Warhol Live: Tap Dancing Around the Artist and His Influences

Although Andy Warhol has been dead since 1987, it didn't stop the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts from pulling together the exhibition "Warhol Live: Music and Dance in Andy Warhol's Work."

Of course, Warhol, as an artist, neither wrote music nor danced, although perhaps he occasionally strutted a few steps on the dance floor of Studio 54 or some similar trendy New York nightspot. However, talented musicians and dancers were his frequent subjects and as we look at that era today, generally speaking the work the musicians and dancers produced holds up somewhat better than Warhol's art.

The Frist Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville is home of the exhibit from June 24 to September 11, 2011.

So much of Warhol's oeuvre is familiar to us all. Seeing a famous Warhol isn't so much an experience of personally engaging and developing a deeper appreciation for the artwork itself, but it's like being a member of the paparazzi who suddenly and unexpectedly finds himself close enough to a celebrity to get a good photograph.

The exhibition is the most fun when it shows us the work Warhol did as a young graphic designer pumping out program covers and illustrations for New York ballet and opera productions. Who knew that Warhol could do work that would be right at home on the cover of the program for a junior college production of "The Fantastics"?

Warhol's iconic repeated images are well represented: Elvis in triplicate, Liza Minelli and the Campbell's soup cans. Did the soup cans sing or dance? I forget.

However, standing in front of his colorful posters with their repeated imagery is when the viewer, with some sadness, begins to truly understand what Warhol was saying. The artist must be taken at his word that he employed the technique of repeated images in order to strip away meaningfulness from his subjects.

As one moves through the collection, it becomes evident that by repeating this technique so many times on so many different subjects during his career, Warhol inadvertently striped his art of any meaning at the same time.

At the end, we're left with a lot of nothing.

Visitors who trudge upstairs at the Frist will discover a show that is truly the anti-Warhol. "Gather Up the Fragments: The Andrews Shaker Collection" displays tools, furniture, art and clothes from the Shakers. Faith and Edward Deming Andrews collected the work of American Shaker artisans and artists from 1920s through the 1960s. The exhibit runs through August 21, 2011 at the Frist.

While Warhol employed elaborate techniques to remove any meaningfulness from his creations, the Shakers built as much meaning as possible into their works by employing the most simple designs.

Unadorned boxes, jackets and tools are on display. They show the perfect union of function and form and communicate a timeless elegance. One hundred years from now people will still appreciate, understand and even love these pieces. Warhol's connection to New York night life and characters like Edie Sedgwick will be long forgotten.

His 15 minutes of fame are just about up.