Press Release The Andy Warhol Museum and Pittsburgh CAPA Collaborate on Collecting Youth Culture: 15 Minutes Eternal Project

Collecting Youth Culture will accompany Andy Warhol: 15 Minutes Eternal, a retrospective exhibition of Andy Warhol’s art and life that will be traveling through Asia from 2012 through 2014. This international project was developed by the education department at The Andy Warhol Museum and the Creative and Performing Arts School (CAPA) in Pittsburgh, PA in order to collect youth perspectives on being a teenager in today’s global society.

Using Warhol’s book The Philosophy of Andy Warhol from A to B and Back Again as a starting point, Collecting Youth Culture sets out to gather and collect ideas from youth across the globe on timeless themes like: Love, Beauty, Work, Time, Art, and Fame. By collecting youth philosophies from Pittsburgh, Singapore, Hong Kong, China, and Japan, this project will provide today’s global youth with a forum to address issues they face on a daily basis and to gain a better understanding of issues new and unique from their own experience.

Fueled by an examination of Warhol’s collecting practices, CAPA artists are collecting youth perspectives both in Pittsburgh and abroad and assembling their own youth Time Capsules. Time Capsule One was completed by CAPA students in the spring of 2012 and opened by students from the Singapore School of the Arts (SOTA) during the Andy Warhol: 15 Minutes Eternal exhibition at the ArtScience Museum at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore. Inside this capsule SOTA students found a myriad of items—pocket art, handmade zines, various objects, artwork, mixed CDs and an original movie about Pittsburgh youth. The SOTA students responded with Time Capsule Two and a videoconference between the two schools was held at The Warhol in Pittsburgh in June as the CAPA students opened the box.

Andy Warhol: 15 Minutes Eternal opens in Hong Kong in December and CAPA students are currently assembling Time Capsule Three that will be exchanged with The Hong Kong School of Creativity and The Hong Kong International School. To showcase the artists’ efforts thus far Collecting Youth Culture opens in the CAPA Gallery on Monday, November 26. The exhibit features Time Capsule One from Pittsburgh and Time Capsule Two from Singapore as well as interactive activities emulating Andy Warhol’s practice of collecting.

Literary Arts Department Chair at Pittsburgh CAPA, Mara Cregan states, “As youth develop in our global society, it is crucial that dialogue exists so that our posterity learns understanding, acceptance, and tolerance. Collecting Youth Culture opens such avenues for kids across the globe.”

Nicole Dezelon, associate curator of education at The Warhol states that “much like Warhol was considered a mirror of his time, this project mirrors the time in which global youth live today.”