(the day Valerie Solanas shot Andy Warhol)

I was in the process of putting together my second New York show when I heard that Valerie Solanas had shot Andy Warhol.

“Process” is a word I like, but almost no one seems to understand it in relation to my painting.

I don’t especially like Andy Warhol, though I was sorry someone had shot him.

Actually, I have to admit that I don’t really know Warhol; I’ve bumped into him at gallery openings, however. And I once went to Max’s Kansas City, where he and his entourage hung out. He was there. They were there.

“Joel Loehy?” someone asked. “Right?”

“Yes”, I said.

“I missed your last show, but I heard it was really cool!”

Cool! Oh dear.

“I’ll have a new one in a few weeks.”

“Cool! I’ll try to make it.”

“Thanks.”

He wouldn’t. Whoever he was.

So as I say, I’ve never really known Warhol. What I don’t like is the whole scene around him, the vainglorious hangers-on, mostly talentless, of course. And I don’t like his influence.

It seems like a version of the Great American Dream, but with silver helium balloons and the hip, addicted and lost in its wake.

I don’t even like his art.

A democratic art? No, an art that’s primarily for the snide elite. An innovative art? Only when the stereotypical takes on its appearance – its disguise –  and wins, big time. Yes, a mass following in the end. That’s the only end worth considering.

Can we see that certain forms of impoverished art have to be called great by art critics so that it can be sold to the museum curators and to collectors, who then also call it great so that they can justify buying it? Why is it supposedly great? The artist is a celebrity; the artwork is a by-product of celebrity status. But how did the artist become a celebrity? Because his (or her) artwork is great. And how did that become the case? Because the artist had become a celebrity. Why did the critics say it was great in the first place? Can I please stop repeating myself? Are you confused enough as it is?

Or do I have to mention the ever present, ever renewed insistence amongst art gallery owners, critics and curators for novelty, for the next thing, especially the glamorous thing, coupled with the demands of the art market for sales? (Alongside the perennials of the art market, such as poor van Gogh, who never sold a painting in his lifetime.) Even if certain artists seem to step away from those demands (not always very far, and most certainly not someone like Warhol).

I have had exhibitions, as I’ve said. But I don’t really fit the bill. So I suppose what little reputation I have will eventually peter out. As will my shows: galleries will drop me or refuse to take me on. I’m resigned.

By the way, I always insist that in the catalogues for my exhibitions, the paintings don’t have titles. They’re listed as Painting #1, Painting #2, and so on.

When I tell people that Giotto, Duccio and Piero della Francesca are the painters nearest to my own art, they don’t seem to make any connection, and of course ask about more modern artists, and I then mention Malevich, Mondrian, Georges Vantongerloo, Ad Reinhardt, Mathias Goeritz…. And they look befuddled, more often than not.

They can’t see that there are any resemblances. (And some of them nod absently when I mention Vantongerloo or Goeritz.)

Of course there aren’t any resemblances, not pictorially, at least. My paintings don’t really resemble any others.

They don’t resemble anything.

They’re invisible. Utterly invisible.

You can’t see a thing. Because there isn’t any thing.

David Miller

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