All Photos By Gail

“More than anything, people just want stars, Andy Warhol once remarked. In Myths (1981) he depicts Superman, the Wicked Witch from Wizard of Oz, and other heroes and villains of American culture (including, on the far right, himself). Silver paint alludes to the “silver screen,” and the vertical rows of mechanically reproduced head shots suggest filmstrips or contact sheets, the sources feeding our obsession with celebrity. Yet Warhol’s title is more complex: “myths” could refer to the “mythic” status of movie stars but it also connotes falseness, the distortion of truth, and the fleeting nature of fame.

Photographed in the Whitney Museum in NYC