California show explores Warhol's social, tech foreshadowing

Before Instagram and Facebook, before selfies and filters that perfect selfies, there was Andy Warhol, using his art to imbue friends, family, celebrities — even himself — with a certain mystique.

A retrospective of Warhol's work on display in San Francisco captures the artist's ability to use paintings, drawings, photographs and other mediums to create buzz-worthy personas the way people do now using social media.

The idea of personal branding, "of how we can be who we want to be," was something Warhol was trading on more than a half-century ago, said Donna De Salvo, deputy director for international initiatives and senior curator at New York's Whitney Museum of American Art, where the exhibit originated. "He had a real understanding of something about American culture, which is now more global."

In this photo taken Wednesday, May 15, 2019, a woman walks past "Large Sleep," a silkscreen ink on plexiglass and the 1963 piece "Triple Elvis" at the exhibition, "Andy Warhol _ From A to B and Back Again" in San Francisco. A retrospective of Andy Warhol's work on display at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art captures his use of artwork to give his subjects personas the way people do now using social media. (AP PhotoEric Risberg)

"Andy Warhol — From A to B and Back Again" opened this week at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and runs through Sept. 2. It includes more than 300 works spanning Warhol's 40-year career.

The show features some of the artist's most iconic creations — depictions of Campbell's soup cans and Brillo boxes, for instance, and silkscreen portraits of Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley and others — along with lesser-known pieces from his early and later years. It next travels to the Art Institute of Chicago.

"Warhol is constantly labeled a pop artist, but all that happened within three or four years, and then he moved on and the work goes quite dark and explores questions of gender and sexual identity, fame, subcultures," said Gary Garrels, Elise S. Haas senior curator of painting and sculpture for the San Francisco museum.

In this photo taken Wednesday, May 15, 2019, is the piece called "Ethel Scull 36 Times" at the exhibition, "Andy Warhol _ From A to B and Back Again" in San Francisco. A retrospective of Andy Warhol's work on display at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art captures his use of artwork to give his subjects personas the way people do now using social media. (AP PhotoEric Risberg)

The show's title comes from Warhol's 1975 memoir in which he touches on key themes from his work, such as celebrity, money and love. The artist died in 1987 at age 58.

De Salvo said the San Francisco museum's team "really enlightened me in terms of thinking about Warhol through the lens of social media."

It's a common thread throughout the show.

In this photo taken Wednesday, May 15, 2019, a pair of women look at the 1962 pop piece called "Campbell's Soup Cans" at the exhibition, "Andy Warhol _ From A to B and Back Again, in San Francisco. A retrospective of Andy Warhol's work on display at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art captures his use of artwork to give his subjects personas the way people do now using social media. The exhibition opened this week opened this week and runs through Sept. 2. It includes more than 300 works spanning Warhol's 40-year career. Organizers say the show illustrates how Warhol embraced personal branding decades ago. (AP PhotoEric Risberg)

"When you see some of the rooms, particularly the portraits, we really conceptualized it in a way of thinking about Facebook," she said.

Warhol's understanding of the power of images to create identity and aura can be traced to his early years, after he moved to New York in 1949 and got a job as a commercial illustrator. He did work for publications such as Mademoiselle and Glamour magazine.

"That idea of marketing and all the things we take for granted was just something Warhol was immersed in," De Salvo said. "And he was just such a sponge in his capacity to absorb things."

In this photo taken Wednesday, May 15, 2019, people stand in a room covered with "Flowers" paintings and "Cow Wallpaper" at the exhibition, "Andy Warhol _ From A to B and Back Again" in San Francisco. A retrospective of Andy Warhol's work on display at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art captures his use of artwork to give his subjects personas the way people do now using social media.

In 1963, he was commissioned to do his first portrait, of modern-art collector Ethel Redner Scull.

The artist took Scull to a photo booth in New York, gave her a stack of coins and said, "Pose," Garrels said. She took 300 pictures, looking playful, pensive and everything in between.

"From that, he makes this painting," De Salvo said: "Ethel Scull 36 Times," a brightly colored montage of images that anticipated modern-day selfies and Instagram posts.

In this photo taken Wednesday, May 15, 2019, a woman views commissioned portraits from 1968-1987 at the exhibition, "Andy Warhol _ From A to B and Back Again" in San Francisco. A retrospective of Andy Warhol's work on display at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art captures his use of artwork to give his subjects personas the way people do now using social media. (AP PhotoEric Risberg)

"You feel each moment," De Salvo said. "I think it's really one of Warhol's great commissioned portraits."

Warhol went on to do hundreds of portraits. They provide a window into his social network, which included friends, family members, lovers, musicians, actors, athletes and world leaders.

De Salvo also notes the "multiplicity of images" in Warhol's work.

In this photo taken Wednesday, May 15, 2019, Donna DeSalvo, deputy director and senior curator at New York's Whitney Museum of American Art, talks about the piece "Ethel Scull 36 Times" displayed in the exhibition "Andy Warhol _ From A to B and Back Again" in San Francisco. A retrospective of Andy Warhol's work on display at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art captures his use of artwork to give his subjects personas the way people do now using social media. (AP PhotoEric Risberg)

"This is where he's such a genius of permutation — that he could create so many iterations of an image in an analog way, where now there's a software program to do that," she said. "There's so many different ways. There's a 'Warholizer.' He so anticipated what technology would bring about."

In this photo taken Wednesday, May 15, 2019, in a display of female icons, Elizabeth Taylor is reflected in an image of the Mona Lisa at the exhibition, "Andy Warhol _ From A to B and Back Again" in San Francisco. A retrospective of Andy Warhol's work on display at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art captures his use of artwork to give his subjects personas the way people do now using social media. (AP PhotoEric Risberg)

In this photo taken Wednesday, May 15, 2019, is "Self Portrait (Camouflage)," a 1986 acrylic paint and silkscreen ink on linen displayed at the exhibition, "Andy Warhol _ From A to B and Back Again" in San Francisco. A retrospective of Andy Warhol's work on display at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art captures his use of artwork to give his subjects personas the way people do now using social media. The exhibition opened this week opened this week and runs through Sept. 2. It includes more than 300 works spanning Warhol's 40-year career. Organizers say the show illustrates how Warhol embraced personal branding decades ago. (AP PhotoEric Risberg)

In this photo taken Wednesday, May 15, 2019, is a piece from the 1950's "Gold Shoe" collages that depicted well-known people such as Truman Capote as dainty, gilded footwear at the exhibition, "Andy Warhol _ From A to B and Back Again, in San Francisco. (AP PhotoEric Risberg)

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A Ukrainian court on Friday ordered the detention of the country’s farm minister in the latest high-profile corruption investigation, while Kyiv security officials assessed how they can recover lost battlefield momentum in the war against Russia.

Ukraine’s High Anti-Corruption Court ruled that Agriculture Minister Oleksandr Solskyi should be held in custody for 60 days, but he was released after paying bail of 75 million hryvnias ($1.77 million), a statement said.

Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau suspects Solskyi headed an organized crime group that between 2017 and 2021 unlawfully obtained land worth 291 million hryvnias ($6.85 million) and attempted to obtain other land worth 190 million hryvnias ($4.47 million).

Ukraine is trying to root out corruption that has long dogged the country. A dragnet over the past two years has seen Ukraine’s defense minister, top prosecutor, intelligence chief and other senior officials lose their jobs.

That has caused embarrassment and unease as Ukraine receives tens of billions of dollars in foreign aid to help fight Russia’s army, and the European Union and NATO have demanded widespread anti-graft measures before Kyiv can realize its ambition of joining the blocs.

In Ukraine's capital, doctors and ambulance crews evacuated patients from a children’s hospital on Friday after a video circulated online saying Russia planned to attack it.

Parents hefting bags of clothes, toys and food carried toddlers and led young children from the Kyiv City Children’s Hospital No. 1 on the outskirts of the city. Medics helped them into a fleet of waiting ambulances to be transported to other facilities.

In the video, a security official from Russian ally Belarus alleged that military personnel were based in the hospital. Kyiv city authorities said that the claim was “a lie and provocation.”

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that civic authorities were awaiting an assessment from security services before deciding when it was safe to reopen the hospital.

“We cannot risk the lives of our children,” he said.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was due to hold online talks Friday with the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, which has been the key international organization coordinating the delivery of weapons and other aid to Ukraine.

Zelenskyy said late Thursday that the meeting would discuss how to turn around Ukraine’s fortunes on the battlefield. The Kremlin’s forces have gained an edge over Kyiv’s army in recent months as Ukraine grappled with a shortage of ammunition and troops.

Russia, despite sustaining high losses, has been taking control of small settlements as part of its effort to drive deeper into eastern Ukraine after capturing the city of Avdiivka in February, the U.K. defense ministry said Friday.

It’s been slow going for the Kremlin’s troops in eastern Ukraine and is likely to stay that way, according to the Institute for the Study of War. However, the key hilltop town of Chasiv Yar is vulnerable to the Russian onslaught, which is using glide bombs — powerful Soviet-era weapons that were originally unguided but have been retrofitted with a navigational targeting system — that obliterate targets.

“Russian forces do pose a credible threat of seizing Chasiv Yar, although they may not be able to do so rapidly,” the Washington-based think tank said late Thursday.

It added that Russian commanders are likely seeking to advance as much as possible before the arrival in the coming weeks and months of new U.S. military aid, which was held up for six months by political differences in Congress.

While that U.S. help wasn’t forthcoming, Ukraine’s European partners didn’t pick up the slack, according to German’s Kiel Institute for the World Economy, which tracks Ukraine support.

“The European aid in recent months is nowhere near enough to fill the gap left by the lack of U.S. assistance, particularly in the area of ammunition and artillery shells,” it said in a report Thursday.

Ukraine is making a broad effort to take back the initiative in the war after more than two years of fighting. It plans to manufacture more of its own weapons in the future, and is clamping down on young people avoiding conscription, though it will take time to process and train any new recruits.

Jill Lawless contributed to this report.

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

Ukrainian young acting student Gleb Batonskiy plays piano in a public park in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, April 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)