Narrator: Warhol created Gold Marilyn Monroe in 1962, the year of Monroe's death. Here's curator Anne Umland.
Curator, Anne Umland: This image was based on a pose photograph used for publicity purposes for the film Niagara in 1953. When a person is commodified, there is a certain death of self involved there. Warhol would use the same image of Marilyn, but this one is the only one in the center of a glittery gold field, reminiscent of Byzantine Christian icon paintings.
Curator, Andrea Achi: My name's Andrea Achi and I am a curator of Byzantine Art. Andy Warhol grew up in a Byzantine Catholic church, and he's talked about how the experience of being in his church really informed his own practice. Thinking about the replication of icons that we see in churches, which is a form of painting that should be venerated. So when you're looking at a Byzantine icon, what you're seeing is an idea and not the form itself.
Anne Umland: So here is Marilyn presented as an object of veneration, but of a very secular sort. When you look at it close up, there are all sorts of smudges, blurs, imperfections, that I think keep speaking to us of Marilyn lost to the world. Her image is no longer immediate. Her eye shadow sort of slides down a little bit into her eyes. The lipstick is a little bit off register. Everything is slipping, slipping away.