POLITICAL AGNOSTICISM

The art world, after all, is traditionally liberal. Warhol, the New York art world's favorite son - its "recording angel" - may have started out backing Democrats, but he ended his life hobnobbing with the shah and empress of Iran and toadying up to the Reagans.Liberals who cleave to the idea that Warhol was an important artist don't like to be reminded of his political agnosticism. "I know I should be for the Republicans, because I hate paying taxes," he once said, but "artists just can't be Republican, can they?" They cling instead to Warhol's images of the Kennedys, whom he depicted repeatedly, and Mao.
It's too bad, because Warhol was an important artist, and he was important in ways that tend to be devastating for people with political convictions of any kind.

-Boston Globe
Oct 6 2008