“The Andy Warhol Diaries,” a six-part documentary series launching Wednesday on Netflix, is not the place to go for enlightening interpretation and analysis of the paintings of soup cans, celebrities, tabloid news and disaster crack-ups, not to mention the racy films, that made Andy Warhol (1928-1987) an international sensation in the 1960s.
Most of what the series has to say in that regard is standard stuff about the intersection of commercial mass media and art, which, frankly, often misses the actual point of his incisive Pop brand. (The subject of his work is art culture, for example, not pop culture.) Fervent claims about his art’s unmistakable significance are magnified by boilerplate promotional fluff from art dealers, museum curators and others that, at this late date, hardly needs to be repeated about one of the 20th century’s most important — and famous — artists.
Really, is there anyone left to convince?
