Charles Lutz’s Memento Mori, a painted cast bronze sculpture based on a solid wood Brillo box chopped into pieces with an axe, builds on his Warhol Denied series by subverting Andy Warhol’s iconic symbol of mass production. The violent destruction of the Brillo box challenges the viewer to question the tension between art’s commodification and its fragile authenticity. In this piece, Lutz critiques the legacy of Warhol and the art market, confronting the transience of both the object and the cultural values it represents. Through this deliberate deconstruction, Lutz explores the decay of both material and artistic systems, pushing a reconsideration of what is valued in contemporary art.
