This meant that an object like Brillo Boxes was baptized as art if accepted by museum and gallery directors and purchased by art collectors. But Danto objected, the brillo boxes were not immediately accepted by artworld: the director of the National Gallery of Canada declared they were not art, siding the customs inspectors when a dispute arose about shipping them; hardly anyone bought them. Danto argued instead that the artworld provides a background theory that un artist invokes when exhibiting as art.

Danto wrote a much-discussed paper, the art world, about this puzzle. His essay, in turn, prompted philosopher George Dickie to formulate the institutional theory of art according to which art is ant artifact... which has had conferred upon it the status of candidate for appreciation by some person or persons acting on behalf of a certain social institution ( the art world) .

The Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen

Why was it a work of art when the objects which resemble it exactly, at least under perceptual criteria, are mere things, or, at best, mere artifacts? But even if artifacts, the parallels between them and what warhol made are exact. Plato could not discriminate between them as he could between pictures of beds and beds. In fact, the warhol boxes were pretty pices of carpentry.

His Last Supper series done in Italy(based on Leonardo's "real" one) was meant seriously by the artist who had remained a devout Christian.

Warhol helped spark the transition from macho New York Abstract Expressionism to playful gender-bending postmodernism. Warhol was already sucessful as a commercial artist when he exhibitedstacks of hand-stencilled plywood boxes at the Stabler gallery in NY in 1964. The boxes had a tremendous impact on philosopher Arthur Danto, who has repeatedly discussed them ( he even wrote a book titled Beyond the Brillo Box ). Warhol's Brillo Boxes looked just like one in a supermarket, and Danto found this puzzling:

Lest Warhol seem lightweight, we should recall his sobering disaster images: Civil Rights riots with attack dogs, the electric chair, and grisly auto accidents, all transformed ( like his Marilyn Monroes ) into brightly coloured silk-screened panels.

He brought attention to everyday visual products in the environment around us and claimed be wanted to paint like a machine. Phenomenally successful, he left an estate value at over $100 million.

Warhol emerged in the Pop Art movement of the 1960s, a movement tied into fashion, popular culture and politics.

Yet he said, " I think it would be terrific if everyone was alike", and coined the cynical slogan that " everyone has their fifteen minutes of fame".

Brillo Box and philosophical art

Andy Warhol, with his well-crafted image-the platinum hair, wispery voice, dark eyes-was expert at self promotion. Obsessed with celebrities, Warhol loved jet-setting and partying.

But Is It Art?

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