Kiss

A close friend of Andy Warhol’s (who lived in France and Venezuela before moving to New York), Marisol’s work is often associated with Pop Art, though with an interiority and a psychological focus at odds with the cool detachment associated with the movement. Marisol was an active member of the New York social milieu that Warhol frequented and an oft-seen presence at his studio, the so-called Silver Factory. She was also featured in two of his most famous films: Thirteen Most Beautiful Women (1964–66) and The Kiss (1963), which paired her with painter Harold Stevenson in a display of sustained close- up takes of Warhol’s acquaintances kissing. The eponymous sculpture seen here makes use of industrial materials and new technology (electrification) while probing the depths of one of the most elemental of human impulses. In addition to representations of family members and pop-culture figures, Marisol’s sculptures often incorporated multiple cast versions of her own face in plaster or other materials, enabling her to explore multiple facets of herself and her worldview. (“This is no Less Curious: Journeys through the Collection” cocurated by Sonja Gandert, Alexandra Palmer, and Alana Ryder and presented at the Johnson Museum January 24 – April 12, 2015)