Gold Marilyn and the Mandylion

In recent years, Andy Warhol’s highly private spiritual life has become more well-known, thanks to splashy documentaries, articles, and exhibitions drawing extensively on his biography. Although his religious affiliations are coming into more widespread recognition, they have yet to bear significantly on interpretations of his most well-known works. Perhaps the time is ripe for a critical reassessment. Gold Marilyn Monroe exemplifies all of the familiar themes central to his career (consumer commodity culture, fame, and death), but the visual aspects of this particular painting call forth a further association. Warhol’s canvas, executed so soon after the actress’ death, serves to place her directly in the Byzantine icon tradition at a deeper level than just the visible, specifically correlating with the acheiropoeita. By portraying Marilyn as a secular “icon,” Warhol is not denigrating the role of the religious icon but instead calling the secular reverential treatment of celebrities to the public’s attention. While definitively not the only lens with which to view Warhol’s work, understanding the artist’s religious participation allows for a more precise exploration of iconicity and its manifestations in contemporary culture. An extensive consideration of this enigmatic artist’s conflation (or confusion) of the secular with the religious facilitates a more nuanced reading of his entire body of work as a critical and celebratory nexus of historic artistic tradition, American pop culture, and religious inquiry.