Wonderful Warhol

A visitor at the ongoing exhibition Andy Warhol: Contact, at M Woods Museum in Beijing's 798 art zone.[Photo provided to China Daily]

Works of an American pop art icon are now on show in Beijing at M Woods－a private museum founded by a young couple. Deng Zhangyue reports.

The inaugural party of an exhibition on American pop art icon Andy Warhol in Beijing on Friday night attracted lots of young people who were taking photos and short videos－just like Warhol did in his art career.

Titled Andy Warhol: Contact, the show at M Woods－a private museum founded by a young Chinese couple－features installations, photographs and films that broke the boundaries of contemporary art when they first appeared.

All the works on show are from the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, in the United States.

The event is the second time the US museum is holding an Andy Warhol show in China.

Three years ago, the first one was held in the art museum of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, but it was more "academic", says Eric Shiner, director of the Andy Warhol Museum.

The opening ceremony of the first show saw many well-known Chinese contemporary artists. But the majority at the M Woods Museum on Saturday were young art aficionados.

According to the M Woods Museum, hundreds of tickets for the show, priced at 60 yuan ($9) each, sold out within an hour of being offered.

Speaking of the ties with the private museum, Shiner says: "We did it here because it's accessible to more people, especially the young. The videos and photos Warhol took are what young people are doing today."

The museum is located in Beijing's 798 art zone, known for its galleries and art exhibitions.

The exhibition features silent films called Screen Tests, where Warhol recorded a number of his celebrity friends from the 1960s, and photos of Hollywood stars and celebrities who visited Warhol in the 1970s and 1980s.