In contrast to Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg and other representatives of Pop Art who integrated objects tel quell (Bockris, 101), without modification, in their paintings, Warhol concentrated on - at first hand painted - subjects of mass consumption and culture by isolating and monumentalizing them, without using other objects in the background and without preliminary sketches. Warhol used a projector to put them on canvas. He made it plain and simple and therefore was able to create the icons of Pop Art. In the Series and Singles exhibition, his early work is well represented with Comics, Campbell's Soup Cans, Dollar Bills and other Coca-Colas.
At the end of 1961, Andy created his first serial work with small Campbell's Soup Cans. A year later, his Do It Yourself pictures followed. In 1962, he began to experiment with silk-screening images onto painted canvas, a technique that allowed him to repeat a subject almost an infinite number of times. His series with Elvis Presley, Warren Beatty, Natalie Wood and other stars was based on it. The new technique made Warhol a star. In these early silkscreens, John Cage's chance operations came into play (Smith, 77). The poet Gerard Malanga served as Andy's assistant (Bockris, 333).
While in 1962, Warhol showed two paintings of a Coke bottle, first to the filmmaker Emile de Antonio, then to the dealer Ivan Karp, and asked them which he should exhibit. (This is a classic instance of his deferring of responsibility. Warhol complicated aesthetic choice further by passing it off, or at least around, often to his assistants.) (Smith, 262) One of the Coke paintings has painterly drips that might read as signs of expressive gestures, while the other is almost as pristine as the commercial original, right down to the registered trademark. His friends opted for the iconic Coke, and Pop was born. Although now sealed with the false obviousness of history, this story was always too convenient by half.
