Exhibition : Love is enough: William Morris and Andy Warhol : gods and heroes

Love is Enough: William Morris and Andy Warhol The Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery 25 April 2015 — 6 September 2015 Showing the works of two artists together and drawing parallels and connections between them seems to be increasingly fashionable — Moore and Bacon at Oxford recently, for example, or Van Gogh and Munch in Oslo this year. There seems at first to be little common ground between Andy Warhol and William Morris, but they are being shown together in Birmingham, and we asked Professor David Fitzmaurice to take a look for us. Love is enough: Andy Warhol and William Morris is curated by Turner Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller, and brings together the two greatest influences on his own work. While the exhibition itself contains some stunning pieces, the parallels drawn between the two protagonists feel rather forced. For example, Morris was from a wealthy background but founded The Socialist League, while Warhol was from a strictly working-class background, yet was a confirmed Reaganite, in thrall to the power of glamour and celebrity