I am convinced that very few countries, including the Netherlands, a nation with a long and deep monarchical tradition, could more appropriately host an exhibition of these characteristics. Perhaps two or three more countries in which queens have also reigned or reign could dispute this privileged position, if I may be permitted this alleged tautology. It is undoubtedly a select – and royal – club. And I am equally convinced that there would also be few, very few artists, who would be capable of aspiring to a project like this, perhaps with the exception of Andy Warhol. Standard Related News Yes Review of: ‘Watch!, Watch!, Watch! ‘: the most decisive Cartier-Bresson at the Mapfre Foundation in Barcelona Isabel Lázaro standard Yes Elliott Erwitt, the street photographer who turned the ordinary into extraordinary Natividad PulidoThe exhibition I am referring to is ‘Queens’, a proposal that is presented in a certainly unique space such as the Paleis Het Loo in Apeldoorn in the Netherlands. This place, which served for centuries as a pleasure, hunting and rest palace for the House of Orange, the Dutch royal dynasty, has very recently been converted into a museum and is now the headquarters of this curious exhibition. The exhibition project houses one of the last series that the American made before his death in 1987. Two years earlier he conceived and produced ‘Reigning Queens’, a set of sixteen original engravings in which he portrayed the four queens who reigned at that time. in the world: Beatrice of the Netherlands, Elizabeth II of England, Margaret II of Denmark and, finally, in a true royal tour de force, Queen Ntombi Tfwala of Eswatini, formerly Swaziland.Beatrice of the Netherlands, by Warhol Andy Warhol, Reigning Queens, 1985 ©/®/TM 2024 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Licensed by Pictoright Amsterdam 2024Let us not forget – as is well known – that throughout his life Warhol was always fascinated by fame , glamour, tinsel, power, money and social aristocracy, and, logically, royalty must also have a full place in this cocktail. At the beginning of his career he had already admiringly remarked: “I want to be as famous as the Queen of England.” I don’t think he was too wrong, given his later career. What is clear, independently – or with just a little dependence – regarding the somewhat naive conceptual basis of this series (for an American, and even more so for one like him, monarchy is synonymous with History, memory and tradition , that is, something very uncommon in his country), is that it is a Warhol in its purest form, giving free rein to that glamorous vein of his, a fervent admirer of the ‘beautiful people’, seasoned with a few doses of brilliant colorful, and no less abundant drops of ‘kitsch’ delirium, which, on the other hand, is well reflected when he uses a subtle layer of diamond dust in the execution of the engravings, apart from his usual portrait technique using silkscreens. What less than that material, so shiny and sparkling, to portray queens? Andy Warhol ‘Reigning Queens’ Paleis Het Loo. Apeldoorn (Netherlands). Koninklijk Park, 16. Commissioner: Hanna Klarenbeek. Until January 1, 2025Truly, the main plus of this exhibition project is that it is one of the rare occasions in which the ‘Royal Edition’ can be seen in its entirety, that is, the sixteen works of this particular and exclusive series, and that precisely belong to the collection of this Dutch museum, the only one in the world, along with the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, which makes this opportunity practically unique.
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