Guff-watch
May 17 2011
Picture: Christie's
Jonathan Jones on Andy Warhol's 1963 Self-Portrait, recently sold for $38.4m:
It is beautiful – one of his best works. Its cool blue hues lure the eye amid columns of newsprint and pictures in media reports of the sale. It looks spiritual, somehow – at once a piece of popular culture and something more private. The four photos he has used show him hiding behind dark glasses and trying out different poses that all seem a bit churlish, awkward, evasive. It is a self-portrait by someone who either does not want to look at himself, or does not want to truly show himself to others. And what makes it so powerful is the self-knowing explicitness with which it communicates this diffidence and unease.
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