I knew nothing of Warhol coming into the exhibit at KAM, so I was not entirely sure what to expect. When I first walked though the exhibit, the first thing I noticed was that there were not 157 (or whatever the number was) photos. I looked back at the description of the exhibit and found that I had misread the advertisement. The exhibit was a sampling, not the entire collection. Slightly miffed that I had set aside way more time than was needed, I still set off looking forward to what I was going to see.
As I examined many of the photos, the thing that struck me the most were the close ups of the various people. There seemed to be a lot of subtle but still intense emotion behind all of them. The most stricking photos had the subject appear extremely white and perhaps even somewhat undead. Sometimes this effect, at first glance, appeared to be a camera setting, make-up, or a mix of both. Other times the effect seemed very natural, further increasing the intense and mildly creepy feeling that I perceived from the photo. One photo in particular (possibly with the subject's name being Pia Miller?) vaguely reminded me of a young Stevie Nicks. This made me think of my mom, as I wondered if she would agree with me.
The photo that struck me the most was the one of Santa Claus. What I noticed first about the subject was that the facial expression did not give off a feeling of warmth at all. Instead, Santa seemed, to me at least, tired, sickly, and seemingly almost in a state of mild pain. Any sense of "jolliness" was absent. I suppose this rather negative perception is likely influenced by my less-than-approving attitude of what a modern American Christmas represents. I hold the increasingy mainstream view (but, apparently, not mainstream enough to change any mass habits) that Christmas has boiled down from a time of religion and family to one of flashy consumerism and fleeting generosity. The photo of the tired and sickly Santa seemed to personify this problem for me.
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