Andy Warhol: Vanitas

American artist Andy Warhol (1928–87) was a devoted Byzantine Catholic who regularly attended church, especially following a near-fatal assassination attempt at the hands of writer Valerie Solanas in 1968 and after his mother’s death in 1972. Vanitas explores the artist’s preoccupation with temporality, spirituality and astrology, and highlights a lesser-known part of his oeuvre, consisting of paintings and drawings of skulls and self-portraits, reminiscent of the 17th-century vanitas genre. Spiritual subjects such as impermanence and time are explored through multimedia art and archival material from Warhol’s largest collecting project, Time Capsules, in which he saved source materials for his work and ephemera from his life. Vanitas places these works in dialogue with 17th-century Dutch genre engravings from the Rijksmuseum. These allegorical prints serve to remind viewers not only of their mortality, but of their obligation to live a humble existence. With a shining gold cover—featuring Warhol with a skull laughing on his shoulder—this publication plays upon the paradoxes inherent in Warhol’s hedonistic life, his fascination with death and his unwavering Catholic faith.