NEW YORK, May 28, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- This morning,
Revolver Gallery owner Ron Rivlin
placed the winning bid for Warhol's enigmatic Untitled
(Self-Portrait), which the artist created in 1985 on the Amiga
1000 computer. The digital piece will be added to the gallery's
collection, which Rivlin founded in 2012 with an ambition to
assemble the largest collection of Warhol's artwork. Rivlin's
decision to purchase the work is a tribute to Revolver Gallery's
willingness to embrace the digital art revolution, from which
Andy Warhol is not excluded. As the
art world evolves and NFTs offer artists a new way to sell their
work, Revolver Gallery, which deals exclusively in Warhol's work,
strives to keep up with the times. Rivlin had this to say about the
acquisition:
"This piece is significant for so many reasons. Warhol was
always an innovator; from his role in the emergence of Pop Art to
popularizing the common technique of screen printing. He was also
the first publisher of a successful tabloid celebrity magazine,
Interview Magazine. Now, as it relates to this Amiga artwork, he
was likely the first 'celebrity artist' to experiment with computer
generated art. Not to mention this was a digital
'selfie' decades before its time. At the time this artwork was
created, it would have been such a foreign offering to a collector,
but today it's so relevant, and one worthy of being displayed at a
museum."
The sale, which accepted payment in the cryptocurrency Ether,
marks a historical milestone for both Revolver Gallery and the
Warhol Foundation, which hasn't released any works since 1987 when
Andy Warhol passed—until now, when
the Foundation minted five NFTs of Warhol's original digital art to
be auctioned off at Christie's between May
19th and 27th. Warhol created the digital pieces in 1985,
which include two self portraits and a 2D rendering of the iconic
Campbell's Soup Can, when
Commodore International hired him to demo their new Amiga 1000
computer. At a live demonstration, Warhol used the computer to
illustrate Debbie Harry, whose image
was captured by a video camera, which Warhol then painted over on
his computer screen. Warhol experimented with the digital medium on
his own time, too. The works became lost to an obsolete floppy
disk, but were recovered in 2014 by Cory
Arcangel, along with members of the Carnegie Mellon computer club and the Andy Warhol
Foundation.
Interestingly, the restoration of the digital works has led many
to consider Warhol as the first ever commercial artist to
experiment with digital art. This claim, along with the works
themselves, extends Warhol's already-massive impression on the
history of artistic media to new heights. Warhol's enormous catalog
intersects with a vast array of genres and media. Even in 2021,
during the mind-boggling NFT boom, Warhol's legendary persistence
allows him to remain relevant, and only further emphasizes the Pop
artist's impact.
"NFT art sales seem to overshadow what's more
important: the artwork itself. Even if it was auctioned as a
printed version of the actual artwork, I would have bought it, but
I do love that it is being represented and transacted in the medium
it was created in. An original digital file of an artwork composed
by Warhol at a time when home computers and software were both
archaic and elementary. I have to say, I think his effort was a
successful one. I'm proud to show it off and have it as part
of our collection."
The work fetched a final selling price of $870,000, a small price to pay for such a notable
piece. Ron Rivlin and the Revolver
Gallery are proud to add a digital piece to the gallery's
ever-expanding collection, which is home to over 250 original
works.
Revolver Gallery is a storefront gallery located in West Hollywood, California, and houses the
largest gallery-owned collection of Andy
Warhol artworks. Revolver Gallery is committed to the
preservation and education of Andy
Warhol's work and its meaning in the history of both modern
and contemporary art. Besides owning the gallery,
Ron Rivlin orchestrated one of the
highest-value NFT sales at $4.14 million
dollars with Phillips auction house in April of 2021, when
Mad Dog Jones made history by becoming the most expensive living
Canadian artist.
CONTACT: Mason Rogers
336-382-3605
mason@revolvergallery.com
Related Images
untitled-self-portrait-by-andy.png
"Untitled (Self-Portrait)" by Andy
Warhol
The iconic self-portrait made by Andy
Warhol in 1985 on his Amiga 1000 computer.
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SOURCE Revolver Gallery