Warhol’s subversive legacy coexisted comfortably with his Reaganism

Evidence

In a sympathetic and ingenious reading, Wollen situates his ‘theatricalization of everyday life’ as a continuation of the historic avant-garde project of lifting the barriers between art and life, taken into the underground, where its political charge passed to gay liberation. But there is insufficient contradiction between this legacy and Warhol’s later fascination with Reaganism — the phase of ‘society portraits and cable TV’. Subversive instincts were ultimately overpowered by something much larger. — Perry Anderson, The Origins of Postmodernity, 258

Categorization

• XREF: Parallels the commodification critique in Jameson and the debate over whether appropriation art co-opts or resists the culture industry.