Built on Symbols: Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, Roy Lichtenstein, Damien Hirst, and KAWS: A Pop-Urban Exhibition of The Most Celebrated Artists of the 20th and 21st Centuries

Guy Hepner is pleased to present Built on Symbols, an exbition of   Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, Roy Lichtenstein, Damien Hirst, and KAWS. This curated selection of works maps the trajectory of one of art’s most enduring conversations: the transformation of images into symbols, and symbols into cultural currency. Across decades and movements, each artist included in the exhibition has contributed to a visual language that is instantly recognizable yet endlessly reinterpreted, collapsing the distance between popular culture and fine art while constructing a shared vocabulary that continues to shape how we see.

At the foundation is Andy Warhol, whose work distilled imagery into pure sign. In Art Positive and Art Negative, the word “Art” becomes both subject and symbol, while Lenin and Keith Haring transform portraiture into bold, graphic icons. Warhol’s practice demonstrates how repetition and circulation elevate the image beyond representation into something universally legible.

Keith Haring builds on this logic through a language of line and movement. In Fertility and Barking Dog from White Icons, figures are reduced to their most essential forms, becoming dynamic, almost hieroglyphic signs. His work reflects a belief in images as a shared, democratic language—direct, accessible, and built to communicate.

Roy Lichtenstein approaches symbolism through structure and reproduction. In Before the Mirror and Temple, he translates everyday imagery into compositions defined by Ben-Day dots, clean lines, and controlled color. His work reveals how visual language is constructed, positioning the aesthetics of mass media as a system of meaning in its own right.

With Damien Hirst, symbolism turns visceral. For the Love of God (white) transforms the skull into a glittering emblem of mortality and desire, while Black Brilliant Utopia uses repetition to create a dense, almost hypnotic field. Hirst’s work reframes universal themes—death, beauty, value—into objects that are both seductive and unsettling.

Extending this lineage, KAWS reconfigures familiar icons into a distinctly contemporary language. The Urge series distills emotion into interlocking hands, while Garfield and Astroboy strip recognizable characters down to their symbolic core. Balancing nostalgia with ambiguity, KAWS creates images that feel both deeply personal and widely understood.

Together, the works in Built on Symbols form a continuum of image-making, where meaning is constructed through repetition, simplification, and recognition. Each piece operates not only as an artwork, but as part of a larger visual vocabulary—one that continues to shape how we read and understand the world around us.