Museum Chachki

As I read this week's reading, which included of a litany of isolated statements attributed to Andy Warhol, one struck me in particular: 

"When you think about it, department stores are kind of like 

museums."

Though Warhol meant to glorify department stores with this observation,  perhaps the inverse is more true.  Museums are just like department stores, where art is merely a commodity to be procured, reproduced infinitely as prints, magnets, bags, postcards, mugs, calendars, and various other useful incarnations, and purchased infinitely.  I find this process of imposing meaningless function on the work a little unsettling.

One of the most overwhelming places I've ever been was the gallery store at the end of the Frida Kahlo exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  Strangely, replicas of her jewelry, clothing, pottery, 

even toy versions of her pets were just as plentiful as the reproductions of her paintings.  I found it fascinating how artists' personas could be auctioned off just as easily as their work is.  In many ways, Andy Warhol did just that--but to himself and his own work.  The mass-production of his work sickens most of us, yet what was the alternative?  Dying in obscurity,  only to have a museum pimp out both your work and identity after your death?