Art Show Review

Andy Warhol - Dream America SD Museum of Art - Art Show Review
By Kiva Boyd

America. Dream America, daydream nation. Where do we go if we want to understand this country? The news won’t be much help. Our news media in the U.S. is so closely tied to both the corporate and political structures as to be useless. You’ll get plenty of information. Of course, it will only be the information that either the Whitehouse or Phifzer wants you to see.

What else is there? History books? Aside from a few brilliant but marginalized voices such as Howard Zinn, Cornell West and Noam Chomsky you’d be hardpressed to find much of value. The version of history we teach and have available to us tends to be a one-sided stream of cardboard cutout stereotypes displaying America’s ‘great achievements”. So, where do we go? We crave meaning. Human beings are wired to seek out meanings and patterns. Our eyes can’t rest on an object for more than a few seconds without seeking out how it fits into our schema or understanding of our experience.

I’d put forth that if you’d like to get a glimpse of what makes America tick you could do worse than spending some time at the San Diego Museum of Art’s new show, “Andy Warhol’s Dream America”. Andy puts it best; “If you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface of my paintings and films and me, and there I am. There’s nothing behind it.”