Emvergeoning

These piggies all have something to say…but you have to go to the Mcnay this month to listen. This little piggy [Basquiat] went to marketing class, this little piggy [Warhol] stayed home, this little piggy [Wyeth] painted portraits and they all frolicked in a Manhattan play pen called The Factory.

Everything about “Factory Work: Warhol, Wyeth & Basquiat” hovers around the alluring glow of the cult of personality. Given that caveat, Jamie Wyeth takes the blue ribbon for his portraits of subjects as disparate as John F. Kennedy, a smirking swine and a she-male in a ball gown. His oil paintings and pencil drawings exude a sense of classically trained talent with a mischievous twist. The show itself is a mixed fruit salad of taxidermied pets, toy train sets and painfully outdated haute couture.

Ole Warthog, I mean, Warhol poses for all the right moments. There he is with his trusty puppy, and business partner, Fred Hughes…and the Governator pumps some iron under the scrutiny of pipsqueak art fags. It’s interesting in a time capsule, particularly the entire room dedicated to Bisquit, Basquette, uh, you know, that guy. Everything in that room hangs like a stale fart in the annex of a dusty mansion. Pew. To quote the artist himself, “SOS, same ole shit.”

Back to Wyeth, one of his paintings, “1342 Lexington Ave,” depicts an interior and exterior of the house Warhol and his mother once live in together. The scene rekindles elements of Edward Munch’s bedside death watch paintings, but Wyeth isn’t as sinister and his brushstrokes are soft, considerable gestures that capture the last hours of Fred Hughes life. Wyeth places himself at the bedside of his beloved friend; his back to the onlooker. It’s a private, poignant moment capable of evoking empathy for the estranged individuals behind familiar namesakes.

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