Andy Warhol Magazine and History (F & S II.304A) For Sale

Magazine and History is a screenprint published in Germany in 1983. The printed edition was executed, alongside a large-scale painting, for German magazine Bunte’s new offices in Munich. The print portrays twenty-five covers of the magazine, unevenly spaced, with the cover stories bearing images of politicians, celebrities and Royals. This print is remarkable for its parallels with Warhol’s own artwork and concerns: John F Kennedy’s face appears on the cover of Bunte near the centre of the print, an image that Warhol had dealt with as he was fascinated by the President’s assassination. Warhol was known for his talent with image replication and manipulation, and news imagery was often his primary source, thus he shared a close relationship with magazines such as Bunte.  

It is evident that Warhol saw the relationship between photography and representation in news, and art, as a fertile ground worth exploring. What determines a photograph’s treatment as a documentary object versus a work of art?  Warhol left this question murky and subjective, and indeed sought to toe the line between ‘high’ and ‘low’ art: this same driving force was what led him to silkscreen everyday objects such as Campbell soup cans and Brillo boxes. The world of news, however, has an additional facet because it arguably commodified people’s lives into front-page stories: Bunte’s tagline, ‘Leidenschaft fur Menschen’ translates as ‘A Passion for People’. This passion for people was also accompanied by the magazine’s reputation for salacious gossip – it was often embroiled in legal battles concerning its stories. One can understand how Warhol, who also strongly capitalised on the world of celebrity – Marilyn, Jackie and Liz – saw the magazine covers as an appropriate subject.