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Andy Warhol's prediction comes true.

Decades ago, pop artist Andy Warhol joked that in the future, everyone would be famous for 15 minutes. While working on the minion series, Brett Wexler began to realize that Warhol's prediction had come true. Youtube and social networking had provided a way for anyone who wanted to be in the limelight to have a place in pop media. Anyone with a hand held camera could photograph him or herself and upload images, or even short, home made movies with ease.

You are the viewer--You are the art.

Great photographs arise from the tension between the artist and the subject. Today people can photograph themselves and then view themselves on their own computer monitors with excitemet. They send these images to friends. They expose their most secret visions.

The exhibit in this gallery turned out to be a transition phase in Brett Wexler's work. As he moved from the minion as portrait to the minion in an art frame, he realized that the art frame represented a dying art culture, the museum culture. The new culture was represented by the giant TV, the computer monitor, the hand held telephone with screen such as the iphone. Centuries ago, the inventors of the oil on canvas technique had freed society from having to leave behind their precious frescos, paintings done on plaster walls and enabled them to take portable painting with them. The gilt wooden frame symbolized that new artistic freedom. Now the digital age has advanced that capability by nearly immeasurable capacity. Art can fit in your pocket. You yourself can be art. No need to hire a portrait painter. Just take a shot in your bathroom mirror and publish it on line.

Click Image to enlarge. Some browsers may open the new window BEHIND the main window. Further images will be added to the gallery from time to time.