File talk:10-Burial of Christ-detail.jpg

The figure central to the allegories painted is the artist himself, making these works collectively an autobiographical performance through which the artist assigns himself the role of "The Other".

Already in freshman year at Carnegie Tech, Warhol & Company's ascendency is overtaking the foreseeabe future when this artist chooses his part. It will be the reverse of what is shocking to an audience now accustomed to being shocked. What outrages those in the know when he paints "Burial of Christ" in 1964 is his total disregard for the agenda of the avant-garde, and he is warned that he will suffer rejection if he continues.

This place of alienation has many names - outsider, outcast, outlaw; but if ostracism is a heavy price, it more importantly is the condition of freedom. Still, payment is due.

One doesn't read Foucault's "Madness and Civilization" in 1965 when painting "Six Characters in Search" or in 1966 for "Ship of Fools" or in 1970 with "Joseph Accused" or in 1994 as "The Performer" to know that one is a stranger in a strange land. The images of Bosch's "Ship of Fools" and Bruegel's "Blind Leading the Blind" suffice to understand that one is consigned like refugee or cripple or criminal to the shadows.

- Richard Rappaport, In Praise of Folly or The Other, Preface, "Portraits & Passages", www.richard-rappaport.net.

Placed sideways on a two-page ad spread so the viewer has to turn the magazine, this large central detail of Burial of Christ from 1964 is found in Artforum, December 2000.