The name-drops never stop in Peter Davies’ Super Star Fucker.

Davies’ piece is a commentary about the most badass way to perform an art heist–in plain sight, disguised as “inspiration.” About his art Davies said, “I want to make paintings that combine the sensuality and beauty of formalism with the humor and toughness of conceptualism.” Davies is known for the dry humor that he incorporates into his work, and this piece is no exception. Davies ironically references another artist, Andy Warhol, to elevate the content of his piece and prove his point about referencing other artists to elevate their own content.

Davies’ illustrates this idea by creating a flow chart of stars, with the biggest star, Andy Warhol, as the starting point. Davies was inspired by a Warhol show he had seen in Berlin, and draws on founding director at the Museum of Modern Art and art historian Alfred Barr’s iconic poster “Cubism and Abstract Art.” This piece was a part of an exhibition of over 400 works, and was drawn up by Barr to create a visual diagram of the origins and influences of modern art for the dust jacket on the catalogue. Barr’s piece is the pedigree chart that Modern Art would create if it signed up for Ancestry.com, exploring the relationship between different artistic movements of the 20th century in a chronological flowchart. Barr was pivotal to the scholarship of modern art, and his exhibition was designed to make it accessible to a diverse audience who were perhaps unaccustomed to seeing radical art that was such a departure from traditional naturalism.

Celebrity culture was to Warhol as Warhol was to Davies, and Davies makes his point on Warhol’s art on the contemporary art market by creating an abstract biography of its impact. Surrounding the Warhol’s central star are other unique stars each inscribed with a different phrase, connected by arrows. No phrases, colors, or star shapes repeat. On the stars there are references to Warhol’s connections with different people of both high and low culture. The title is written with the words “Super Star Fucker” across the top and “Andy Warhol Text Painting” along the bottom.

The piece is in part a verbal portrait of Warhol and his art–with words like “fame,” “Marilyn,” “Jackie," and “pop” to reference his obsession with celebrities and “advertising,” “capitalism,” “commodity,” “business acumen,” and “money” to reference his commentary on market culture that was the subject of much of his art. Warhol was originally a commercial illustrator before he started the Factory, his NYC studio and a meeting place for other creatives. Warhol was not only an artist, but a filmmaker as well. His box office hit, the Chelsea Girls, which also received a Davies shoutout, featured many of the superstars he created. The star shape and title of the piece references the term for those associated with this studio often appeared in his works, Warhol Superstars.

He also references the mediums Warhol is known for with the words “screen printing,” “portraits,” and “self portraits.” He also references Warhol’s sexuality with words such as “gay,” “camp,” “genital pics,” and “sex” as he lived as an openly gay man before the gay liberation movement and how he drew from gay underground culture in his art, bringing it into the mainstream.

He also collaborated with other artists, including fellow queer artist Jasper Johns, an American abstract expressionist who is also given a star on the piece. The two had a budding (platonic) bromance, and Johns stated “I was fond of Andy and have no memory of ever ‘cutting him dead,’” when addressing rumours of a rift between the two conocted by two straight friends who allegedly told Warhol of his secret contempt of Warhol’s open manner towards his sexuality as he himself was in an ultra-discreet relationship with another artist, Robert Rauschenberg. Despite the superstar superdrama, the two remained superclose, and were keen collectors of each other’s best art.

Another artist named in the piece is Jeff Koons. Both influenced by French sculptor and painter Marcel Duchamp who was associated with the Cubist, Dada, and conceptual movements and utilizers of phallic imagery, the similarities of their influences have led to parallels that are often drawn between their works.

This piece won the John Moores Painting Prize in 2002, a biennial award for a contemporary painting culminating in an exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool.