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Andy Warhol Campbell’s Soup II

Online Exhibition

26 April—1 July 2023

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Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup paintings and prints are some of the most iconic images of the twentieth century. Through these pieces, Warhol elevates the mundane mass-produced product of canned soup by transforming its design into monumental works of art.

Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup series signalled a radical shift in modern art. It challenged traditional distinctions between high and low culture...

‘I used to drink it [Campbell’s Soup]. I used to have the same lunch every day, for twenty years, I guess, the same thing over and over again.’

ANDY WARHOL

Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup series signalled a radical shift in modern art. It challenged traditional distinctions between high and low culture with a selection of objects of mass consumption and prosaic advertising imagery. As an explanation for this seminal creative decision, Warhol only stated: ‘I just paint things I always thought were beautiful, things you use every day and never think about’.

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Campbell´s Soup Cans by Andy Warhol, Museum of Modern Art. New York City. USA © Alamy Stock Photo

Andy Warhol, Campbell’s Soup II, Halcyon Gallery, London

Andy Warhol Campbell’s Soup II, Chicken ’n Dumplings

Joseph Balaguer

Joseph Balaguer’s paintings are in dialogue with Warhol’s achievement of immortalising the disposable consumer product through eluding to the short life span of a Campbell Soup can. Balaguer’s paintings invert a traditional mode of oil painting, the still life. From the 17th century, painters represented inanimate objects under dramatic light contrasts both as a demonstration of their technical virtuosity and to deliver meaning through the symbolic associations of the subject matter represented. Traditional still life painting frequently served as momento mori, reminders of the passing of time and the inevitability of death. Balaguer revives this tradition with modern objects. Whilst in the 17th century, painters used an hourglass, a skull or a candle, that has recently gone out, as momento mori, Balaguer uses old light bulbs, stovetop coffee makers (the likes of which are increasingly replaced by more modern devices) and opened Campbell’s Soup cans. The utility of these objects has expired. In Balaguer’s paintings, the Campbell’s Soup can’s status as a temporal item, that is quickly consumed and disposed of, is restored.

Joseph Balaguer, Halcyon Gallery, London, 2023

Joseph Balaguer Paper Bags and Soup Cans

Andy Warhol, Campbell’s Soup I, Halcyon Gallery, London, 2020

Andy Warhol, Halcyon Gallery, 2020

'Pop art is a return to ‘conceptual’ painting ... If you take a Campbell soup can and repeat it fifty times, you are not interested in the retinal image. What interests you is that concept that wants to put fifty Campbell soup cans on a canvas.'

Marcel Duchamp

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Andy Warhol

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Andy Warhol

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