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Andy Warhol and Erró are examples of artists who quote Munch's The Scream in a most direct manner. Warhol's 1983 pop version of The Scream is part of a series of silk prints in which he reproduces a number of Munch's main works such as Madonna and The Brooch/Eva Mudocci and Self-Portrait with Skeleton Arm. The Scream possesses special status among these because it stands as an icon of the modern experience of being alone in the crowd. This theme can also be seen as a continuation of a number of Warhol's other themes, which are also centred on death, an example being his Marilyns and Death and Disaster series. As with other masterpieces from the history of art such as Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, Warhol exploits the status of The Scream as an icon, an aspect of the work he underlines by re-using it. Yet at the same time he devalues its originality, because by contrast with the painting, the silk print can be endlessly mass-produced. In the context of the consumer society mimicked by pop-art, he questions art as a consumer product. Erró's variations on The Scream are also in the pop genre. Yet by contrast with Warhol's cold aesthetic of the surface, Erró gives his creations a critical and satirical twist. In Ding Dong (1979), he decks Munch's work out in comic-like features. In The Scream, the scream is specifically set against the racket from a group of children in a school playground, while in The Second Scream (1967), the scream has to drown out what is clearly an infernal din from a plane, which becomes a reference to the occupation of Norway and, more generally, to the horrors of World War 2. |
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