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6 

ANDY WARHOL FOUNDATION FOR VISUAL ARTS, INC. 
v. GOLDSMITH 
KAGAN, J., dissenting 

to  function  as  a  selectively  porous  mesh.    Warhol  would 
“place the screen face down on the canvas, pour ink onto the
back of the mesh, and use a squeegee to pull the ink through 
the weave and onto the canvas.”  Id., at 164.  On some of his 
Marilyns (there are many), he reordered the process—first
ink, then color, then (perhaps) ink again.  See id., at 165– 
166.  The result—see for yourself—is miles away from a lit-
eral copy of the publicity photo. 

Andy Warhol, Marilyn, 1964, acrylic and silkscreen ink on linen 

And the meaning is different from any the photo had.  Of 
course,  meaning  in  great  art  is  contestable  and  contested 
(as is the premise that an artwork is great).  But note what 
some  experts  say  about  the  complex  message(s)  Warhol’s
Marilyns convey.  On one level, those vivid, larger-than-life 
paintings are celebrity iconography, making a “secular, pro-
fane subject[ ]” “transcendent” and “eternal.”  Id., at 209 (in-
ternal quotation marks omitted).  But they also function as 
a biting critique of the cult of celebrity, and the role it plays