Difference between revisions of "Andy Warhol" - New World Encyclopedia

From New World Encyclopedia
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From 1964 to 1968 Andy Warhol was consumed with writing and directing [[avante-garde]] films. Many of them were acute in subject and pornographic in nature, most of them too shocking for the common movie-goer. However, even with critisims, he was able to create a decidedly "Warholian" style and bring it to the screen. Many of Warhol's films were unpopular, scandalous, and unsuccessful, but in 1966, one broke the mold, his film ''Chelsea Girls'' was a seminal work in the world of film. When Warhol fans went to see the film, they were amazed to see not one picture playing, but a split-screen showing two different captured images in tandem. Instead of one camera, Warhol used two [[16 mm film|16 mm]] cameras to capture two stories and played them simultaneously on screen. It worked because of the use of the sound, while one film was focused on with sound and narrative, the other film was silent, and vice-wersa. It was a complex and new process, with incisive detail needed in the sound management of both films in the projection booth. This unique process inspired future films such as [[Mike Figgins]] ''Timecode/(film)|Timecode'', and even later with Fox's television series ''24''.
 
From 1964 to 1968 Andy Warhol was consumed with writing and directing [[avante-garde]] films. Many of them were acute in subject and pornographic in nature, most of them too shocking for the common movie-goer. However, even with critisims, he was able to create a decidedly "Warholian" style and bring it to the screen. Many of Warhol's films were unpopular, scandalous, and unsuccessful, but in 1966, one broke the mold, his film ''Chelsea Girls'' was a seminal work in the world of film. When Warhol fans went to see the film, they were amazed to see not one picture playing, but a split-screen showing two different captured images in tandem. Instead of one camera, Warhol used two [[16 mm film|16 mm]] cameras to capture two stories and played them simultaneously on screen. It worked because of the use of the sound, while one film was focused on with sound and narrative, the other film was silent, and vice-wersa. It was a complex and new process, with incisive detail needed in the sound management of both films in the projection booth. This unique process inspired future films such as [[Mike Figgins]] ''Timecode/(film)|Timecode'', and even later with Fox's television series ''24''.
  
 
+
Warhol's desire to direct films came to a halt after he was shot in 1968. The highly reclusive Warhol left the company he had formed, [[The Factory|Factory]] to his assistant director [[Paul Morrissey]]. Once Morrissey was given full reign, he took the film productions in a different direction, creating films that still had an edge, but were much more relative to the mainstream public, and therefore more popular. Some of Morrissey's films include ''[[Flesh (film)|Flesh]]'', ''[[Trash (film)|Trash]]'', and ''[[Heat (1972 film)|Heat]]''. Although these films were labeled with Warhol's name, it became apparent that they were clearly Morrissey's projects. In fact, to help the success of the later films (which Morrissey believed had a greater chance of being successful) the distribution of all of Warhol's earlier, avante-garde films were put to an end by 1972. However, by 2005, many of Warhol's original films have again been made available through DVD distribution.
Other important films include ''[[My Hustler (1965 film)|My Hustler]]'' (1965) and ''[[Lonesome Cowboys (1968 film)|Lonesome Cowboys]]'' (1968), a raunchy pseudo-[[Western (genre)|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 publicly screened in New York in 2005 for the first time in over thirty years.  
 
 
 
After his June 3, 1968 shooting, a reclusive Warhol relinquished his personal involvement in filmmaking. His acolyte and assistant director, [[Paul Morrissey]], took over the film-making chores for the [[The Factory|Factory]] collective, steering Warhol-branded cinema towards more [[mainstream]], [[narrative]]-based, [[B-movie]] [[exploitation film|exploitation]] fare with ''[[Flesh (film)|Flesh]]'', ''[[Trash (film)|Trash]]'', and ''[[Heat (1972 film)|Heat]]''. All of these films, including the later ''[[Blood for Dracula|Andy Warhol's Dracula]]'' and ''[[Flesh for Frankenstein|Andy Warhol's Frankenstein]]'', were far more mainstream than anything Warhol as a director had attempted. These latter "Warhol" films starred [[Joe Dallesandro]], who was more of a Morrissey star than a true [[Warhol superstar]].
 
 
 
In order to facilitate the success of these Warhol-branded, Morrissey-directed movies in the marketplace, all of Warhol's earlier avant-garde films were removed from distribution and exhibition by 1972.
 
  
 
===Filmography===
 
===Filmography===
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===Music===
 
===Music===
 
[[Image:Velvet Underground and Nico.jpg|right|thumb|175px]]
 
[[Image:Velvet Underground and Nico.jpg|right|thumb|175px]]
Warhol adopted the band the [[Velvet Underground]] as one of his projects in the 1960s, "producing" their first album ''[[The Velvet Underground and Nico]]'' as well as providing the album art. His actual participation in the album's production amounted to simply paying for the studio time. After the band's first album, Warhol and band leader [[Lou Reed]] started to disagree more about the direction the band should take, and the contact between them faded.
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Warhol was highly adept designing album covers and his talents remained sought after for most of his career. He designed the cover art for two albums of [[The Rolling Stones]], ''Sticky Fingers'' (1971) and ''Love you Live'' (1977). [[Mick Jagger]] was so impressed that he commissioned several portraits of himself in 1975.
 
 
Warhol designed the cover art for [[The Rolling Stones]] albums ''[[Sticky Fingers]]'' (1971) and ''[[Love You Live]]'' (1977). In 1975, Warhol was commissioned to do several portraits of the band's frontman [[Mick Jagger]].
 
  
In 1990 Reed recorded the album ''[[Songs for Drella]]'' (one of Warhol's nicknames was Drella, a combination of Dracula and Cinderella) with fellow [[The Velvet Underground|Velvet Underground]] alumnus [[John Cale]]. On ''Drella'', Reed apologizes and comes to terms with his part in their conflict.
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Warhol was good friends with [[Bob Dylan]] and [[John Lennon]], designing Lennon's album ''Menlove Avenue'' (released posthumously). While at the same time, Warhol's production company produced [[music video]]s for two hits by [[the Cars]], ''Hello Again'' and ''Misfit''.  
  
Warhol was also friendly with many musicians, including [[Bob Dylan]] and [[John Lennon]] - he designed the cover to Lennon's 1986 posthumously released [[Menlove Avenue]]. Warhol also appeared as a bartender in [[The Cars]]' [[music video]] for their [[single (music)|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 had a crush on [[Duran Duran]]'s [[Nick Rhodes]], with whom he met fairly often.
+
Wanting to experience even more in the music industry, Warhol took the band [[Velvet Underground]] and made them one of his projects. Trying his had as a music producer for the band's first album ''The Velvet Underground and Nico'', his "producing" simply boiled down to the fact that he paid for the studio time it took to record the album. The team fell apart after the album's release, when [[Lou Reed]], the band leader, and Warhol disagreed about the band's future. Incidently, Warhol designed the cover art for the album.  
  
Warhol strongly influenced the [[New Wave music|new wave]]/[[punk rock]] band [[Devo]], as well as [[David Bowie]] - who recorded a song entitled "Andy Warhol" for his 1971 [[Hunky Dory]] album.
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Warhol's influence was felt by various artists of the [[New Wave music|new wave]]/[[punk rock]]
 +
era, including the band [[Devo]] and [[David Bowei]]--who's song, "Andy WArhol" was composed for his 1971 album, ''Hunky Dory''.
  
 
[[Image:25 Cats.jpg|left|thumb|Cover of copy no. 18 of ''25 Cats Name (sic) Sam and One Blue Pussy'' by Andy Warhol given in 1954 to [[Edgar de Evia]] and [[Robert Denning]] when the author was a guest in their home in the [[Rhinelander Mansion]].]]
 
[[Image:25 Cats.jpg|left|thumb|Cover of copy no. 18 of ''25 Cats Name (sic) Sam and One Blue Pussy'' by Andy Warhol given in 1954 to [[Edgar de Evia]] and [[Robert Denning]] when the author was a guest in their home in the [[Rhinelander Mansion]].]]
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Warhol created the fashion magazine ''[[Interview (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.
 
Warhol created the fashion magazine ''[[Interview (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.
 
===Other media===
 
As stated, although Andy Warhol is most known for his paintings and films, he has authored works in many different media.
 
 
* [[Drawing]]: Warhol started his career drawing commercial illustrations in "blotted-ink" style for warehouses and magazines. Most well known are his pictures of shoes. Some of his drawings were published in little [[booklet]]s, like "Yum, Yum, Yum" (about food), "Ho, Ho, Ho" (about Christmas) and (of course) "Shoes, Shoes, Shoes." His most artistically acclaimed book of drawings is probably "The Gold Book," compiled of sensitive, personal drawings of young men. "The Gold Book" is thus dubbed because of the [[leaf-gold]] that decorates the pages.
 
* [[Sculpture]]: Warhol's most famous sculpture is probably his "Brillo Boxes," silkscreened wooden replicas of [[Brillo]] soap boxes. Other famous works include the "Silver Floating Pillows"; gas-filled, silver, pillow-shaped [[balloon]]s that were floated out of the window during the presentation.
 
* [[Audio]]: At one point Warhol carried a portable recorder with him wherever he went, taping everything everybody said and did. He referred to this device as his "wife." Some of these tapes were the basis for his [[literary]] work. Another audio-work of Warhol's was his "Invisible Sculpture," a presentation in which burglar alarms would go off when entering the room. Warhol's cooperation with the musicians of The Velvet Underground was driven by an expressed desire to become a music producer.
 
* [[Television]]: Andy Warhol dreamed of a television show that he wanted to call "The Nothing Special," a special about his favorite subject: Nothing. Later in his career he did create two cable television shows, "Andy Warhol's TV" in 1982 and "Andy Warhol's Fifteen Minutes" for MTV in 1986. Besides his own shows he regularly made guest appearances in shows, including a notable appearance on "[[The Love Boat]]" wherein a Midwestern wife ([[Marion Ross]]) fears Andy Warhol will reveal to her husband ([[Tom Bosley]]) her secret past as a Warhol superstar named Marina del Rey.
 
* [[Fashion]]: Warhol is quoted for having said: "I'd rather buy a dress and put it up on the wall, than put a painting, wouldn't you?" One of his most well-known Superstars, [[Edie Sedgwick]], aspired to be a fashion designer, and his good friend [[Halston]] was a famous one. Warhol's work in fashion includes silkscreened dresses, a short sub-career as a catwalk-model and books on fashion as well as paintings with fashion (shoes) as a subject.
 
* [[Performance Art]]: Warhol and his friends staged happenings; theatrical multimedia presentations during parties, containing music, film, slide projections and Gerard Malanga in an S&M outfit cracking a whip. The [[Exploding Plastic Inevitable]] is the culmination of this area of his work.
 
* [[Photography]]: To produce his silkscreens, Warhol made photographs or had them made by his friends and assistants. These pictures were mostly taken with a specific model of [[Polaroid Corporation|Polaroid]] camera that Polaroid kept in production especially for Warhol. This photographic approach to painting and his snapshot method of taking pictures has had a great effect on artistic photography. His late oeuvre contains black and white photos sewn together.
 
 
===Product===
 
In many of his efforts Warhol has taken the position of a producer or director, rather than a creator. From an artist he gradually became the person that determined the direction and was the public face of a company, having a staff of sorts to do the actual labor involved in his products. He would coin an idea and oversee its execution, his [[The Factory|Factory]] evolved from an atelier into an office.
 
 
As this position proved to work out, he found himself able to expand his activities into other fields. He founded the gossip magazine Interview, creating a stage for celebrities he "endorsed" and creating jobs for his friends. He adopted the young painter [[Jean-Michel Basquiat]], and the band [[The Velvet Underground]] and presented them to the public as his latest interest, cooperating with them, shaping their public personas. He would produce things and people, and they were part of his artistic product. He endorsed products, appeared in commercials, made business deals and even sold the film-making branch of his company when he decided to spend less time filming himself.
 
 
In this respect Warhol talked about "Art Business" and "Business Art", and how he thought business was the best type of art. This was a radical new stance, as artists had always presented themselves as flamboyant, individual, visionary outsiders - commenting on the normal part of society while never really being a part of it, and receiving appreciation for that position on basis of their idealism, rare talents and personalities. Warhol and other pop-artists helped redefine the artist's position as professional, commercial, popular - a logical and valuable part of society. He did this using methods, imagery and talents that were (or at least seemed to be) available to everyone. Perhaps that has been the most meaningful result of (his) Pop Art: a philosophical and practical incorporation of art into society, art as a product of society.
 
  
 
===Museums===
 
===Museums===
The [[Andy Warhol Museum]] is located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is the largest American art museum dedicated to a single artist, holding more than 12,000 works by the artist himself.
+
The [[Andy Warhol Museum]] is located in that artist hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is known as being the largest American art museum dedicated to a single artist. It houses more than 12,000 works by Andy Warhol.
  
Among others, Andy's brother, John Warhol and the Warhol Foundation in New York, established in 1992 the Warhol Family Museum of Modern Art in the remote town of [[Medzilaborce]], [[Slovakia]]. Andy's parents were born 15 kilometers away in the village of 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.
+
Another notable museum is the Warhol Family Museum of Modern Art, founded by John Warhol, Andy's brother, and the Warhol Foundation in New York in 1992. The museum is in [[Medzilaborce]], [[Slovakia]], located 15 kilometers away from the village of Mikova (where Andy's parent's were born). The museum houses several original paintings that were donated by the Andy Warhol Foundation in New York, as well as personal items donated by Warhol's relatives.
  
 
==Films portraying Warhol==
 
==Films portraying Warhol==
Andy Warhol is portrayed by [[Crispin Glover]] in [[Oliver Stone]]'s film ''[[The Doors (film)|The Doors]]'' (1991). Warhol is also represented by [[David Bowie]] in ''[[Basquiat]]'', a film by [[Julian Schnabel]]. In the film ''[[I Shot Andy Warhol]]'', directed by [[Mary Harron]] (1996), the actor [[Jared Harris]] portrayed Warhol. [[Sean Gregory Sullivan]] depicted Warhol in the film ''[[54 (film)|54]]'' (1998). The latest film actor to portray the artist is [[Guy Pearce]] in the 2006 film, ''[[Factory Girl]]''.
+
*[[Crispin Glover]] portray's Warhol in the 1991 film ''The Doors (film)|The Doors'', directed by [[Oliver Stone]].
 
+
*[[Julian Schnabel]]'s film ''Basquiat'' features [[David Bowie]] representing Warhol.
''[[Andy Warhol: A Documentary Film]]'' is a reverential four-hour 2006 movie by Ric Burns about Andy Warhol.
+
*In 1996, [[Mary Harron]]'s film ''I Shot Andy Warhol'' the artist was portrayed by the actor [[Jared Harris]].
 
+
*[[Sean Gregory Sullivan]] depicted Warhol in the film ''[[54 (film)|54]]'' (1998).
[[Gus Van Sant]] was planning a version of Warhol's life  with [[River Phoenix]] in the lead role just before the latter's death in the early 1990s (as discussed in an interview with the two, included in the published ''[[My Own Private Idaho]]'' script book).
+
*[[Guy Pearce]] portrays the artist in the 2006 film ''Factory Girl''.
 +
*''Andy Warhol: A Documentary Film'' is the 2006 four-hour biorgaphical movie by Ric Burns about Andy Warhol.
  
 
==Notes==
 
==Notes==

Revision as of 02:50, 30 December 2006

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

Andrew Warhola,(August 6, 1928 — February 22, 1987), or Andy Warhol as he is known to the world, was an American renaissance man. Known primarily for his innovative paintings and artistic achievements, Warhol made a name for himself in the world of avant-garde film, music, publishing, writing, and acting. He helped to found and define the cultural Pop art movement that hit America during the 1950s. He was controversial, revered, and always daring.

Biography

Andrew Warhola was born to Andrej (Andrew) Warhola and Ulja (Julia) Justyna Zavacka

[citation needed] were working-class immigrants of Rusyn (Ruthenian) ethnicity from Mikova, in northeast Slovakia. in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His parents,Despite stories circulating about Warhol's father working in coal mines, Andrej Warhola actually worked in construction in Pennsylvania. In 1930, the Warhola family lived at 55 Beelen St, in Pittsburgh, PA. The family was Byzantine Catholic. In third grade, Warhol came down with St. Vitus' disease, which affects the nervous system causing involuntary movements and is thought to be a complication of scarlet fever. This disease changed his appearance and his life forever. Warhol 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. These figured in some of his earliest showings in New York at the Bodley Gallery.

In the 1960s, Warhol began to make paintings of famous American products such as 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 he wanted to be like a machine. His most influential and important collaborator during this period was Gerard Malanga, who introduced Warhol to many of the superstars who would soon appear in his films, in addition to assisting the artist with the silkscreening of many of his major paintings, prints, films, sculptures and other items at "The Factory," his tinfoil-and-silver-paint lined studio located in New York. He also groomed a retinue of bohemian eccentrics upon whom he bestowed the ironic designation "superstars".

A lot of Warhol's works revolve around the concepts of Americana and American popular culture. He painted money, food, women's shoes, celebrities, newspaper clippings and everyday objects. To him, these subjects represented American cultural values. For instance, Coca-Cola represented democratic equality:

What's great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it.

This quote is typical of Warhol's deadpan commentary, and critics still argue about how seriously to take his various statements.

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.[citation needed]

Shooting

On June 3, 1968, Valerie Solanas shot Warhol in the chest. Solanas had previously founded a "group" (she was its only member) called the "Society for Cutting Up Men" (S.C.U.M.) and authored the S.C.U.M. Manifesto, a work of radical feminist literature that has since found something of a following both from those who take it seriously and those who find it inadvertently humorous. Arrested the day after the assault (coincidentally, the day that Robert F. Kennedy was shot), she said, "He had too much control over my life." Warhol was seriously wounded and suffered physical effects for the rest of his life. He had, for instance, to wear a corset to support himself. The shooting had a profound effect on Warhol's life and art, and The Factory scene became much more tightly controlled.


Warhol used to socialize at Serendipity 3 and, later in the 70s, Studio 54, nightspots in New York City. He was generally regarded as quiet, shy, and as a meticulous observer. Art critic Robert Hughes called him "the white mole of Union Square".[citation needed]

Warhol had a re-emergence of critical and financial success in the 1980s, partially due to his affiliation and friendships with a number of prolific younger artists, who were dominating the "bull market" of '80s New York art: Jean-Michel Basquiat, Julian Schnabel, David Salle and the so-called Neo-Expressionists, as well as Francesco Clemente, Enzo Cucchi and members of the Transavantguardia movement, which had become influential. In 1985, Andy Warhol was selected as one of the Absolut Vodka artists, and several of his paintings incorporating the Absolut Vodka bottle in it were utilized in advertisements, bringing his art to the attention of a broader audience.

Death

At the relatively young age of 58, Warhol died in New York City at 6:32 a.m. on February 22, 1987. According to news reports, he had been making good recovery from a routine gallbladder surgery at New York Hospital before dying in his sleep from a sudden heart attack. The hospital staff had failed to monitor his condition and overloaded him with fluids after his operation, prompting Warhol's lawyers to sue the hospital for negligence.

Prior to his diagnosis and operation, Warhol delayed having his recurring gallbladder problems checked, as he was afraid to enter hospitals and see doctors.

Warhol is interred at St. John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Cemetery in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, south of Pittsburgh. Yoko Ono was among the speakers at his funeral.

Warhol had so many possessions it took Sotheby's nine days to auction his estate after his death for a total gross amount of over US $20 million. His total estate was worth considerably more, in no small part due to shrewd investments over the years.

Religious beliefs

Warhol regularly volunteered at homeless shelters in New York, particularly during the busier times of the year, and described himself as a religious person. Many of his later works contain almost hidden religious themes or subjects, and a body of religious-themed works was found posthumously in his estate. Warhol also regularly attended Mass during his life, and the pastor of his Byzantine Rite Catholic church, Saint Vincent's, reports that he visited the church almost daily.

Warhol's brother has described the artist as "really religious, but he didn't want people to know about that because [it was] private." Despite the private nature of his faith, in Warhol's eulogy John Richardson depicted it as devout: "To my certain knowledge, he was responsible for at least one conversion. He took considerable pride in financing his nephew's studies for the priesthood."

Works

Paintings

File:Warhol-Marilyns.jpg
Andy Warhol's iconic Marilyn Monroe

When he decided to pursue a career as an artist, Warhol already had established a reputation as a commercial illustrator mostly doing illustrations of shoes. In school he had created paintings, but his work afterward had mainly consisted of "blotted ink" illustrations for warehouses and magazines. He felt he was not being taken seriously as an illustrator and wanted to become a true artist.

When he started painting, he wanted to find a target for himself. At the time Pop Art, as it was later named, was already an experimental form. Warhol turned to this new style where popular subjects could be part of the artist's palette. His early paintings show images taken from cartoons and advertisements, hand-painted with added paint drips. He added these drips to give his paintings a seriousness by emulating the style of the abstract expressionists that were popular at the time. He wanted to be taken seriously or to sell his paintings, which may have had the same meaning to Warhol.

To him, part of defining a niche was defining his subject matter. Cartoons were already being used by the artist Roy Lichtenstein, typography by Jasper Johns, and so on; Warhol wanted a distinguishing subject. His friends suggested he should paint the things he loved the most. In his signature way of taking things literally, for his first major exhibition he painted his famous cans of Campbell's Soup, which he had for lunch most of his life. Warhol loved money, so he later painted money. He loved celebrities, so he painted them as well.

From these beginnings he developed his later style and subjects. Instead of working on a signature subject matter, as he started out to do, he worked more and more on a signature style, slowly eliminating the hand-made from the artistic process. Warhol frequently employed silk-screening; his later drawings were traced from slide projections. In other words, Warhol went from being a painter to being a designer of paintings. At the height of his fame as a painter, Warhol had several assistants who produced his silk-screen multiples, in different versions and variations following his directions.

Warhol produced both 'comic' (e.g., soup cans) and 'serious' (e.g., electric chairs) works. The unifying element in his work is his deadpan Keatonesque style - artistically and personally affectless. Before this blankness, the lack of signifiers of sincerity, the viewer is forced to attempt to read behind the surface to what the 'real Andy' thinks. Is Andy horrifed by death or does he think it is funny? Are soup cans in art galleries about the cheapness of mass culture, a cynical joke about the American collector's artistic nationalism (and aim for their wallet), or his genuine love for his mother (who maternally fed him canned soup)? His withdrawal ends up being the opposite of self-effacement.

As time went on, Warhol's work became more conceptual. His series of do-it-yourself paintings and Rorschach blots are intended as pop comments on art and what art could be. His cow wallpaper (literally, wallpaper with a cow motif) and his oxidation paintings (canvases prepared with copper paint that show oxidated urine stains) are also noteworthy in this context. Equally noteworthy is the way these works — and their means of production — mirrored the mores and atmosphere at Andy's New York "Factory." Biographer Bob Colacello provides some details on Andy's "piss paintings":


It has been suggested that Warhol would just take images of things that were hip in his time and cover them in "Warhol gravy", but for Warhol there always was a personal relation between him and his subjects. For instance the Campbell's Soup did not only function as an illustration of commercial industry and advertisement, it was an intrinsic part of Warhol's life and memories. As a child his mother had given him this soup when he was sick, and Warhol loved it very much as an adult.

Another criterion that was important in the way Warhol chose his subjects was they had to represent a more philosophical notion and have a metaphorical quality. When Warhol painted money, he painted it because he wanted to own it - canvases filled with money. Partly his work was meant to provide him with this money (and success, fame and maybe even love). At the same time, these paintings spoke of art as a commercial commodity: the paintings of dollar bills represented monetary value as well as investments. In this way, instead of merely depicting dollar bills, the paintings touched on notions like artistic value or as a comment on art practice.

Similarly, when Warhol painted photographs of disasters in bright colors ("Red Car Crash", "Purple Jumping Man", "Orange Disaster") they pointed at the horror of the event in the picture and its media value but also at the way in which such images are trivialized by the media. By turning these "random" clippings into paintings, Warhol transformed them into monuments for personal tragedies. As such, they represent a personal experience as well as a social comment and an illustration of a time when the media grew in pertinence and relevance.

Films

From 1964 to 1968 Andy Warhol was consumed with writing and directing avante-garde films. Many of them were acute in subject and pornographic in nature, most of them too shocking for the common movie-goer. However, even with critisims, he was able to create a decidedly "Warholian" style and bring it to the screen. Many of Warhol's films were unpopular, scandalous, and unsuccessful, but in 1966, one broke the mold, his film Chelsea Girls was a seminal work in the world of film. When Warhol fans went to see the film, they were amazed to see not one picture playing, but a split-screen showing two different captured images in tandem. Instead of one camera, Warhol used two 16 mm cameras to capture two stories and played them simultaneously on screen. It worked because of the use of the sound, while one film was focused on with sound and narrative, the other film was silent, and vice-wersa. It was a complex and new process, with incisive detail needed in the sound management of both films in the projection booth. This unique process inspired future films such as Mike Figgins Timecode/(film)|Timecode, and even later with Fox's television series 24.

Warhol's desire to direct films came to a halt after he was shot in 1968. The highly reclusive Warhol left the company he had formed, Factory to his assistant director Paul Morrissey. Once Morrissey was given full reign, he took the film productions in a different direction, creating films that still had an edge, but were much more relative to the mainstream public, and therefore more popular. Some of Morrissey's films include Flesh, Trash, and Heat. Although these films were labeled with Warhol's name, it became apparent that they were clearly Morrissey's projects. In fact, to help the success of the later films (which Morrissey believed had a greater chance of being successful) the distribution of all of Warhol's earlier, avante-garde films were put to an end by 1972. However, by 2005, many of Warhol's original films have again been made available through DVD distribution.

Filmography

  • Blow Job (film)|Blow Job (1963)
  • Eat (film)|Eat (1963)
  • Haircut (film)|Haircut (1963)
  • Kiss (film, 1963)|Kiss (1963)
  • Naomi's Birthday Party (1963)
  • Sleep (film)|Sleep (1963)
  • 13 Most Beautiful Women (1964)
  • Batman Dracula (1964)
  • Clockwork (film)|Clockwork (1964)
  • Couch (film, 1964)|Couch (1964)
  • Drunk (film)|Drunk (1964)
  • Empire (1964 film)|Empire (1964)
  • The End of Dawn (1964)
  • Lips (film)|Lips (1964)
  • Mario Banana I (1964)
  • Mario Banana II (1964)
  • Messy Lives (1964)
  • Naomi and Rufus Kiss (1964)
  • Tarzan and Jane Regained... Sort of (1964)
  • The Thirteen Most Beautiful Boys (1964)
  • Beauty No. 2|Beauty #2 (1965)
  • Bitch (film)|Bitch (1965)
  • Camp (1965 film)|Camp (1965)
  • Harlot (film)|Harlot (1965)
  • Horse (film)|Horse (1965)
  • Kitchen (film)|Kitchen (1965)
  • The Life of Juanita Castro (1965)
  • My Hustler (1965)
  • Poor Little Rich Girl (1965)
  • Restaurant (film)|Restaurant (1965)
  • Space (film)|Space (1965)
  • Taylor Mead's Ass (1965)
  • Vinyl (1965 film)|Vinyl' (1965)
  • Screen Test (film)|Screen Test (1965)
  • Screen Test No. 2|Screen Test #2 (1965)
  • Ari and Mario (1966)
  • Hedy (film) (1966)
  • Kiss the Boot (1966)
  • Milk (film)|Milk (1966)
  • Salvador Dalí (film)|Salvador Dalí (1966)
  • Shower (film)|Shower]] (1966)
  • Sunset (Warhol film)|Sunset (1966)
  • Superboy (film)|Superboy (1966)
  • The Closet (1966 film)|The Closet (1966)
  • Chelsea Girls (1966)
  • The Beard (film) (1966)
  • More Milk, Yvette (1966)
  • Outer and Inner Space (1966)
  • The Velvet Underground and Nico (film)|The Velvet Underground and Nico (1966)
  • The Andy Warhol Story (1967)
  • Tiger Morse (1967)
  • Sucking Lukes Hairy Asshole (1967)
  • **** (film)|**** (1967)
  • Imitation of Christ (film)|The Imitation of Christ (1967)
  • The Nude Restaurant (1967)
  • Bike Boy (1967)
  • I, a Man (1967)
  • San Diego Surf (1968)
  • The Loves of Ondine (1968)
  • Blue Movie (1969)
  • Lonesome Cowboys (1969)
  • L'Amour (1972)
  • Flesh for Frankenstein (1973)
    aka Andy Warhol's Frankenstein (USA)
  • Blood for Dracula (1974)
    aka Andy Warhol's Dracula (USA)

Music

Warhol was highly adept designing album covers and his talents remained sought after for most of his career. He designed the cover art for two albums of The Rolling Stones, Sticky Fingers (1971) and Love you Live (1977). Mick Jagger was so impressed that he commissioned several portraits of himself in 1975.

Warhol was good friends with Bob Dylan and John Lennon, designing Lennon's album Menlove Avenue (released posthumously). While at the same time, Warhol's production company produced music videos for two hits by the Cars, Hello Again and Misfit.

Wanting to experience even more in the music industry, Warhol took the band Velvet Underground and made them one of his projects. Trying his had as a music producer for the band's first album The Velvet Underground and Nico, his "producing" simply boiled down to the fact that he paid for the studio time it took to record the album. The team fell apart after the album's release, when Lou Reed, the band leader, and Warhol disagreed about the band's future. Incidently, Warhol designed the cover art for the album.

Warhol's influence was felt by various artists of the new wave/punk rock era, including the band Devo and David Bowei—who's song, "Andy WArhol" was composed for his 1971 album, Hunky Dory.

File:25 Cats.jpg
Cover of copy no. 18 of 25 Cats Name (sic) Sam and One Blue Pussy by Andy Warhol given in 1954 to Edgar de Evia and Robert Denning when the author was a guest in their home in the Rhinelander Mansion.

Books and print

Beginning in the early 1950s Warhol produced several unbound portfolios of his work.

The first of several bound self-published books by Warhol was 25 Cats Name Sam and One Blue Pussy, printed in 1954 by Seymour Berlin on Art ches brand watermarked paper using his blotted line technique for the lithographs. The original edition was limited to 190 numbered, hand colored copies, using Dr. Martin's ink washes. Most of these were given by Warhol as gifts to clients and friends. Copy #4, inscribed "Jerry" on the front cover, was given to Geraldine Stutz, who at the time was with I. Miller Shoes. Later the president of Henri Bendel and then while head of Panache Press an imprint of Random House she used this copy for a facsimile printing in 1987.[1] Her estate consigned the original limited edition to Doyle New York where it sold in May of 2006 for US $35,000.[2]

Other self-published books by Warhol include:

  • Gold Book
  • Wild Rasberries
  • Holy Cats

Later Warhol "wrote" several books that were commercially printed.

  • 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 based on daily phone conversations, sometimes (when Warhol was traveling) using audio cassettes that Andy Warhol gave her. Said cassettes contained conversations with Brigid Berlin (also known as 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, although it soon evolved to include his personal and cultural observations.

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 that artist hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is known as being the largest American art museum dedicated to a single artist. It houses more than 12,000 works by Andy Warhol.

Another notable museum is the Warhol Family Museum of Modern Art, founded by John Warhol, Andy's brother, and the Warhol Foundation in New York in 1992. The museum is in Medzilaborce, Slovakia, located 15 kilometers away from the village of Mikova (where Andy's parent's were born). The museum houses several original paintings that were donated by the Andy Warhol Foundation in New York, as well as personal items donated by Warhol's relatives.

Films portraying Warhol

  • Crispin Glover portray's Warhol in the 1991 film The Doors (film)|The Doors, directed by Oliver Stone.
  • Julian Schnabel's film Basquiat features David Bowie representing Warhol.
  • In 1996, Mary Harron's film I Shot Andy Warhol the artist was portrayed by the actor Jared Harris.
  • Sean Gregory Sullivan depicted Warhol in the film 54 (1998).
  • Guy Pearce portrays the artist in the 2006 film Factory Girl.
  • Andy Warhol: A Documentary Film is the 2006 four-hour biorgaphical movie by Ric Burns about Andy Warhol.

Notes

  1. "Art", by John Russell, December 6, 1987, New York Times
  2. May 3, 2006 auction at Doyle New York retrieved August 14, 2006

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

  • Angell, Callie (2006). Andy Warhol Screen Tests: The Films of Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonne, Volume One (Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonnee). New York: Henry Abrams. 
  • Jennifer Doyle, Jonathan Flatley, and José Esteban Muñoz eds. (1996). Pop Out: Queer Warhol. Durham: Duke University Press.
  • Guiles, Fred Lawrence (1989). Lover at the Ball: The Life of Andy Warhol. New York: Bantam. 
  • Koestenbaum, Wayne (2003). Andy Warhol. New York: Penguin. 
  • Meyer, Richard (2003). Outlaw Representation. Beacon. 
  • Watson, Steven (2003). Factory Made: Warhol and the Sixties. New York: Pantheon. 
  • Bockris, Victor (1997). Warhol: The Biography. New York: Da Capo Press. 
  • Colacello, Bob (1990). Holy Terror: Andy Warhol Close Up. New York: HarperCollins. 
  • Daggett Dillenberger, Jane (2001). The Religious Art of Andy Warhol. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group. 
  • Yau, John (1993). In the Realm of Appearances: The Art of Andy Warhol. 

See also

  • Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board
  • Painting the Century 101 Portrait Masterpieces 1900-2000
  • Andy Warhol Gallery largest single artist gallery in the world. Part of the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh.
  • Andy Warhol Bridge in Pittsburgh.
  • Bodley Gallery

External links

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