Warhol’s Problem Project: The Time Capsules

This essay examines the split function of Andy Warhol’s Time Capsules as both research archive and unrealized art project. It suggests that the Time Capsules epitomize Warhol’s career-long preoccupation with consumption and waste (a concern animating much of his art production), and that the extreme materiality of the 610 Time Capsules is a complicated response to dematerialization in conceptual art practices and the post-war global economy. Finally, the essay reports on his on-site research of the Time Capsules, analyzing contradictions in the Warhol Museum’s maintenance of the project as both art and archive.