Double Mickey Mouse 1981

Andy Warhol made this Double Mickey Mouse, we don't know when, but it looks like screenprint to me. I love the way he's laid down these flat areas of colour, the red and black we all know, but then, bam! he throws in this purple shadow, it’s so good. It reminds me that artmaking is a process, you make one decision and then another, and then you have to react to those choices. Like, imagine being in the studio and putting down that first, almost arbitrary line, and then building the rest of the image on top of that, so cool. Look at the outline around the figure, how it bleeds over the edges. It's like Warhol's saying, ‘hey, this is a print, this is a process.’ He doesn’t try to hide the making, he's foregrounding it, and that makes the image feel fresh every time. Think of someone like Basquiat. It's a similar vibe, but, you know, totally different. Anyway, I love this piece because it reminds me that art is always a conversation, a back-and-forth between the artist and the materials, and between artists across time.