MIAMI — She was a sculptor, soft spoken and glamorous. Her work was featured in New York City’s best galleries. Magazines called her mysterious. Andy Warhol called her a friend.
And though she played a key role the pop art movement of the ‘60s, her contributions were largely forgotten.
Her name was Marisol, and she’s getting her due at the Pérez Art Museum Miami.
“Marisol and Warhol Take New York,” an exhibition on view at PAMM until September 5, features original artworks, archived video, photographs and personal mementos of Warhol and Marisol. The show focuses on 1960 to 1968, the period of time when they were both living and working in New York City. Marisol and Warhol met in 1962.
The goal of the show is to “place Marisol back into the pop art origin story of New York,” said Maritza Lacayo, assistant curator at PAMM.
“It seemed like a great way to have a conversation between two artists: One that a lot of people know and one that some people don’t know,” Lacayo said.
Marisol, whose full name is María Sol Escobar, was born in Paris in 1930. She was deeply impacted by the suicide of her mother when she was 11, and stopped speaking for an entire year. She grew up to be a quiet person and a talented artist, landing her first solo show at the Leo Castelli Gallery in New York.
After living a while in Italy, she returned to New York and became famous for her wooden sculptures made with found objects, hand-drawn portraits and plasters of her own face and hands.
Warhol, a famed pop artist who needs little introduction, was born in Pittsburgh in 1928 to immigrant parents. He later moved to New York City to become a commercial artist. Today, Warhol’s name is synonymous with pop art. His persona and shock of white hair are as iconic and recognizable as his colorful prints of Marilyn Monroe and soup cans.
But before Warhol rose to fame, he was a Marisol “fanboy” collecting newspaper articles about her and her work, Lacayo said. By the time they met, Marisol was already established in New York’s art scene.
“When you think of him, you think of pop, but it was really Marisol who paved the way,” Lacayo said. “She was the real pioneer.”
‘In front of Warhol’
“Marisol and Warhol Take New York” was originally curated for The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh by curator Jessica Beck last year.
Inspiration for the exhibition struck in 2014 when Beck went to an event at Carnegie Music Hall that featured never-before-seen films Warhol made in 1963. Marisol was at the center of his lens, and she caught Beck’s eye.
Beck was curious about what their relationship may have been like, and she wondered why there had never been an exhibition about the both of them before. So, she made one.
“I just wanted to place her next to Warhol and in front of Warhol in many ways to show that she was making work before him and she was experimenting with iconic American themes,” Beck said.
Many museums are fascinated by Warhol and art lovers flock to the artist’s traveling exhibitions, said PAMM director Franklin Sirmans, but the museum wanted something unique for Miami.
The show with Marisol was the perfect fit. PAMM is the second and final venue of “Marisol and Warhol Take New York.”
“It’s a show that is for Miami, and it needed to be seen here,” Sirmans said.
The first two pieces at the front of the exhibition, one by Marisol in 1960 and the other by Warhol in 1962, exemplify how the artists’ work overlapped, a theme explored throughout the show. On the left is Marisol’s “From France,” a wooden portrait of her parents who immigrated to France from Venezuela. Right next to it is Warhol’s “Statue of Liberty,” a screenprint of the iconic statue that greets immigrants to the United States.
“(Immigration) was very much part of what shaped who they are and their perceptions of home,” Lacayo said. “So being that we’re here in Miami, that’s something that resonates.”
The rest of the exhibition guides the viewer through Marisol and Warhol’s work and friendship up until 1968. The show consistently points out the similar themes and subject matter of their work, like American food and celebrities.
Shortly after meeting in 1962, Marisol made a wooden portrait of her new friend Warhol. The four-sided sculpture depicts a more reserved side of Warhol before he created his public persona. At his feet are a real pair of shoes Warhol wore.
Nearby, the films that inspired the exhibition are projected onto the walls of a small room. Warhol filmed Marisol in 1963 standing next to her sculptures, walking, talking and staring into space.
While walking into the next section of the exhibition, Lacayo turned back to point out the view behind her. For much of the exhibition, the visitor can turn around to see directly into the first video room. Marisol’s face, projected onto the wall, is staring back at you.
Making art history
Another section dives into Warhol’s quintessential pop art pieces, like the Brillo box and Campbell’s soup can prints.
Alongside Warhol’s portraits of Jackie Kennedy before and after her husband’s assassination is a Marisol sculpture of the Kennedy family. Tucked into the corner of the room stands a cheeky work Marisol made of actor John Wayne riding a red horse.
But the highlight of the room is right in the center: two people at a table eating TV dinners. It’s Marisol having dinner with herself.
“Dinner Date,” a double self-portrait made in 1963, is largely interpreted to be Marisol’s response to reporters’ annoying questions. Why aren’t you married? Why don’t you have children? Marisol shrugged them off. She was fine on her own.
In her works, Marisol used plasters of herself; her face, her hands, even her big toe. At the time, critics asked her why she would do such a thing. Isn’t that narcissistic? Marisol called it practical. She was the only person in her studio, after all.
“That’s a question that you probably would never ask a male artist, right?” Lacayo said. “These kinds of questions were always a little troubling, and the way that she would answer them was always so succinct and so true.”
Male journalists found Marisol to be mysterious and shy, though she only spoke when she had something to say. In one article displayed at the exhibition, entitled “MARISOL SPEAKS,” a journalist asked Marisol about her hot takes on several topics, like women’s fashion, marijuana and getting married.
Marisol put it bluntly. “No one has asked me,” she said.
Art critics and historians say that pop art was created by “the New York five:” Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Tom Wesselmann, James Rosenquist and Claes Oldenburg. When asked why Marisol has been excluded, Lacayo offered a simple reason: sexism. After Marisol left New York in 1968, it was easy for others to dismiss her contributions.
“Some people, I believe wrongly, interpreted that as a rejection of the New York art scene,” Lacayo said. “But really, it was just Marisol doing what she does best, which was finding another place for herself to become inspired.”
Beck said she hopes viewers can experience Marisol and Warhol’s friendship while recognizing Marisol’s impact.
“Marisol’s the one that’s two steps ahead,” Beck said. “I hope people have a sort of revisionist look back at this 1960s moment and can really appreciate what Marisol was doing.”
Love from Marisol
The exhibition saves its most impressive section for last. The walls are plastered in Warhol’s hot pink and yellow cow wallpaper. On the ground is “The Party,” a group of over a dozen nicely dressed party guests that all share Marisol’s face.
The year was 1966. Marisol and Warhol were debuting their first installation pieces at two different New York City galleries. Decades later, those installations are now together in the same gallery at the same time for the first time, Lacayo said.
In 1968, Marisol left New York for Italy where she represented Venezuela at the Venice Biennale, a prestigious international art exhibition known as “the Olympics of the art world.” She didn’t return to New York until years later. She traveled the world instead.
That same year, Warhol was shot. He took a step back from the art world for a while to recover.
This is where the exhibition, and their collaboration, ends. Warhol died in New York in 1987. Marisol was also in New York when she died in 2016.
Like any friendship, Warhol and Marisol drifted apart over time, but a mutual respect remained. Just next to the exhibition exit is one of Warhol’s “time capsules,” a regular cardboard box dated 1968, and the items that were stored in that box for decades.
Warhol would keep cardboard boxes under his desk and throw random, interesting stuff in there. As he recovered from his bullet wound at the hospital, he collected the dozens of letters and cards he received from friends wishing him a speedy recovery.
He also threw in the catalog of Marisol’s show at the Venice Biennale. At the Biennale, Marisol featured “The Party” and “Andy,” the old portrait of her friend.
Next to the catalog is a small postcard Marisol sent from Venice. She wrote him a message in cursive: “Love from Marisol.”
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If you go
Marisol and Warhol Take New York
Where: Pérez Art Museum Miami. 1103 Biscayne Blvd, Miami, Florida
Hours: 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday, closed Tuesday and Wednesday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday to Sunday
Price: $16 for adult tickets, $12 for students and seniors, free for children age 6 and younger
Info: www.pamm.org
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