Web Master Andy Warhol’s Silver Clouds might be the first art installation to successfully fuse spirituality and the tactile pleasures of Chuck E. Cheese. Currently on display at Saint Louis University’s Museum of Contemporary Religious Art (MOCRA), the exhibit has a disarmingly simple set up: twenty fans placed around the perimeter of a 30 x 20 ft. space gently push huge, silver balloons around in a graceful, weightless dance through the air. A plaque at the entrance of the exhibit invites crowd participation, and the result comes off as a playful mix between the beautiful pirouettes of that heavenly plastic bag in American Beauty, and the famous moment of The Great Dictator when Charlie Chaplin, in a parody of authoritarian egotism, whimsically tosses around a giant, inflatable globe. In short, Silver Clouds is equal parts chance, beauty and childish fun.
It might seem a bit surprising that Warhol’s work would be featured at a museum of religious art, but although he never allowed it to become a part of his carefully-crafted public persona, Warhol was in fact devoutly religious until his death in 1987. Raised in an insular Czech immigrant family as a Byzantine Catholic, even as Warhol emerged as the godfather of the decadent drug/art/music scene of the late 1960s and 1970s, he reputedly maintained weekly (and sometimes more frequent) visits to St. Vincent Frerer, the Byzantine church a few blocks from his Manhattan townhouse.
Indeed, an often-ignored facet of his oeuvre is its overt and implicit religious connections (explored thoroughly in Jane Daggett Dillenberger’s The Religious Art of Andy Warhol). Most notably, the last major project of his life was a series of 100 variations on Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper,” the classic depiction of Jesus’s final meal with the apostles before his betrayal by Judas. More often than such obvious referencing, though, Warhol’s work also bore subtle religious and spiritual undertones, such as his “Gold Marilyn” print in which we can recognize the golden light illuminating Marilyn’s head as the halo of Catholic iconography.
Silver Clouds is hardly a religious work, but it has an undeniably spiritual aura. Simply walking through the billowing, translucent curtains that open onto the exhibit space produces a feeling of heaven-like relaxation. The “clouds” themselves, propelled lightly by air currents, carve out lethargic and beautiful loops and dips that have an instantly soothing and calming effect on the viewer. The balloons seem to improvise in an endless and entrancing dance, sometimes lying peacefully inert high of the ground, sometimes coming to a delicate stop on the ground before twisting around and sliding back up into the air.
The curators also made the excellent move of accompanying the exhibit with peaceful, melancholy classical music (including plenty of Erik Satie), even though the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh presents the exhibit in silence. The soft strains of a piano or some shimmering strings compliment beautifully the elegant motion of the balloons.
And since the exhibit doesn’t offer much in the way of rich subtext or obvious visual variety to tease the intellect, the curators also wisely provide several different vantage points from which to appreciate the movement of the balloons. For example, the visitor is invited to lie on the tiled floor, from which she will see herself mirrored as a receding, liquid reflection on the balloon’s silvered surface, or she can climb up to the second floor, where a balcony allows a wider perspective on the space of Clouds. Indeed, those expecting a traditional museum-going experience will be a bit taken aback by the format of this exhibit. It is meant to be appreciated on purely aesthetic and experiential grounds, more like a beautiful sunset or a starry sky than a collection of paintings. This should hardly be taken, though, to mean that Clouds is a somber, sobering affair.
On any given day, a viewer walking into MOCRA might hear childish screams of delight and the loud rustling of mylar. Indeed, kids tend to appreciate Warhol’s creations more playfully, running delighted through a glimmering cluster of the big, soft balloons, swatting them upwards or grabbing them like a stuffed animal.
But given a moment alone with the clouds, or sharing them with just a few other peaceful gazers, the viewer can feel a non-denominational spirituality in the carefree meandering of the clouds. It isn’t a piety-inducing spirituality but simply one that makes the subject forget her troubles, relax, and admire the simple beauty of free motion-all things we would be lucky to experience a little more often.
Andy Warhol’s
Silver Clouds (through Dec. 14)
@ Saint Louis University’s Museum of Contemporary Religious Art
Museum hours:
Tuesday – Saturday
11:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Admission is free
Call (314) 977-7170 for directions