Coca Cola is using Warhol’s famous insight into American Culture in their latest super bowl ad. Contemporary America is very divided, with our two party system furthering entrenchment of each party and forcing a binary us versus them mentality, Coke has produced a rallying cry around which all people can unite. As Warhol, and Coke now, have said “You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you know the president drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke, and no amount of money can get you a better Coke.”
Ironically, the recipe of Coke does change by country so a Coke is only a Coke if we are both Americans; what does this say about globalization, about economic inequalities, about what is just below surface level? I’ll leave those ideas for a brain far smarter than mine, what is undoubtedly true however is that “Warhol had a great connection to Coke over time because of his art,” said Jennifer Healan, group director of integrated marketing content Coca-Cola North America. She went on to say “And his quote from 1975 is as timely today as it was back then. And what we love about it is it celebrates our values — values about inclusion, about diversity overall. But at the end of the day, a Coke is a Coke is a Coke, and all of the Cokes are the same.” Sort of.
In Denver, through the 24th of February there is an exhibition of Warhol curated and organized by Warhol’s lifelong friend and founder of the Denver Museum of Contemporary Art, Mark Sink. The exhibition features gallery-staff made silk screens presented in conversation with personal photographs and memories that Sink has decided to share.
There is also an exhibition of Warhol drawings at the New York Academy of Art. The exhibition features Warhol hand drawings made between 1948-1985, organized not chronologically but thematically. Almost every drawing in the exhibition has rarely been seen before, as all are coming from personal collections of art gallerists: Daniel Blau, Paul Kasmin, and Anton Kern. Warhol himself famously played an integral role in the creation of The New York Academy of Art, which was founded in 1982.
Sources
1 https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/Ad-Meter/2019/01/24/super-bowl-ad-coke-uses-theme-andy-warhol-quote/2668169002/
2 https://303magazine.com/2019/01/andy-warhol-quotes-mark-sink-denver/
3 https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/new-york-academy-art-present-exhibition-andy-warhols-drawings-11623/