Edinburgh Research Explorer Comrade Warhol Citation for published version: Davis, G 2016, 'Comrade Warhol', Journal of European Popular Culture, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 107-122. https://doi.org/10.1386/jepc.7.2.107_1 Digital Object Identifier (DOI): 10.1386/jepc.7.2.107_1 Link: Link to publication record in Edinburgh Research Explorer Document Version: Peer reviewed version Published In: Journal of European Popular Culture General rights Copyright for the publications made accessible via the Edinburgh Research Explorer is retained by the author(s) and / or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing these publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. Take down policy The University of Edinburgh has made every reasonable effort to ensure that Edinburgh Research Explorer content complies with UK legislation. If you believe that the public display of this file breaches copyright please contact
[email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 25. Sep. 2021 Comrade Warhol Essay for ‘Warhol in Europe’ issue of JEPC Glyn Davis, University of Edinburgh In a 1977 interview with Glenn O’Brien for High Times magazine, Andy Warhol was asked about his current painting projects. His response outlined a political theme connecting together works made across the decade: We’ve been in Italy so much, and everybody’s always asking me if I’m a Communist because I’ve done Mao. So now I’m doing hammers and sickles for Communism, and skulls for Fascism. (Goldsmith 2004: 239) This brief comment serves to link two of Warhol’s major groups of works of the 1970s, the Skull and Hammer and Sickle series; it also partially reprises Warhol’s common tactic of attributing creative ideas to others, the notion of making ‘Communist paintings’ here seeming to originate with unidentified interrogators.