Warhols Factory - A Laboratory

Seminar paper from the year 2008 in the subject Art - Installation / Action/Performance Art / Modern Art, grade: 1.3, Zeppelin University Friedrichshafen, language: English, abstract: The core of my term paper is based on two issues. The concept of an 'art laboratory' in general and its application on Warhol and Warhols factory. In the first part of my paper, I try to develop the idea of a laboratory. I start with the common sense interpretation of the laboratory in the natural sciences. Afterwards I try to employ different theories taken from the cultural sciences to develop the term for my intention. Bourdieu, Becker, Knorr Cetina and others designed concepts to fill the laboratory idea used by Dragicevic Sesic and Dragojevic with life and in the end of the first part of my paper, I will have an idea of the 'art laboratory' which can be used to describe Warhols factory and evaluate its policies in the 1960s. In the next chapter, I will first introduce Warhol and his life in a short introduction. After this, I will describe in a very short paragraph the development oft the art scene in New York in the 1950s and 1960s before I come to describe the factory as Warhol´s studio and working place and as a meeting point for the new york boheme and scene, as the venue in the 1960s New York. In the last chapter interwoven with the description, I will cope with Warhol´s policies and with its major aims and tasks prospective power and aesthetics. Especially the concept of avantgarde is a major topic in this cahpter. In a final paragraph, a short recapitulation and reflexion will be done and I will come up with an evaluation of the concept of the 'art laboratory' and its appliance to Warhol´s factory.