You thought I was one of the stupidest people you’d ever met in your life — a dull celebrity businessman branded to the hairline. What a deeply superficial take.

Andy Warhol didn’t invent pop art. He perfected it. Directing an army of practitioners within his Factory, he created a virtuosic body of work that today exists as its own market, controlled largely by one man — Jose Mugrabi, owner of over 800 Warhols.

But he is not without detractors, chief among them is the late art critic Robert Hughes. Known for his acerbic wit and unyielding takes on good (and bad) art, Hughes felt Warhol’s career was in persistent decline. While acknowledging that at one point he was “probably” good, towards the end, Hughes contended Warhol simply had nothing to say. And perhaps that’s true.

“Business art is the step that comes after art,” Andy said. “I started as a commercial artist, and I want to finish as a business artist. Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art. During the hippie era people put down the idea of business. They’d say ‘money is bad’ and ‘working is bad’. But making money is art, and working is art - and good business is the best art.”

WAVE 0.8 is the fourth WAVE in RUNWAY 5, a limited pre-release series of five WAVES spotlighting watershed works of art in debt to their context.