‘Celebritisation ' as Human Branding By

During his life and after his death, Andy Warhol was synonymous in arts circles with controversy and celebrity. In 1971 David Bowie sang "Andy Warhol, silver screen! " Warhol was the „pope of pop ' and his iconic status continues to this day, long after his untimely death in 1987. The 1960s, that incipient era of McLuhan and the febrile mass-media eco-system, saw his visionary work transform our understanding of aesthetics, authenticity and art situated in the material culture of the everyday. Like others before him, he reminds us that the institutionalized gaze is dangerously myopic and disenfranchising. In this paper we draw on published accounts of Warhol's career and his rise to fame as the basis of developing an account of human branding as „celebritisation'. In doing so, we draw on consumer research, studies of celebrity and fame and published texts on Warhol's work and life