EATING ANDY WARHOL DEMATERIALIZED BY EATING A PLEXUS CAMPBOLL'S SOUP CANS  LIMITED EDITION

100/100

DEMATERIALIZATION OF ART

DEMATERIALIZATION OF REALITY

 

First,  I Introduce myself, I am Plexus 23s , aka Dr. Sandro Dernini, the author the 100 Plexus Campboll's Soup Cans Limited Editions. I am an insider, as well as, an outsider, MI DENTRO / MI FUORI - MYSELF INSIDE/MYSELF OUTSIDE, of the 100  Plexus Cans Limited Edition.

 

 

As an insider/outsider, I have also a double cultural identity: “Sarda” (from Sardinian) and Italian. My nationality is Italian but my culture is "Nuragic", stone and bronze age culture of  Sardinian. I am the artist who create this Limited Editions artwork as well as I am the scientist analyzed Plexus as a Community-Based International Art Project, as an aesthetic inquiry  for my NYU Ph.D  in Art Education at the Dept.of Art and Art Professions, started in 1986 and conferred in 1997.

In 1974, immediately after my University Degree (Laurea) in Bioogical Sciences at the University of Cagliari (Sardinia), I  was invited by prof. Carlo De Marco, director of the Biochemistry Institute of the University of Cagliari to join him in Rome at the Sapienza University, as assistant researcher to analyze quantitative and qualitative separations in sulfur and selenium aminoacids. During this period (1974-79), within the students and universities protests I became more awared about the "Ivory Towers" of the Academia, separated from the community and the reality of every day life.

I became more concerned  on the scientific limitations of the Western Medical School.

 

At this point, it is necessary to say that these 100 Plexus Camboll's Soup Cans Limited Editions are the outcome of an aesthetic phenomenological performace that I made In New York, on 18 February 1987, at the Patrizia Anichini Gallery, entitled "Do you think  it is  possible to eat Andy Warhol if you are eating a Campbell soup?. as my first aesthetic inquiry for my PhD course Phenomenology and the Arts at New York University, by prof. David  Ecker. 

I was inspired by the symposium The Dematerialization of Art, organized the day after at New York University by Angiola Churchill and Jorge Glusberg, co-directors of ICASA (International Center for Advanced Studies in Art), in which I was working as a NYU graduate assistant.

 

 

 

Willoughby Sharp, Helen Valentin, Bernd Naber, Franco Ciarlo, Donald Sheridan, Peter Grass, Lynne Kanter, Souyun Yi, Carol Drury, Amy Paskin, Christian Chiansa, Patrizia Anichini, and myseld, ate a Campbell soup. Only Joan Waltmath refused to eat it. After, they answered to this questionnaire for the NYU Ph.D. phenomenological inquiry:  “Do you think it is possible that you have eaten Andy Warhol when before you have eaten that Campbell soup two minutes ago?  Suspend your belief before to answer to these questions. Answer: yes or no? What you mean? How do you know? How was the taste? Is it true or not? Who was the subject?  Who was the object?  Description of the experience”

On the table, brochures of the NYU ICASA Dematerialization of Art Symposium were placed near the plates, as napkins, in order to be read during the digestion before to fill a questionnaire. From the analysis of the questionnaires, it resulted that the majority of participants believed they “ate” Andy Warhol dematerialized. 

Few nights after,  Andy Warhol died.! We were shocked about it.

The day after, at the opening of the ICASA Dematerialization of Art symposium at the New York University main auditorium, Lenny Horowitz and Stephen Di Lauro from the audience by reporting the performance Eating Andy Warhol, questioned about the potential dematerialization of Andy Warhol.

Nam June Paik, among the speakers,  believed possible that Andy Warhol had been dematerialized through the intentional act of eating his commodity art symbol.The ICASA speakers were Jean Baudrillard, Donald Kuspit, Vito Acconci, Nam June Paik, Judy Barry, Dennis Oppenheim, Billy Kluver, Nancy Holt, Paul Taylor, Bruce Breland, Flor Bex, Rene Berger, Eika Billeter, Alan Bowness, Julie Lawson, Hervè Fischer and George Chaikin. 

After, in 1988 on the anniversary of the Demateriailization of Andy Warhol, in the dried swimming pool of CUANDO, 9 Second Avenue, in the Lower East Side, I performed the Redefinition of a Plexus Campboll's Soup Can by coinceived Plexus Campboll's Soup Cans, and producing 100 Plexus Campboll's Soups Cans Labels as 100 Limited Editions.

 

 

After 37 years, since when in 1988 I conceived the 100 Plexus labels, I was forced by Art Love to face this historical challenge for me to define how to fill these Plexus cans by taking into account the history from where they were coming from, in which I was part, in the first person, as an insider as well as an outsider.

MI DENTRO/MI FUORI - MYSELF INSIDER/MYSELF OUTSIDER.

 

To manage my challenge to fill the 100 Plexus Can Limited Editions and to define how and with what to fill them,  I applied again my phenomenological approach  of my PhD. reflective and refractive to identify the “Directions” and "Ingredients" for eating a Plexus Campboll’s Soup Can that contains also my studies as a Ph.D art education student at the New York University.

 

Therefore, to start to fill the number zero of my 100 Plexus Campboll's Soup Cans Limited Editions I applied my studies as NYU PhD. art student.

 I started with my first 1986 NYU course on Phenomelogy in the Art  by Prof. David W. Ecker for which I did the aesthetic inquiry on Eating Andy Warhol. Then I used  my class paper "Named it as Artslaver-ISMS that I wrote for 1988 NYU Course on Aethetic Inquiry, again by prof. David W. Ecker. I studied art definitions, categories, styles, artworld and its priviledge of conferring the status to be an "Artist". 

 

 

 

ART DEFINITIONS, CATEGORIES, AND ART MARKET: 

NAMED IT "ART-SLAVER-ISM"

 

After I applied the drawing by Alain used by E.H. Gombrich in his “Art and Illusion, A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation” that I studied for my 1988 NYU Literature and the Arts course. I used this Alain's drowing as main frame of reference on how art was tought in the art schools and studied by future artists and art professionals.

 

 

Who is the subject  and who is the object?

 

Each analysis of an art work has its own historical world related to a particular time and space.

 

I was aware that was very challenging task to write in "English" in the first person.

“DIRECTIONS: EATING ART  and "INGREDIENTS : HISTORY OF MODERN ART, VOLUME 1- FOODART INTERNATIONAL", as reported in 100 Plexus Camboll's Soup Can Labels Limited Editions, as Time Caspules 100/100.

 

DIRECTIONS-EATING ART: 

EATING THE HISTORY OF PLEXUS ART JOURNEY 1982-2024, with Art Love

 

INGREDIENTS: 

THE HISTORY OF MODERN ART

 

PLEXUS BLACK BOX PHD NEW YORK UNIVERSITY DISSERTATION BY SANDRO DERNINI

 

 

In the number zero for Glaucia Coelho Demejour of the 100 Plexus Camboll's Soup Can Limited Editions, I placed myself for Art Love inside this Can, watching myself as  a vivisected body of art, subject and object at the same time, with on the botton  visible an original photo of mine made by Lynne Pamela Kanter  in 1981 when I moved to New York.   On the internal side of the can I glued a cent coin painted in yellow as money art, glued next to the cover of the 1987 Dematerialization of Art Symposium at New York University,. Next to them I glued a collage of a middle ages vivisected body of an alive prisoner opened by the medical school, with different faces of myself watching the opening. 

   

This number zero can I packaged inside a wicker basket handmade by Fabrizio Perini,  the basket maker of Sorano, Tuscany Maremma, where it is now located Plexus International. It was dedicated to David W. Ecker, founder of the ISALTA- International Society for the Advancement of Living Traditions in Arts, and chairman of the NYU PhD. Committee of Sandro Dernini with John V. Gilbert, former chairman of the NYU Music and Music Professions Department and Angiola Churchill, formwe chairman of the NYU Art and Art Professions Department.

 

TIME CAPSULE NUMBER ZERO:

1981 WHEN SANDRO DERNINI LANDED IN NEW YORK CITY,

On the bottom, original photo of Sandro made by Lynne Pamela Kanter

I was able to put myself inside this number zero of the 100 Plexus Camboll's Soup Cans Limited Editions, only by artlove, as a birthday homage, for Glaucia Coelho Demenjiur.

 

 

 

 

 

Plexus original documents can be consulted by appointment by email: info@plexusinternational.org. Possibility of overnight stay on site, at the DJOUR'S Guest House, upon reservation. 

 

Plexus International Archives si è trasferito da Roma a Sorano, nella Maremma Toscana, presso la sede legale dell'associazione Plexus International Forum A.P.S. E.T.S. ,  via Giovanni Pascoli 6, Sorano (GR), 58010

Plexus documenti sono consultabili previo appuntamento per email: info@plexusinternational.org. Possibilità di pernottamento in sede, presso la Djour's Guest House, su prenotazione.