MCA DNA: Warhol and Marisol is inspired by the multi-faceted relationship between the artists Andy Warhol and Marisol, and presents their work side-by-side in a focused selection drawn primarily from the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. Key examples of Warhol’s celebrated silkscreen paintings and Marisol’s figurative wood sculptures illuminate both artists’ approaches to portraiture, as well as their similar use of found imagery and serial repetition in their figures. MCA DNA: Warhol and Marisol is on view September 21, 2013 to June 15, 2014, and is organized by MCA Curator Lynne Warren and MCA Curatorial Assistant Karsten Lund.

Andy Warhol (American, 1928-87) and Marisol (Marisol Escobar, Venezuelan, b. 1930) were both prominent figures in the lively art scene in New York in the 1960s and became close friends. They attended events together and had solo exhibitions at Eleanor Ward’s Stable Gallery where they came to be identified with the rising Pop Art movement. Warhol and Marisol even turned to one another as occasional subjects: Marisol made a sculptural portrait of Warhol in the early 1960s, titled Andy, which is included in the exhibition; and around the same time, Warhol featured Marisol in some of his early, now legendary, films.

The 1960s were important years for Warhol and Marisol, marking a formative period in the development of both of their work. Most notably, Warhol began using silkscreen techniques to produce serial paintings, often based on photographs from mass media sources. Included in the exhibition are Warhol’s Jackie Frieze of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Troy Diptych of actor Troy Donahue, and the photograph Marisol Sculpture of William Burroughs. Marisol made the first of many portraits and developed her signature style, using boxy wooden forms to produce sculptures with painted surfaces and three-dimensional additions such as plaster castings or everyday objects. The exhibition presents Marisol’s sculpture Six Women, the first artwork acquired by the MCA, along with Self-Portrait and Andy, of Andy Warhol.