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How to describe a real man? If you can imagine him "twittering", the chances are he won't be reaching cowboy status anytime soon. Reconsider your notion of a real man at NYC's MoMA gallery and their latest exhibition dedicated to the American West.

Bringing together 120 photographers and iconic film, this new show "Into the Sunset" examines the ultimate American destination and the concept of rugged individualism.

The exhibition features over 120 photographs from a variety of photographers (Cindy Sherman, Dorothea Lange, Timothy O'Sullivan), and their visions of the so-called "land of opportunity," as well as describing a more complex vision of the West, one that addresses cultural dislocation, environmental devastation, and failed social aspirations.

Interestingly -the exhibition also highlights via film how the Old West icons were (according to author Larry McMurtry) America's first superstars.

Buffalo Bill Cody, Annie Oakley, Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, and others created their own characters, evolving their own myths, acting as the precursors to such Hollywood transformations as Norma Jean Baker's metamorphosis into Marilyn Monroe, or Marion Morrison into John Wayne.

As part of the exhibition - Andy Warhol's film, Lonesome Cowboys shot on location in Tucson, Arizona will be screened.

The film tells the story of a small town population consisting of a transvestite sheriff, a rich lady rancher named Ramona Alvarez, her male nurse who expertly dances the twist, and five lonesome cowboys who fixate on their hair, practice ballet on a hitching post, engage in amorous activities, and discuss the loneliness that makes them "love themselves more than anyone else."

The film is a result of a road trip Andy Warhol took from New York to Los Angeles to attend the opening of The Ferus Gallery's exhibition devoted to his silk-screened Elvis canvases. For his first trip to California, Warhol brought along the Bolex and documented the exhibition in what he called a “home movie,”

The West, particularly Hollywood, according to the exhibition's literature, provided Andy with both a dynamic concept of fantasy and reality and a dramatic geographic location. Warhol used this with aesthetic inspiration for such films as Horse (1965), and Lupe (1966), which used the heartbreaking biography of Mexican actress Lupe Velez as a campy tribute to Hollywood.

For more about the exhibition see www.moma.org

Kerry Olsen

 

Source & Photo Credit: www.moma.org

Photo Credits (internal):

Cindy Sherman. Untitled Film Still #43, 1979

Lonesome Cowboys. 1967–68. USA. Directed by Andy Warhol

Photo Credit (main): William Wellman, Joel McRea, and editor James B. Clark on the set of Buffalo Bill.

TAGS: momo warhol lonesome cowboys into the sunset cindy sherman museum of modern art nyc andy warhol