Warhol

We've been meaning to go to the Warhol exhibition at Tate Liverpool for a couple of months now and this seemed like it might be our last chance as the Minx is going in for an operation on her foot on Monday. It's not ideal for walking at the moment, at least not far, so it seemed sensible to drive across despite it being a match day. I consulted with Bob who told me when the traffic would be bad and he was quite right; thus, we got into Liverpool to the Albert Dock and back out again without any trouble. 

As usual, I'd forgotten the Tate membership card but, once again, the people on the ticket desk were really helpful, looking up my details and giving us a temporary pass to use. And then we had four flights of stairs to climb, which the Minx gamely achieved.

The exhibition itself was great. I learnt a couple of couple of things - I hadn't realised quite how successful Warhol was as an illustrator before he had his first art exhibition, for example - and there were lots of well-known pieces on display. What struck me, though, was how ordinary it seemed. I don't mean it was boring, I mean that Warhol had such a massive influence on popular culture, has become so integrated, that his work seems quite normal now.

I remember someone - one of my dad's friends, maybe - saying to me that no matter how much anyone of my generation liked and admired The Beatles' 'Sgt Pepper', no one could ever again be as blown away by it as those who heard it when it first came out, when its sound was so new. 

And I guess the same is true of Warhol. It's hard to appreciate now just how revolutionary and iconoclastic his art was. And I wonder how his detractors - not to mention Warhol himself - would have felt if they could have seen today's exhibition and then walked out into our world to see how his work has woven itself into our culture.