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5 - Fame as the Cure-All: The Charisma of Cynicism – Andy Warhol

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

Donald Kuspit
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Summary

Nowadays if you're a crook you're still considered up-there. You can write books, go on TV, give interviews – you're a big celebrity and nobody even looks down on you because you're a crook. You're still really up-there. This is because more than anything people just want stars.

Andy Warhol

In the case of fame the mind is still more absorbed, for fame is conceived as always good for its own sake, and as the ultimate end to which all actions are directed. … Fame has the further drawback that it compels its votaries to order their lives according to the opinions of their fellow-men, shunning what they usually shun, and seeking what they usually seek.

Benedict de Spinoza

Avoid being conspicuous and keep away from a position of power. Do not live for … fame. Thus you will not criticize others and others will not criticize you. The perfect man has no (thought of) reputation.

Chuangtse

For Andy Warhol, fame was the cure-all. Like every panacea, fame presupposes global illness; in this case, the sense that everyone is terminally ill with the feeling of being nothing. Unconsciously everyone feels decadent: everyone is living death, whether they know it or not. However, Warhol was not everyman, but a very famous man, a superstar. Fame, he superstitiously believed, could ward off the feeling of nothingness, even keep death – actual nothingness – at bay.

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The Cult of the Avant-Garde Artist , pp. 64 - 82
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1993

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