This exhibition traces a genealogy of the relationship between art and pop music from the mid-‘60s, through a selection of paintings, photographs, serigraphs, drawings, album covers, books, magazines, posters, films, video installations, screen tests, music videos and different objects and documents from Warhol’s artistic universe over a period of almost four decades.
The leitmotiv behind this show is a specific aspect in Andy Warhol’s artistic production, which was considered marginal until very recently: namely, his contribution to the history of graphic design in music through the creation of several album covers.
Born in Pittsburgh in 1928, between 1949 and 1987 the artist made more than 60 covers for 33 and 45 vinyl records of all music’s genres. Warhol dedicated to design for music throughout his entire career, starting off in 1949, aged 21 and not yet recognized as an artist, until he reached his mature age. Coinciding with the last months of his life, between 1986 and 1987 he designed covers for artists of the likes of John Lennon, Aretha Franklin and Debbie Harry, as well as for the TV channel MTV.
By looking at the several record covers he made, one could easily trace the history of the taste in music in the US, from World War II up until the last decade of the ‘80s, spanning classical music, opera and ballet, jazz, minimalism, experimental music, rock, pop, soul, disco music, punk and new wave.
As other peer artists like Ray Johnson, Richard Hamilton or Peter Blake, Warhol belongs to that first generation that grew up listening to pop and rock music. He is also one of the first to make rock stars a recurrent subject in his paintings’ iconography. Elvis Presley’s portrait, for instance, is already included in his first serigraphs from 1962. Moreover, Warhol always proved to have a wide music culture, spanning both Wagnerian opera and Hollywood musical, as well as avant-garde music or pop. From Elvis Presley to Maria Callas; from John Cage to The Velvet Underground, Count Basie and Michael Jackson, through Nico, Mick Jagger, John Lennon or Debbie Harry, one of his last muses.
Besides, the record covers that Warhol designed anticipate certain formal and iconographic solutions that he would subsequently deploy in his painting and cinematic production, a thing that makes them worthy of attention from art critics and researchers and that allows for transversal readings of his work.
‘Silver Songs. The Music of Andy Warhol’ is structured according to different thematic axis organized chronologically and aims at providing an exhaustive reading of the role of music in the creative process of the father of Pop Art.
Each chapter shows album covers along with artworks of different means (paintings, photographs, drawings, serigraphs, posters, films, video installations) by Warhol himself and other artists he collaborated with throughout his career such as Stephen Shore, Ronald Nameth, Nat Finkelstein, Billy Name, Christopher Makos, Hervé Gloaguen, Richard Bernstein and Dan Munroe. This helps understand how music and plastic art always intertwined in the most significant moments of Andy Warhol’s life.
From appropriation to seriality, – under the influence of musicians such as John Cage and La Monte Young at the beginning of the ‘60s -, to the updating of the Wagnerian concept of the ‘total work of art’ as materialized in live multimedia shows such as ‘Exploding Plastic Inevitable’ with the Velvet Underground; from the cult of celebrity made evident in his portraits of rock and pop stars such as Mick Jagger, Diana Ross or Michael Jackson to his active engagement with certain communication media that were directly related to music industry, such as The Interview magazine, the direction and production of music video for groups such as The Cars or Curiosity Killed The Cat or novel TV programs such as “Fifteen Minutes” for MTV.

Andy Warhol, Vito Acconci, Art & Language, John Baldessari, Joseph Beuys, Saâdane Afif, Cabello/Carceller, Dan Graham, Yoko Ono, Adel Abidin, Nam June Paik, Barbara Kruger, Guerrilla Girls, Bruce Nauman, Richard Avedon, Lawrence Weiner, Joseph Kosuth, Sol Lewitt, Ronald Nameth, Marc Bijl, Rodney Graham, Gisèle Vienne, Patric Chiha, Tony Oursler, Christian Marclay, Mike Kelley, Douglas Gordon, Jeremy Deller, Mark Leckey, Richard Hamilton, Robert Rauschenberg, Pussy Riot, Cindy Sherman, Judith Barry, Richard Kern, Javier Fresneda, Assume Vivid Astro Focus, Filip Custic, Eric Siegel, Tony Cokes, José Iges, Largen & Bread, Raymond Pettibon, Jean Claude Cubino, Luís San Sebastián, John Di Stefano o Montse Galán.

The exhibition sets out to trace the genealogy of the relations between pop music and video-creation from the 1960s to today, with the emphasis on those moments in which there was feedback between the two manifestations as they explored the field of experiment, utopia and political incorrectness.

It’s important to remember that although this is a subject academic histories of art tend to skip over, relations between the visual arts and popular music in the course of the 20th century were very fertile. Various generations of avant-garde artists have now integrated into the production of their works elements that are directly or indirectly related with the attitudes and imaginaries developed by genres such as rock and roll, pop, psychedelia, glam, punk, soul, disco music, hip-hop, indie pop, electronic music or any of the more short-lived sub-genres and music trends developed over the last 50 years.

From pop art to conceptual art, from performance art and body art to video-art and experimental film, from the situationist movement to the activist practices of the new millennium, taking in more recent trends like young British art, relational aesthetics and post-production theories… Artists of the calibre of Andy Warhol, Joseph Beuys, Vito Acconci, Dan Graham, Yoko Ono, Nam June Paik, Barbara Kruger, John Baldessari, Rodney Graham, Tony Oursler, Christian Marclay, Mike Kelley, Douglas Gordon o Jeremy Deller and many more, down to today, have approached this genre in some of their most outstanding works, sometimes even collaborating with different rock bands or recording their own albums. Similarly, leading musicians such as John Lennon, David Bowie, Pete Townshend, Syd Barret, Brian Eno, Alan Vega, David Byrne, Laurie Anderson and members of essential bands of the last two decades, like Sonic Youth, REM, Blur, Franz Ferdinand and The Kills, all trained at art school before becoming professional musicians.

From this approach and bearing in mind that the origins of video-art run almost parallel to those of pop music, the exhibition it is arranged by subject matter in seven chapters:

• Art in pop / Pop in art (Warhol, Richard Hamilton, Nam June Paik, Eric Siegel,Robert Rauschenberg, etc)
• Hysteria and religion (Dan Graham)
• ‘Non-musicians’ vs ‘non-artists’. Rock and conceptual art ( Vito Acconci, Joseph Beuys, Yoko Ono, Bruce Nauman, Baldessari, Tony Cokes, José Iges, Cabello/ Carceler, Tony Oursler…)
• Rock and activism (Marc Bijl, Raimond Pettibon, Mike Kelley, Sonic Youth Riot Girls, Barbara Kruger, Judith Barry, Guerrilla Girls, Pussy Riots)
• Rock and its double (Christian Marclay, Largen & Bread, Fluxus, Jean Claude, Saadane Afif, Douglas Gordon, Adel Abidin, Luis San Sebastián)
• Policies of dance music and news urban rhythms (Jeremy Deller, Assume Vivid Astro Focus, Marck Leckey, Cabello / Carceler, John DiStefano, Filip Cusic)

During the opening days of the Silver Songs. The Music of Andy Warhol exhibition, the former Can Trinxet textile factory will temporarily become The Factory, Warhol’s studio-workshop and the epicenter of New York underground culture during the sixties. Here in Can Trinxet musicians, artists, students, citizens and associations from L’Hospitalet will be invited to participate in a relational art project based on artistic concepts that can be found in the exhibition on Andy Warhol and music. Thus, the Los Ganglios music band will work with artist Laura Llaneli on the basis of the Exploding Plastic Inevitable project, a leading action in the field of expanded cinema that was born in The Factory from the collaboration between The Velvet Undeground and Andy Warhol. Meanwhile, the graphics communication materials for the project by Los Ganglios and Laura Llaneli will be developed within the exhibition space by the Eina school of design by means of silk screen printing workshops led by Enric Mas. The Serra i Abella school of art and design of L’Hospitalet will likewise carry out sessions featuring screen tests, one of the foremost contributions Warhol made to video art from The Factory. The recordings will star sufferers from associations related to the Department of Health of L’Hospitalet, including people with mental disorders, Alzheimer’s disease and Alcoholics Anonymous members. The multiple sclerosis and mental health associations will participate in engraving and mail art workshops taught by artists Ester Aguilar and Berta Fontboté, respectively.

The factory alive! is an art and territorial project conceived by Artur Muñoz and Albert Mercadé

Since the 1960s, various generations of avant-garde artists have integrated into their production processes elements that are related with the attitudes and imaginaries of pop music. Artists of the calibre of Andy Warhol, Vito Acconci, Dan Graham, Nam June Paik, Joseph Beuys, John Baldessari, Rodney Graham, Tony Oursler, Christian Marclay, Mike Kelley, Douglas Gordon, Jeremy Deller o Damien Hirst, and many more, down to today, have approached this genre in some of their most outstanding works, sometimes even collaborating with different rock bands or recording their own albums. Similarly, leading musicians such as John Lennon, David Bowie, Pete Townshend, Syd Barret, Brian Eno, Alan Vega, David Byrne, Laurie Anderson and members of essential bands of the last two decades, like Sonic Youth, REM, Blur, or Franz Ferdinand all trained at art school before becoming professional musicians.

From this approach and bearing in mind that the origins of video-art run almost parallel to those of pop music, the project is divided into two sections:

1- Pop and video-creation. Shared genealogies

This section includes more than 30 significant works in the history of video art and experimental film from the 1960s to 2013 that are formally and conceptually related to the iconographies of pop and rock, with works by Andy Warhol, Nam June Paik, Yayoi Kusama. Dan Graham, Tony Oursler, Vito Acconci, John Baldessari, Christian Marclay, Douglas Gordon, Candice Breitz, Jeremy Deller, Mark Leckey, Jon Mikel Euba, Largen & Bread and others.

2- Music for your eyes. Visual arts and the aesthetics of the videoclip

This section is a journey through the history of the musical videoclip to review the careers of the most important authors of the last 40 years and their connections with contemporary visual arts and cinema and includes a programme of music videos by artists like Andy Warhol, Tony Oursler, Judith Barry, Robert Longo, Joan Morey, Damien Hirst, Ana Laura Aláez, Carles Congost, Pipilotti Rist, Dara Birnbaum, Joseph Beuys, Adel Abidin, Hugo Alonso, Charles Atlas, Marc Bijl, Olaf Breuning, Charley Case, Cheryl Donegan, Jorge Galindo i Santiago Sierra, Jesús Hernández , Bjørn Melhus, César Pesquera, John Sanborn, Kit Fitzgerald (Antarctica), etc.