Warhol: Introduction & Table of Contents
The focus of this Inaugural Issue of MOOC Magazine is the creative output of Dr. Glyn Davis’ Warhol MOOC from the University of Edinburgh / Coursera.
MOOC Magazine
A journal of MOOC studies. A chance to present some of the great student research normally silo’d in MOOC portals to a wider audience. Editors: Edie Sedgwick & Isabella Medici.
Warhol issue:
• Essays from Glyn Davis’ Warhol MOOC from University of Edinburgh / Coursera
• Theme Essay by Gary Needham
Nothing special: Warhol’s childhood scrapbook
Andy Warhol’s Childhood Scrapbook may be understood as the germ of a number of themes and obsessions that underscore the majority of Warhol’s adult life from the fascination with Hollywood and stardom to the way in which the scrapbook is organised through uniformity, seriality, and an overt mechanical reproduction through the mass produced studio portraits of film stars.
Dollar Sign
Born to poor, immigrant parents in Pittsburgh in 1928, Warhol grew up during The Great Depression. From 1962’s 200 One Dollar Bills, to 1981’s Dollar Sign, Warhol spent his career painting that which he grew up without.
The Velvet Underground & Nico
Andy Warhol designed and produced covers for over 50 record albums, for classical, spoken word, jazz, rock and pop music, from 1949 to 1986. None have quite achieved the status afforded to The Velvet Underground & Nico with its Andy Warhol Banana.
Self-portrait in Drag
With her cropped blonde wig and horizontal striped shirt, it seems as if Cindy Sherman is impersonating Andy Warhol impersonating a woman: heads cocked back, full slightly parted lips, and cool unwavering stares, although Warhol’s seems a bit more vacant. Sherman’s character is just as beautiful, but she knows it; maybe she has had more practice.
Ultra Violet
As we were putting the final touches on the Warhol Issue of MOOC Magazine, we received the sad news that Factory Superstar Ultra Violet passed away on Saturday,June 14, at the age of 78. We’ve set up this page with a few small memories of her and invite you to leave a message.
NorthPark Warhol
The NorthPark Center in Dallas is an upscale shopping mall with a public art collection that includes a wall of 10 Warhol screenprints. Does anyone notice or care?
Andy Warhol vs Jack Bauer
Andy Warhol is an artist. Jack Bauer is a spy. Their job titles are different but each is on a quest for truth. The favored truth extracting technique for both Andy and Jack is torture.
Flowers, 1964
After Warhol’s Death and Disaster series Henry Geldzahler said, “Enough death and disaster Andy, it’s time again for life.” And just like that Andy took a magazine image of flowers, cropped it into a square, and began color-blocking each blossom.
Green Car Crash
Green Car Crash is part of Warhol’s Death and Disaster series which explores how tragedy and horror occur to ordinary people on a daily basis.
Kiss
Movies show you what to do, how to do it, when to do it, how to feel about it, and how to look how you feel about it. – Andy Warhol.
Flash, Nov 22, 1963
Andy Warhol was painting in his studio and listening to the radio the day JFK was assassinated. He immediately created his series of Jackie Kennedy portraits. 5 years later he returned to the assassination to create Flash – November 22, 1963
Ethel Scull 36 Times
Warhol took Ethel Scull to an amusement arcade in Times Square and photographed her in a photo booth, creating twenty-four sheets of photographs. She initially protested but gradually began to enjoy herself, at least partly because Warhol was continuously tickling her. Ethel Scull reportedly said “What I liked about it mostly was that it was a portrait of being alive.”
Electric Chair
The electric chair was first used by Warhol in 1964 in his Little Electric Chair series. These pieces were of the whole execution room. He cropped the image down to just the chair for the 1967 paintings then used the image again in 1971 in a portfolio of ten screenprints, these being known as Big Electric Chair, and finally once more in 1985.
Last Supper
Commissioned in 1984 by Alexandre Iolas, Warhol created more than 100 versions of the Last Supper, both silk-screened and hand-painted, to inaugurate an exhibition space within Milan’s Palazzo Stelline Gallery. One month after the series debuted Andy Warhol died after undergoing gallbladder surgery.
A Little Bird Told Me
Reminiscent of Andy’s great interactivity, Warhol MOOC instructor Glyn Davis had an almost unprecedented presence and interaction within the MOOC Forums at Coursera. Outside the walls of Coursera, he tweeted updates about the course and all things Andy. Here’s a sample…
Edie Sedgwick
Some have argued that Andy took my short life away. Or at least that he didn’t “save me.” In every parallel universe I’ve been able to visit these 42 years since my death, I’m sorry to have to report that Edie always dies young. It’s only in the universes where Edie meets Andy, that Edie ever really matters. It’s only in the universes where I meet Andy that I ever really live.
Hello from Isabella!
MOOC Magazine is the place to publish the great work in many forms that peeps have created in the many Arts MOOCs.