Strategies for Success - Rome: Warhol and Banksy in comparison at Wegil

Over 100 works from prestigious international collections feed a symphony of iconographic references

In the Wegil spaces, restored multipurpose jewel of Roman rationalism, two creative universes are compared, only apparently different, actually mirror. On the one hand, Warhol, who has made the widespread hypervisibility with all the media the path to fame and commercial success, on the other Banksy, who draws his super powers from the anonymity defended strenuously.

Two strategies that have resulted in the creation of a universal brand and a cult of personality that invades the globe. The more than one hundred works collected from prestigious collections at international level, feeds a symphony of iconographic references, in which the poses of the Warholian Marilyn and the Kate Moss of the artist from Bristol, the double interpretation of the Queen Elizabeth, with royal diadem in the version of the Pop King and zoomorph one by Banksy (Monkey Queen) plus many iconic characters.

The value of the exhibition is to reveal the strategies behind success in order to reach a wide audience

The exhibition has the merit of exposing the strategies behind success; both, for example, attend cinema and music as tools to reach a wider audience than the elite of art one and they rely on the mechanisms of collective desire.
If Warhol makes over 50 album covers - including the iconic banana made for the Velvet Underground & Nico in the 1967 vinyl of the same name -  to democratize the art that can be bought for a few dollars with the disc, Banksy besides designing CD covers ("Think Tank" of Blur) he has always proved annoying to the creative sound universe from the rave scene and that trip hop in Bristol.

For both, media are an integral part of the artistic process

The same goes for cinema, practiced by Warhol in an experimental version, fed by the human fauna that gravitated in the Factory and by Banksy in the mockumentary sense ("Exit trough the gift shop"). The media for both are an integral part of the artistic process; Warhol had created a magazine ("Interview"), a TV column on a cable channel ("Tv Party"), Banksy uses all media and social networks not only to report his works but also to create them (the cycle of 30 works in 30 days made during the stay in New York entitled Better out than in).

Banksy and Warhol aim to create a universal brand and the cult of personality

Both are surrounded by an aura of subversion that produces self-celebration.
In essence, respecting the principles of the two "über artists", the exhibition becomes at the same time a museographic model, an image making compendium and a manual for young artists looking for success.

Warhol e Banksy