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Andy Warhol

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File:Helmut Newton- Andy Warhol.jpg
Andy Warhol, photographed by Helmut Newton

Andy Warhol (August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American painter, filmmaker, publisher, and a major figure in the Pop Art movement.

Biography

Andy Warhol, born as Andrew Warhola, was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to a working class immigrant family of Ruthenian ethnicity from northeast Slovakia. He showed early artistic talent and studied commercial art at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. In 1949 he moved to New York City and began a successful career in magazine illustration and advertising. He became well-known mainly for his whimsical ink drawings of shoes done in a loose, blotted style.

In the 1960s, he started to make paintings of famous American products like Campbell's soup cans and Coca-Cola. He switched to silkscreen prints, seeking not only to make art of mass produced items, but to mass produce the art itself. He said that he wanted to be like a robot. He hired and supervised "art workers" engaged in making prints, shoes, films, books and other items at his studio, The Factory, located on Union Square in New York City. Warhol's body of work furthermore includes commissioned portraits and commercials.

A lot of Warhol's works revolve around the concept of Americana and American culture. He painted money, dollar signs, food, groceries, women's shoes, celebrities, and newspaper clippings. To him, these subjects represented American cultural values. For instance, Coca-Cola represents democratic equality because "a Coke is always a Coke; the Coke that the president drinks is the same as your Coke or mine". He used popular imagery and methods to visualize the American cultural identity of the 20th century. This popular redefinition of American culture is a theme and result of Warhol's art. Because American culture has had great international influence, Warhol did as well.

Outside of the art world, Andy Warhol is best known for saying that "In the future, everyone will be world famous for 15 minutes." He later told reporters, humorously, "My new line is, 'In fifteen minutes everybody will be famous.'"

Socialite and Recluse

Warhol used to socialize at Serendipity and Studio 54, nightclubs in New York City. Warhol was generally regarded as quiet, shy, and as a meticulous observer. More than one person jokingly referred to him as "death warmed over."

Warhol was openly gay, rare for celebrities of his stature at the time. Many people think of Warhol as "asexual" and as merely a "voyeur", but these notions have been debunked by biographers (like Fred Guiles), scholars (eg Richard Meyer), and by the overtly campy and homoerotic nature of his work itself. Throughout his career, Warhol produced erotic photography and drawings of male nudes. Many of his most famous works (portraits of Liza Minelli, Judy Garland, Elizabeth Taylor, and films like "My Hustler", "Blow Job", and "Lonesome Cowboys") draw from gay underground culture and/or openly explore the complexity of sexuality and desire. Many of his films in fact premiered in gay porn theaters. The first works that he submitted to a gallery in the pursuit of a career as an artist were, in fact, homoerotic drawings of male nudes. They were rejected for being too openly gay.

A meticulous collector, he organized almost every piece of paper, fan mail—after taking off the stamps—and magazine related to his fame along with personal notes, gay pornography and found artifacts into hundreds of numbered boxes and set them aside, never to open them again. Warhol referred to these boxes as his "time capsule". Many exist today and are available for research at his Pittsburgh museum. Warhol's house, was filled to the brim with his collected art, artifacts and americana.

Warhol loved to attend social functions. Many of his later commisioned portraits were a direct or indirect result of this networking. As a famous artist, Warhol and his Factory attracted and facilitated many "groupies" and friends that Warhol would take with him when going out. Warhol fell into the habit of calling these friends his Superstars. They would appear in and help him make his work, play in his movies, write his books, hang out and generally become his following. When Warhol was asked to give a series of university lectures that he didn't feel like doing, one of his friends put on a wig and white make-up, and pretended to be him by sitting quietly on the stage. Other Superstars explained Warhol's work to the audience, and urged them to drop out of college. The University eventually found out Warhol's "fraud" and the dispute following had to be settled with a refund.

Warhol would regularly volunteer at the homeless shelters in New York, particularly during the busier times of the year. He described himself as a religious person, although not fully accepted by religion because of his homosexuality. Many of his latter works contain almost hidden religious themes or subjects.

Shooting

On June 3, 1968, Valerie Solanas, a Factory regular, entered Warhol's studio and fired three shots at Warhol, nearly killing him. Although the first two rounds missed, the third passed through Warhol's left lung, spleen, stomach, liver, esophagus and right lung. Solanas then turned the gun on a companion of Warhol, Mario Amaya, injuring his thigh. Warhol survived his injuries, but he never fully recovered. Earlier Solanas had given a script to Warhol, in hopes that he would make a film out of it. Warhol never did. Apparently, she had visited the Factory earlier in the day to ask that they give the script back to her. It had, however, been lost. She later explained that she had attacked Warhol because, "he had too much control over [her] life." The story of Valerie Solanas was made into the 1995 film I Shot Andy Warhol, starring Lili Taylor and directed by Mary Harron.

In the hospital, his doctors had already declared him deceased, after which he was rescucitated. Warhol has joked that he was now invulnerable, since he had gone through death and came out alive. The shooting, and Warhol's "death" received wide media coverage.

Warhol later satirized the whole event in a subsequent movie, calling a group similar to Solanas' S.C.U.M. (Society for Cutting Up Men), P.I.G. – Politically Involved Girlies.

In 1990 Lou Reed recorded the album Songs for Drella with fellow Velvet Underground alumnus John Cale. Warhol had adopted Reed's band the Velvet Undergound as one of his projects in the 1960's. After the band became successful Warhol and band leader Reed started to disagree more and more about the direction the band should take, and the contact between them faded. On the album, Reed apologizes and comes to terms with his part in their conflict.

Death

Warhol died in New York City following routine gall bladder surgery at the age of 58. Warhol was afraid of hospitals and doctors, so he had delayed having his recurring gall bladder problems checked.

He is interred at St. John the Baptist Catholic Cemetery south of Pittsburgh. Fellow artist Yoko Ono was among the speakers at his funeral.

After his death it took Sotheby's several days to auction his estate, for a total gross amount of over 20 million dollars.

Work

Films

Warhol worked across a wide range of mediums - painting, photography, drawing, and sculpture. He was also a highly prolific filmmaker. Between 1963 and 1968, he made more than sixty films. One of his most famous films, Sleep (1963), shows a man (John Giorno, who had a relationship with Warhol) sleeping for eight hours. In the 35 minute film Blow Job (1963), he shows the face of David Pelman receiving fellatio. Another, Empire (1964), consists of eight hours of footage of the Empire State Building in New York City at dusk. Warhol's 1965 film Vinyl is an adaptation of Anthony Burgess' popular dystopian novel A Clockwork Orange. Others record improvised encounters between Factory regulars such as Brigid Berlin, Viva, Edie Sedgwick, Ondine, Nico, Paul Swan and Freddie Herko. Legendary underground artist Jack Smith appears in the film Camp.

His most popular and critically successful film was The Chelsea Girls (1966). The film was highly innovative in that it consisted of two 16-mm films being projected simultaneously, with two different stories being shown in tandem. From the projection booth, the sound would be raised for one film to elucidate that "story" while it was lowered for the other. Then, it would be the other film's turn to bask in the glory of sound. The multiplication of images evoked Warhol's seminal silk-screen works of the early 1960s. The film's influence could be felt as late as 2000 in Mike Figgis' Timecode.

Other important films include My Hustler, an ur-Midnight Cowboy, and Lonesome Cowboys (1968), a raunchy pseudo-western. Blue Movie, a film in which Warhol superstar Viva makes love and fools around in bed with a man for 33 minutes of the film's playing-time, was Warhol's last film as director. The film was at the time scandalous for its frank approach to a sexual encounter. For many years Viva refused to allow it to be screened. It was publically screened in New York in 2005 for the first time in over thirty years.

After his June 3, 1968 shooting, a reclusive Warhol relenquished his personal involvement in filmmaking. His acolyte and assistant director, Paul Morrissey, took over the film-making chores for the Factory collective, steering Warhol-branded cinema towards more mainstream, narrative-based, B-movie exploitation fare with Flesh, Trash, and Heat. All of these films, including the later Andy Warhol's Dracula and Andy Warhol's Frankenstein, were far more mainstream than anything Warhol as a director had attempted. These latter "Warhol" films, all of which frankly were made to make money, starred Joe Dallesandro, who was more of a Morrissey star than a true Warhol superstar.

In order to facillitate the success of these Warhol-branded, Morrissey-directed movies in the marketplace, all of Warhol's earlier avant-garde films were removed from distriubtion and exhibition by 1972.

The first volume of a catalogue raisoné for the Factory film archive is to be published in the spring of 2006.

As an actor, Warhol appeared as a bartender in The Cars' music video for their single "Hello Again", and Curiosity Killed The Cat's video for their "Misfit" single (both videos, and others, were produced by Warhol's video production company). He also appeared in an episode of The Love Boat.

Warhol's character has also been represented in several motion pictures. He has been portrayed by Crispin Glover, David Bowie, and Jared Harris, in The Doors, Basquiat, and I Shot Andy Warhol, respectively.

Filmography

Books and media

Warhol "wrote" several books.

  • A, a novel (1968, ISBN 0-8021-3553-6) is a literal transcription - containing spelling errors and phonetically written background noise and mumbling - of audio recordings of Ondine and several of Andy Warhol's friends hanging out at the Factory, talking, going out.
  • The Philosophy of Andy Warhol; from A to B and back again (1975, ISBN 0-15-671720-4) - according to Pat Hackett's introduction to The Andy Warhol Diaries, Pat Hackett did the transcriptions and text for the book using audio cassettes that Andy Warhol gave her. Said cassettes contained conversations with Brigid Berlin (aka Brigid Polk) and former Interview magazine editor Bob Colacello.
  • Popism: The Warhol Sixties (1980, ISBN 0-15-672960-1), authored by Warhol and Pat Hackett is a retrospective view of the sixties and the role of Pop Art.
  • The Andy Warhol Diaries (1989, ISBN 0-446-39138-7, edited by Pat Hackett) is an edited diary that was dictated by Warhol to Hackett in daily phone conversations. Warhol started keeping a diary to keep track of his expenses after being audited.

Warhol created the fashion magazine Interview that is still published today. The loopy title script on the cover is thought to be either his own handwriting or that of his mother, Julia Warhola, who would often do text work for his early commercial pieces.

Museums

The Andy Warhol Museum is located in the North Shore district of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is the largest American art museum dedicated to a single artist, holding more than 4,000 works by the artist himself.

Among others, Andy's brother, John Warhola, and the Warhol Foundation in New York, established in 1991 the Warhol Family Museum of Modern Art in the remote town of Medzilaborce, Slovakia. Andy's mother, Julia Warhola, was born 15 kilometres away in the village Mikova. The museum houses several originals donated mainly by the Andy Warhol Foundation in New York and also personal items donated by Warhol's relatives.


Further Reading on Warhol

Jennifer Doyle, Jonathan Flatley, and José Esteban Muñoz, Pop Out: Queer Warhol (Durham: Duke University Press, 1996).

Fred Lawrence Guiles, Lover at the Ball: The Life of Andy Warhol (New York: Bantam, 1989).

Wayne Koestenbaum, Andy Warhol (New York: Penguin, 2003).

Richard Meyer, Outlaw Representation (New York: Beacon, 2003).

Steven Watson, Factory Made: Warhol and the Sixties (New York: Pantheon, 2003).


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Listening

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