100 PLEXUS CAMBOLL'S SOUP CANS LIMITED EDITIONS

MADE IN THE 80'S FOR THE 90'S 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

 

 

 On 18 February 1987, in New York, at the Patrizia Anichini Gallery, I RITUALLY performed

DO YOU THINK THAT IT IS POSSIBLE TO EAT ANDY WARHOL BY EATING A PLEXUS CAMPBOLL'S SOUP CAN?

as an aesthetic inquiry for my PhD course E90.2605 on Phenomenology and the Arts at New York University, directed by prof. David  W. Ecker, to achieve a basic knowledge of the literature of phenomenological aesthetics and skills in phenomenological  inquiry in the arts.

                                                                     Prof. David W. Ecker, NYU

Invited artists were Willoughby Sharp, Helen Valentin, Bernd Naber, Franco Ciarlo, Donald Sheridan, Peter Grass, Lynne Kanter, Souyun Yi, Carol Drury, Amy Paskin, Christian Chiansa, and the host Patrizia Anichini.

 

 

 

 

I prepared a questionnaire to be filled by participant artists after having cooked and eaten a Campbell's soup can. Seven questions I posed in the questionnaire, conceived for my phenomenological performance upon my NYU PhD course on Phenomenology and the Arts and my PhD reaserch study on "ART AS FOOD".   

 

I prepared my phenomenological performance, by being inspired  for moving forward my NYU Ph.D inquiry on "ART AS FOOD",  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), where I was working as a graduate assistant of prof. Churchill, chair of the NYU Art and Art Education Dept.

QUESTIONNAIRE

Do you think it is possible that you have eaten Andy Warhol when before you ate that Campbell soup two minutes ago?  

1. Suspend your belief before to answer to these questions. Answer: yes or no?
2. What you mean?
3. How do you know?
4. How was the taste?
5. Is it true or not?

6. Who was the subject?  Who was the object?  

7. Description of the experience

 

From the artist answers to the questionnaire, the majority of believed they “ate” Andy Warhol dematerialized. 

 

Few nights after,  on 22 February 1987, Andy Warhol died! 

 

On 24 February, at the opening of the Dematerialization of Art Symposium, Lenny Horowitz and Stephen Di Lauro, two Plexus historical players, by briefing the floor on the Sandro Dernini's performance "Do you think that is possible to eat Andy Warlol by eating a Cambell's Soup 's performance, posed a question to the panelist about this potential dematerialization of Andy Warhol into a Campbell's soup can.   

The panelists 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.  Nam June Paik replied  that he believed possible that Andy Warhol had been dematerialized through the artist intentional act of eating his commodity art symbol.

 

Stephen DiLauro 

On the anniversary of my 1987 dematerialization performance of eating Andy Warhol, on February 20 1988,I ritually performed inside the dried swimming pool of CUANDO, Cultural Civic Center in the Lower East Side, the Plexus happening “An Art Redefinition of a Campbell Soup Can  

 inspired by the second International symposium on "The Redefinition of Art in the Collision of Cultures in the Post-Modern World".

 

 

                Barnaby Ruhe                   

 

PLEXUS ART REDEFINITION OF A CAMPBELL SOUP CAN

by Lenny Horowiitz

 

On September 23 1988, for my birthday,with a party in a loft  in Soho, I presented in New York, with a party in the Soho loft of Carmen Miraglia,  my 100 Plexus Campboll's Soups Cans Labels, Limited Editions, that I commissioned to the Ram Studio of Maggie Reilly.

 

On November 11 1988,  at the Bobst Library Ben Snow Dinning Room, I installed my first Plexus Pyramid made by commercial Campbell's Soup Cans, within the Plexus event "Il Viaggio del Serpente" .

What does a PLEXUS Can look like?

 

It looks like an Andy Warhol's Campbell soup can, if it is exposed to a beholder of the artworld. Its label is red and white. The "e" of Campbell is changed to an "o" in Campboll's, It has a central circle with the words "Dematerialized Andy Warhol" and Andy Warhol's face which hold the center of attention. On its bottom the word PLEXUS.

It has a cylindrical form, balanced symmetrical design, a spatial organization with 2 red and white rectangular units, with written messages: 

“DIRECTIONS: EATING ART  and "INGREDIENTS : HISTORY OF MODERN ART, VOLUME 1- FOODART INTERNATIONAL".

Below Direction:  Time Capsules Art. LTD 100 of 100. PLEXUS 23S Soup Sardinia Export.  Printed in the USA

Below Ingredients:  Ram Studio Inc - Designer R. Kern.  New York, 5/88 AD. 

 

 

 

INGREDIENTS

  

HISTORY OF MODERN ART

VOLUME 1

FOODART INTERNATIONAL

What does a Plexus Campboll’s Soup Can contain?

 

THE HISTORY OF PLEXUS 1982- 2024

 

 

 

 SANDRO DERNINI  PHD NEW YORK UNIVERSITY AESTETIC INQUIRY THE PLEXUS BLACK BOX

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

THE NUMBER ZERO OF MY 100 PLEXUS CAMPBOLL'S SOUP CANS LIMITED EDITIONS, AUGUST 2025 

 The Artworld by Arthur Danto: " to see something as art requires something the eye cannot decry-an atmosphere of artistic theory, a knowledge of the history of art: an artworld. Andy Warhol's Brillo boxes, because they were made by a person with an "artistic identification" belonging to an artworld, made them "Art".

An artifact can acquire the status of a candidate for appreciation within the system that Danto has framed and explained as "The Art World".

For instance, Duchamp's "Fountain" is not just a misplaced urinal, as Arthur Danto wrote, " Once one accepts the possibility that a Brillo box by Warhol is a work of art, while an ordinary Brillo box is not, it is plain that the differences are not of a kind that meet the eye, and that the phenomenology of perception cannot be appealed to effect the differences, which are philosophical. The point is that Warhol's box acquires, in virtue of'being art, properties ontologically unavailable to its counterpart, and the problem of the philosophy of art is to explain not just how this is possible, but what the status of these properties is, in as much as the properties would not be present to the eye if you did not know you were looking at a work of art "

 

 

ART DEFINITIONS, CATEGORIES, AND ART MARKET: NAMED IT "ART-SLAVER-ISM", by Sandro Dernini 1988, New York University