Robert and Frances Fullerton Museum of Art

Please Note: The museum will be closed this Thursday, Friday and Saturday (Nov. 25-27, 2010) in observance of the Thanksgiving holiday.

Most known for leading the pop art movement and as a cultural icon, Andy Warhol was enchanted and amused by Polaroids. He relied heavily upon his photographic sources to create his colorful, illustrious and iconic masterpieces.

"The Amusing Muse of Andy Warhol: A Selection of Media Art Portraits" is now on display at Cal State San Bernardino's Robert V. Fullerton Art Museum fr through Jan. 30, 2011.

Warhol enjoyed photography for its immediacy, playfulness and the pure fun of picture taking, but completely lacked any interest in its technical aspects. His photographs are often of surprisingly poor quality, but he surely made up for it by their sheer quantity.

The photographs on display at the Robert V. Fullerton Art Museum have been selected from a larger collection of more than 150 photographs. In 2008, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts donated this collection of original Polaroids and gelatin silver prints to the art museum as part of an unprecedented legacy program that donated more than 28,500 photographs to more than 180 college and university museums, galleries and art collections nationwide. Only 16 institutions in California were selected to participate in the program.

In addition to photography, the exhibition will present a small selection of other Warhol media works, including film, TV pieces and video art. Photography and media works in general are crucial to understanding Warhol's work in other artistic mediums. They capture life around him, and give viewers a lively glimpse into his entire artistic persona, says Eva Kirsch, director of the RVF Art Museum.

One of the most celebrated artists of the 20th century, Warhol (1928-1987), through his art and ideas, helped transform contemporary art. In his studio, The Factory, he employed mass-production techniques to art making, and thus challenged preconceived notions about the very nature of art and the traditional divisions between fine art and popular culture.

He secured his unique place in the history of visual culture by successfully exercising multiple media and often colorful roles by blending his life with his art. A painter, printmaker, avant-garde filmmaker, photographer, collector, author, designer and record producer, Warhol masterfully maintained a radical nature of his endeavors throughout his entire career, ensuring the iconic status of both his art and himself.