Lot 53 | Andy Warhol | Mick Jagger

The symbiosis of two pop icons
Andy Warhol's ten-part portrait series “Mick Jagger” from 1975 is one of the key works in his exploration of the phenomenon of celebrity culture and the media construction of identity. Jagger, lead singer of the Rolling Stones and the epitome of the eccentric rock star, provides Warhol with the perfect canvas:
he is charismatic, excessive, and world-famous. In contrast to his earlier depictions of Marilyn or Elvis in the 1960s, Warhol does not portray a star who is already mythically elevated, but a living protagonist of the present. In doing so, he brings his art even closer to the here and now, to the immediate zeitgeist of the 1970s.
Jagger and Warhol have been close friends since they first met at a Rolling Stones party in 1964. Their first joint creative project followed in 1971, when Warhol helped design the cover of the Rolling Stones' album “Sticky Fingers.” The iconic cover shows a close-up of a man's crotch in tight-fitting jeans. A functional zipper is attached in the center, which reveals underpants when opened. To this day, it is considered one of the most legendary and most discussed album covers in music history.

Mick Jagger immortalized in iconic splendor
In the summer of 1975, Warhol took Polaroid photos of Jagger at his home in Montauk, Long Island, which served as the basis for the ten-part portfolio. The photos show him shirtless from different perspectives and in different moods. In this work, Jagger's upper body is turned to the left, his head turned so that he looks at the viewer with a relaxed but curious gaze and slightly parted lips. Warhol edited the photographic foundation in silkscreen with free, sketch-like lines that fragmentarily trace the musician's face and body. Strong areas of color in pink, red, turquoise, and gold alienate Jagger's face. The golden areas of color that dominate the left half of the image lend the portrait an iconic aura, while the pink of the skin, the bright red of the lips, and the turquoise on the eyelids give the image a mask-like quality. By fragmenting Jagger's facial features and distorting them with contrasting areas of color, Warhol creates an effect that lies between a documentary image and a stylized mask, between intimacy and alienation. Particularly noteworthy is the expressive tension of the composition: the colored overlays seem to literally dismantle the face, as if Warhol wanted to make Jagger's complexity visible.
Warhol understands how to portray not only a rock star in Jagger's features, but an entire era. In the 1970s, Jagger embodied the attitude of a generation like no other artist: rebellion, hedonism, and exploring the boundaries between art, music, and lifestyle. The fact that Warhol immortalized him in an entire series demonstrates the mutual fascination and appreciation of two pop icons who themselves became symbols of a global youth culture. The symbiosis is completed in this print by bearing both Warhol's and Jagger's signatures.
Sophie Ballermann