[imagesource:norseleksikon]

Although Andy Warhol died on February 22, 1987, due to complications from gallbladder surgery, the art world is still watching to see what he will do next.

The 58-year-old artist was buried four days later at Holy Ghost Byzantine Catholic Church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he had previously visited as a child. His tomb, which sits near to those of his mother and father, immediately became a magnet for Modern art enthusiasts.

Since 2013, the site has been documented in a continuous 24/7 web broadcast.

Eric Shiner, then-director of the Andy Warhol Museum, came up with the concept for the livestream as a way to mark the artist’s 85th birthday.

Shiner enlisted the assistance of EarthCam, which operates a massive network of webcams monitoring tourism destinations throughout the world. CEO of EarhCam, Brian Cury, allegedly created the company after being inspired by a visit with the artist just before his death.

“We believe that this will give Warhol the pleasure of knowing that he is still plugged in and turned on over 25 years after his death.”

We see people are leaving Warhol gifts for the holidays. #warholFigment https://t.co/kHInU2rj12 pic.twitter.com/IzAxHhHO4t

— The Andy Warhol Museum (@TheWarholMuseum) December 17, 2015

Livestream viewers can watch these people decorate the grave with Coca-Cola bottles, Campbell’s Soup cans, and other consumer products Warhol’s art turned into icons. Another webcam, inside the church, shows the space where Warhol was baptised.

Shiner and Cury named the livestream project Figment, after something Warhol wrote about his death. “I always thought I’d like my own tombstone to be blank. No epitaph and no name,” the artist wrote in his 1985 book America.

“I never understood why when you died, you didn’t just vanish, and everything could just keep going on the way it was only you just wouldn’t be there.”

Death played a large role in Warhol’s later work, with the theme visible in his “Death and Disaster” series, which represents car crashes, suicides, contaminated tuna cans, and other subjects that typically make for gruesome news stories.

Art writer Peter Schjeldahl believes the livestream seems a fitting tribute to an artist who was an “unceasing observer of 21st-century society”.

“I find it Warholian to the, well, life,” Schjeldahl wrote, “watching the present habitation of a man who liked to watch. Warhol pioneered motion pictures of motionless subjects; and we have him to thank, or not, for prophesying reality television.”

Artistic voyeurs can find the live stream here.

[source:artnet]