Mega-, mega-, mega-, mega-, megalomania!

During last weekend’s trip with Laura to Pittsburgh we made a stop at The Warhol Museum. Home to most of the work of one of Pittsburgh’s most infamous sons, The Warhol Museum is filled with the bold, loud, in-your-face pop art that Andy Warhol pioneered.

I thought the museum was incredible and I came away much more educated about pop art and its legacy. Prior to our trip I was an Andy Warhol fan in the way that most people who took Art History II are…I could recognize his stuff and defend it to people who say that it’s not “real art” because anyone can take photos of JFK and paint over them in red. Well, no one did before Andy Warhol and it’s the social commentary that makes it interesting. The introductory gallery mentioned that his genius came from Warhol’s ability to embrace pop culture while at the same time offering a devastating social critique. I guess this could seem like cognitive dissonance to some, but to me his self-awareness of his unbridled joy for celebrities and the salacious makes him a really important participant-observer. A sociologist with the most fun job ever.

My favorite parts of the collection were the displays of the contents of Warhol’s “time capsules.” Basically, he threw correspondence, ticket stubs, and other artifacts of his life into boxes to save for posterity. Learning this was like having a nonverbal conversation in which I felt completely understood, vindicated. I’ve been doing this is much less organized (natch) way my entire life. If you’ve ever sent me a piece of mail, I have it in my apartment right this very minute. I have every ticket stub from every concert I’ve seen, play I’ve taken in, or random sporting event I’ve attended, willingly or unwillingly. I have a brochure from my junior class field trip to Monticello, my eighth grade graduation program, and the sticker from the first time I voted in 2001 (Mark Warner, who won, making me feel powerful; this sense of efficacy was nearly lost in the Election 2004).

Laura and I decided that creating our own time capsules is just the ticket (heh). I don’t know if I can handle trying to sort the last 25 years into boxes, but I can start now. While I had initial self-consciousness about how megalomaniacal deciding to catalogue my life makes me, I’ve decided that it’s totally worth it. If I found boxes from every year of my Grandma Sykes’ life right now, I’d spend days pouring through them. So would my mom. It stands to reason that my own children will too. Or…they will think I’m a complete weirdo, but I guess that’s the usual risk you run when you decide to procreate.