PITTSBURGH, PA.- Andy Warhol helped make Brillo® an iconic brand in 1964 with his Brillo Soap Pads Box sculpture, and now nearly 50 years later the relationship continues. The Andy Warhol Museum partners with Brillo® to celebrate its 100 year anniversary by offering The Warhol’s popular The Warhol D.I.Y. Pop app for free during the months of February and March.
“Brillo wanted to do something special to commemorate 100 years of cleaning American households,” said John Armaly Jr., President and CEO of Armaly Brands, maker of Brillo® Soap Pads and Brillo Estracell® sponges. “The interest that Andy Warhol took in our brand back in the 60’s helped mainstream Brillo into pop culture. A partnership with The Warhol is a natural extension of introducing our brand to a new generation, while thanking our loyal consumers who have supported our products for the last century.”
Last July, The Warhol first collaborated with Brillo® on the brand’s 15 Minutes of Fame book cover contest held through social media channels. Brillo® offered artists their own chance at fame and called artists to create and submit an original cover design for a limited-edition commemorative book celebrating Brillo’s 100 year anniversary. The Warhol’s curator, Nicholas Chambers, served as one of three judges. The grand prize contest winner, Rey Borges, received a $1,000 Visa® gift card and 10 copies of the book, but more importantly, for a one month period (this month), his winning design will be loaded onto in-gallery iPads at The Warhol and displayed on the museum’s website, featured in the popular The Warhol: D.I.Y. POP mobile app and promoted via the museum’s social media channels.
Patrick Moore, deputy director of The Warhol said, “Whether you visit us at the museum or online, you will be able to engage in creating your own digital silkscreen prints. We are thrilled to reengage with Brillo and know Warhol would be proud of this partnership.”
The Brillo® boxes were but one type within a group of replicas of commonplace supermarket packaging--Del Monte peach halves, Campbell's tomato soup, and Heinz's ketchup--included in Warhol’s 1964 Stable Gallery show, the site of a cramped grocery warehouse.
Calling to mind a factory assembly line, Warhol employed carpenters to construct numerous plywood boxes identical in size and shape to supermarket cartons. Then, with assistance from Gerard Malanga and Billy Linich, he painted and silkscreened the boxes with logos of the different consumer products. The finished sculptures were virtually indistinguishable from their cardboard supermarket counterparts.
To download The Warhol D.I.Y. Pop app for IOS, visit
http://www.warhol.org/connect/mobile/.
