why pie, mustaches, and nutella are so popular even though they're not that great.

Lunch-tray on Saturday XD

U M A M I has, through his own art, created an expanded view on the concept of the value presented by soup. Warhol chose to focus on the commercial nature of mass production and the concept that even the most mundane can be celebrated as art, but he missed an opportunity to truly define the existential meaning of soup (or any lasting legacy for humanity for that matter.) U M A M I ‘s videos “the end of an era” and “the cycle of life,” showcase U M A M I ‘s view of the existential meaning of soup quite nicely, albeit in a dark comedic way. Both videos can be found here on RU-vid.

It tells us a lot about society

How can i look for more videos like this from kahn academy !???

That was a fascinating discussion. Khan would make a great host on a show that would be his version of Charlie Rose.

Whyyy is this art? That is a good question! Lol. :p

As an artist myself, I can tell you this: Artists create things that they want to create and only when asked of them what is the meaning behind their piece do they answer with a deeper meaning that is normally bullshit.

Art is interesting, because you can peek into how others view the world. Art is more interesting if you're interested in others.

Holy crap, did not notice that xD

He sure was dedicated to his craft and making moola. Thumbs up to him

Art? woaw! :)

i think the love for the detail, that warhol put in it, stands against the perfectionism of industrial manufacturing.

andy warhol was one massive troll who tricked the whole world into talking about cans of soup for probably hundreds of years to come and to be taught at schools and lecture halls because he was an artist and art is profoundly indecisive and compulsive, it doesn't know what it wants, but it knows it wants it now

You just made another piece of art.

I like your point of view, though I believe there could be many interpretations of those images, and also we cannot tell what Warhol was thinking . We can only think by ourselfes.

half the people on these comments didn't even listen to the discussion in the video

I LOVE CAMPBELL'S SOUP!

This video is not necessarily referring to Andy Warhol and his style but more so about the statement he was making in defiance of mass production which society and industries were evolving into in the late 1800s by early 1900s.

Many people take art too seriously, they think that the subject of any given piece of art has to be something inspired. They also worry about how technically challenging a piece of art was to create. Enjoy a piece of art for what it is, not what you expect it to be.

It may not be art, but it is some damn good fine design

Lol some artists have gotten away with some pretty mundane /weird/or just down right stupid things in the name of art.

You don't have to like ALL art, but art is essential in a civilised & beautiful society. Art is music too, but you don't have to like every genre. So pick & choose, but please don't despise ALL art.

Art is always literally something else. A painting is a dried oil or water based paste smeared on a wooden board or stretched out cotton cloth on a frame. "This is not a pipe" has just as much truth as "This is piss in a bottle". The question is, are those statements true or false?

I think art perception it's subjective and it's up to the one who looks at a painting/listens to music/etc. to decide if something is art or not.

I like soup. Thank you Andy Warhol.

this is sweet

Art is easy to define anything that evokes emotion from the individual. If you hate it, its art if you love it its art. If you have no feeling toward it then its nothing... The medium dose not matter the emotion dose.

Everything is a test. While I may rely on art critics to give me historic significance for whatever swirls of paint I'm looking at on a wall, I'm my own judge as to what constitutes art. As they say, "I know it when I see it." Just because critics lent some con-artist credibility 40 years ago doesn't mean I have to make the same mistake. Warhol's real art was pulling the wool over the eyes of his contemporaries. In that *was* an artist. Back-story is a commodity. Warhol saw that and sold it.

Ha ho, look at all this soup! I'll be taking all your soup!

wow...I'm amazed how how much fantasies going through the brain of art! Well..I guess that's why its call an art

Art is what artists make. Let’s make it simple. You can discuss it until you’re blue in the face. It won’t change a thing. You can give your opinion about whether YOU THINK the project was worth doing. Whether Warhol’s aesthetic holds up. Whether you like it or not. But this doesn’t change the fact that Andy chose to paint these pictures. Would I pay skate-eight zillion dollars for one? No way. I’d paint one myself. Warhol introduced the possibility for cheap art for everyone. No need to pay 5.2 million for a picture on your wall. You can have have something every bit as good for pennies. The silkscreens are hand made. Each one is unique due to variations in the inking process etc. Each one slightly different. I digitally printed “Marilyns” on canvas to original dimensions, and my friends has “Warhols” over their bed for free. If you really take a look at culture, pop or otherwise, how people decorate their lives with aesthetic objects and images, -today-look at the kind of art that gets made, how it gets made, certainly anyone can see that Andy Warhol was a turning point. His work keeps looking better and better, especially if you see the real thing in person.

Agreed.

This is post modern art as a counter reaction to *modern* art. It was almost a protest to the disconnection masters like Picasso and Dali created between the artist to the audience. Basically, post modernism is a reaction to snobbery.

This is hipster shit. Warhol art is bs. He banked on people like these people speaking.

It is interesting they brought up the industrial transformance of society, but his point concerning mass production is (imo) wrong. Warhol didn't view it as an absence of individual features in this era, he saw the small often overlooked flaws and unique features of even massproduced things, wich made them unique. Imo he wanted to show this, not just turn bleak stuff into art

I suppose my standard would be the amount of effort and creativity (and perhaps skill) it takes to create something. The message of these cans was not a difficult one to articulate, and the cans themselves are as impressive as unmolded clay. Today, anyone can slap a philosophic message onto a doodle and people like you will call it the Sistine Chapel. I want art museums to be filled with things that only a few people throughout history where capable of creating.

Art is like agreeing or disagreeing with people's worldviews, which are varied and multi-dimensional.

(cont'd) most of the modern art serves no purpose other than to say "I laugh in the face of all classical techniques and show you that I can make art out of anything, look at me." Art should have a purpose.

Guys! Do you know why Warhol painted this? He just liked Campell's soup. Quite reading so much into it.

LOVE

You could go this in depth about a haystack or a recycle bin, drawing all sorts of pithy conclusions. But why is this GOOD if no one looks at it and thinks, "Hey, this is good?" If even the people who like it have to be taught why, it probably isn't very good.

Andy Warhol is both a wise man, and a wise guy

I've been told on many different occasions that I make THE best lobster bisque soup. A few friends that have been lucky enough to try my recipe have personally told me that what I do with soup is art. I guess in a way art is like porn, you can't explain it, but you know it when you see it.

You're right, I apologise. I don't hate all art, I think I was just being provocative.

Are you joking or do you legitimately believe that? Irving Blum, an art dealer and gallery owner, visited Warhol at his studio after he was featured for something else in a Time article. While at the studio he saw all of the Cambell's paintings and was amazed that he had not had his own exhibit yet. He then offered to set him up with his own show, after which he bought all 32 of the paintings. It wasn't just some silly mistake.

At Tate Modern there was a piece where it was a square of plain canvas with a cut in the middle... And that's modern art? Tate Modern had to be one of the most boring places that I've ever been... There was only one exhibit (of a model bridge) which was interesting. I just see a picture of flavours of soup. I worry when people say they see more.

this is more of a "how" than a "why"

The Soup Cans might be a satire on the Still Life. As in once artists painted lavish banquet tables or sumptuous bowls of fruit, whereas Warhol is painting cans of soup. Perhaps as a celebration of mass consumption; or alternatively he could be commenting on mass consumption's hollowness. Or maybe he's doing both. Concept art and pop art, simultaneously inflate and deflate the meaning of an object. As in the celebration of the poor humble soup can getting its moment in the spotlight; soon gives way to the reality of its mundanity. As in it's had its fifteen minutes of fame, then it's back in the bin. Much like say the stars of reality TV. As in the novelty of ordinary people on the TV soon wears off. Inflation of meaning - soon gives way to a negation of meaning.

Modern art = more about ideas and conveying concepts as opposed to showing off great technique ...got it. Now I know math AND artsy!

Wow, its really nice to see how no one in the comments is fooled by warhol's ruse.

Techncially his response was factual.

yeah it's a bit of a change from science/business lessons he runs ;)

I'm not sure if I'm convinced. so is art merely a reflection of 'the now'? i agree with khan at 4:43 to 5:16- is it that we simply see 'art' in something simply by virtue of the fact that its creator is labelled- Artist? for me art is too subjective to the point where ANYTHING can be dubbed art so long as its dubbed from a specific perspective, by a specific group and in a specific way. the film 'Mr Brainwash' typifies this precisely.

Then yes it is I told you the medium is meaningless emotion is what count.. Made you hate that's a powerful emotional response.. And yes the written word has always been art

Warhol was an art *commentator* showing the rest of the world how gullible and frivolous the world of art critique had become. He enjoyed toying with the mystique of art criticism and the borrowed credibility he found bestowed upon him by so-called 'experts'. His real art was pulling the wool over the eyes of 'the art world'. The masses smirk, remaining unconvinced that he produced real art. Art critics continue the myth because it would be inconvenient to devalue his junk today. Brilliant.

amen

what if somebody broke into an art museum, and did the lunchtray thing? I wonder what will happen...

I always thought it was symbolic of lazy. This is art as Campbell Soup is to homemade cooking.

So, who was the sponsor of this video?

The thing with anime is that a lot of true artists hate it because you get so many teenagers that think they're artists because they can draw anime characters, when technically it's an incredibly easy style. Personally I prefer to see anime as a medium of expression and story-telling for those with less artistic ability, time or resources, which is an art just like hip-hop is a genre of music.

HE LITERALLY PAINTED SOUP CANS TO SEE IF HE COULD GET ADVERTS IN AN ART MUSEUM. And look at him now... He used to be an Artist in the 1950s but as soon as the 60s hit. He got bored of the strict rules in art so he made the soup cans.

Campbell's soup was available in the 1800s. So he was not portraying the now as much as he was saying "what is art?" You should have the explored that context more. Jackson Pollacks "drip" paintings. Roy Lichtenstein "comics" paintings. Jasper Johns "American flag" paintings. All these artists were saying that art is not just a painting of a naked woman on a canvas. You mentioned the Sistine chapel which portrays art as super expensive only to be viewed by the pope. Art was elitist. Andy and pop art brought art to the masses. Art could be a can of soup. A bottle of coke. An experience that could be shared universally - by the pope and by a 6th grade student in the usa and by a woman wearing a sari in india.

You can't spell fart without art.

Did he do that intentionally? If yes, he's a troll, if yes, he claims that he's also an artist, which in fact makes sense. Art should be about intentionally eliciting as much emotion as possible. But where does that stop? I think a comedians are artists, but I don't think that trolls are. Also, I don't think he was trolling you, but I think that art is not easy to define, sinply because calling trolls artists would give them WAY too much firepower.

Check out the video "why do youtube videos stop at 301 views." It's pretty interesting.