ART
POVERTY/PORN: STEVE HASH AND ANDY WARHOL
MAY 9, 2019
-
WORDS
by KRISTOPHER FRASER
PHOTOGRAPHY
COURTESY of NADINE JOHNSON
Contemporary artist Steve Hash and icon Andy Warhol have a lot more in common than people would think. Both artists grew up in poverty, heavily immersed in religious ideologies, and ended up moving to New York. Warhol might no longer be with us for a physical dialogue to take place between the two, but some things are best left communicated through art. Such a conversation is currently taking place at Chase Contemporary Gallery in Manhattan.
The gallery’s new two-person exhibit, Poverty/Porn, was curated by Hash, who wanted to showcase the later works in Andy Warhol’s career. “It was fitting because I’m an emerging artist, and Warhol is an icon, so you get two different ends of the spectrum,” Hash said. “Our work was quite different, so when curating it wasn’t about pairing things inspired by or looking the same.”
Much of Warhol’s earlier work was about everyday people and commodities, something that Hash managed to infused in the exhibit with pieces from his Clotheslines series, that literally featured cemented clothes on a clothesline. Notably, the entire exhibit was also in black and white. “For me it was important that everything was black and white because I don’t work in color,” Hash said. “A lot of my work is about the disillusion of self, through disorientation we can all have an honest conversation. It was interesting for me why in the later half of Warhol’s career his stuff moved away from celebrity.”
Poverty/Porn by Steve Hash
“It was fitting because I’m an emerging artist, and Warhol is an icon, so you get two different ends of the spectrum.”
Warhol’s late black and white works were a deliberate departure from the polished, celebrity-obsessed Pop Art he became famous for. Warhol’s work chosen for this exhibition pull from source material indicative of his early days in advertising. Warhol depicted adverts of everyday commodities with hand-hewn sensibilities, while concurrently exploring themes of spirituality and religion as seen in the artist’s screen print on silk scarf titled The Only Way Out is In! from 1984. The work is a direct reference to Osho, depicting a figure seated in the lotus position under the image of the All-seeing eye.
In similarity, Hash’s work uses the process of material to try and figure out how to connect with people. To that end, he had totems made of used milk cartons and cigarette packs to create something that may be mundane on the surface, but speak to a greater state of the human condition. “It’s about materials that are accessible and how to create something through that,” Hash said. “These are things that are accessible around the world. We all use it for the same purpose without thought regardless of gender, race or socioeconomics. These are vessels I’ve consumed the content of. For me, these totems are a way of celebrating a different culture without cultural appropriation. It’s important to erect something that has been a part of me and a representation of myself and a process I have gone through.”
Hash also used draped towels over figures and objects to symbolize different human experiences, but looking at them we can’t tell if the people involved are rich or poor, young or old, or what race, religion, or sexual orientation they might be. This causes viewers to reflect on their own personal biases and how they can break away from them.
Poverty/Porn by Steve Hash
“I hope that people come away from this with introspection,” Hash said. “I hope that people take away more questions than answers and more self-exploration. Even just looking at the title, Poverty/Porn, it’s loaded, a mix of reality and fantasy. We have to think about what is our role? What is our engagement with other humans? I attempted to create pieces that are less about me and more about the engagement people have with them. I’d encourage to come away with their own conclusion.”
Poverty/Porn will be on view at Chase Contemporary until May 26.
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