Andy Warhol, a retrospective :Andy Warhol, a retrospective :[brochure] the Museum of Modern Art,[brochure] the Museum of Modern Art,New York, February 6 to May 2, 1989New York, February 6 to May 2, 1989[contributors: John G. Hanhardt ... et al.][contributors: John G. Hanhardt ... et al.]

Date

1989

Publisher

The Museum of Modern Art

Exhibition URL

www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/1815

The Museum of Modern Art's exhibition history—

from our founding in 1929 to the present—is

available online. It includes exhibition catalogues,

primary documents, installation views, and an

index of participating artists.

© 2017 The Museum of Modern ArtMoMA

7 never read, I just look at pictures. " — AndyWarhol

*THE MODERN STAR*The Museum of Modern Art, New York February 6 to May 2, 1989

ANDY WARHOLA RETROSPECTIVE

"My paintings

never turn out

the way I

expect them to

but I'm never

surprised. — Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol. Photo-Booth Self-Portrait, c. 1964. Two gelatin-silver prints.Collection Robert Mapplethorpe. Photo: Kate Keller.

The exhibition Andy Warhol: A Retrospective has been supported by a generous grant from Knoll International.

Additional funding has been provided by the Henry J. and Drue Heinz Foundation. The International Council ofThe Museum of Modern Art. and the National Endowment for the Arts. An indemnity for the exhibition hasbeen received from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.

This publication was printed by The Star-Ledger, Newark. New Jersey.

Page 2

IN BRIEF : ANDY WARHOL

The Modern Star

1928

August 6, born AndrewWarhola, in Pittsburgh.

1934-35

From about the age of six,Warhol collects autographed photographs ofmovie stars.

1945-48

Fall, enters Carnegie Institute of Technology,where he majors in pictorial design.

Sometime during his college years he begins toexperiment with theblotted-line technique.

1949

Graduates from CarnegieInstitute of Technology,moves to New York, andstarts working as a commercial artist.

During his commercialcareer Warhol works forVogue, Seventeen, The NewYorker, Harper's Bazaar,Tiffany & Co., BergdorfGoodman, BonwitTeller, I. Miller, and otherconcerns, creating advertisements, window displays, stationery, bookjackets, and record covers.

1953

Begins to make paintingsincorporating lines thatlook similar to those in hisblotted-line drawings.

1954

First exhibition: Warhol,Loft Gallery, New York(crumpled, marbleizedpaper pieces on the floor).

A.* . SSS23

rst-T

IhiSm.

Andy Warhol. Untitled, c. 1955.

Ink on paper. The Estate of

Andy Warhol. Photo: Kate Keller.

1956

Makes "personality"shoes: gold-leaf collagesof shoes decorated to capture the personalities of famous people.

Exhibitions : Drawings fora Boy-Book by Andy Warhol, Bodley Gallery, NewYork; and Andy Warhol:The Golden Slipper Showor Shoes Shoe in America,Bodley Gallery, New York.

Andy Warhol. Journal American.

1960. Ink on paper. Dia Art

Foundation, New York. Courtesy

The Menil Collection, Houston.

1957

Exhibition: A Show ofGolden Pictures by AndyWarhol, Bodley Gallery,New York.

1960

Paints his first canvasesdepicting comic-stripcharacters: Batman,Nancy, Saturday's Pop-eye, Superman, and DickTracy. Also paints firstAds and Coca-Colas.

1961

Newspaper Front Pages.

April, displays the paintings Advertisement, Before and After, Little King,Saturday's Popeye, andSuperman as backgroundfor mannequins in the window of Bonwit Teller.

1962

Campbell's Soup Cans,Disasters, Do It Yourselfs,Elvises, and Marilyns.First silkscreens on canvas: Baseball, Warren, asmall Dollar Bill, and TroyDonahue. Uses rubberstamps for 5 & H GreenStamps and Red AirmailStamps.

Exhibitions: Campbell'sSoup Cans, Ferus Gallery,Los Angeles; and AndyWarhol, Stable Gallery,New York (Coca-Colas,Dance Diagrams, Disasters, Do It Yourselfs, Handle with Care — Glass —Thank You, Marilyns, awork based on a match-book cover, Red Elvis).

1963

Electric Chairs, RaceRiots.

Buys 16mm movie cameraand shoots his first film,Sleep. Also films AndyWarhol Films Jack SmithFilming "Normal Love,"Blow Job, Eat, Haircut,Kiss, and Tarzan and JaneRegained. . .Sort Of.

1964

Flowers, Most WantedMen, Self-Portraits,Boxes (Brillo Boxes,Campbell's Soup Boxes,Del Monte Boxes, HeinzBoxes, Kellogg's Cornflake Boxes, Mott's AppleJuice Boxes).

Makes films Couch, Empire, Harlot, Henry Geld-zahler, Taylor Mead's Ass,The Thirteen Most Beautiful Boys, and The ThirteenMost Beautiful Women.

Is commissioned to make awork for the New YorkState Pavilion at the NewYork World's Fair. Makes

Begins to produce multimedia presentations,called the Erupting (laterchanged to Exploding)Plastic Inevitable, featuring Nico and the VelvetUnderground. Theseevents include live music,dance, and monologues bythe band and other Factoryperformers against a backdrop of Warhol's films.

Exhibitions : Warhol, GianEnzo Sperone, Turin;Andy Warhol, Leo CastelliGallery, New York (CowWallpaper and SilverClouds); Andy WarholHoly Cow! Silver Clouds!!

1

Andy Warhol at home with his mother, 1966. Photo :<

Courtesy Archive Pictures, Inc.

Ken Hey man.

Thirteen Most WantedMen, which is hung on thefacade of the building.Fair officials feel it is politically charged and askWarhol's permission topaint over it.

Exhibitions: Warhol, Ga-lerie Ileana Sonnabend,Paris, (Disasters); Warhol, Stable Gallery, NewYork (Boxes); and AndyWarhol, Leo Castelli Gallery, New York, (Flowers).

1965

Colored Campbell's SoupCans, Electric Chairs.

Films Beauty #2, Hedy,Horse, Kitchen, The Lifeof Juanita Castro, Lupe,More Milk Yvette, MyHustler, Poor Little RichGirl, Screen Test #7,Screen Test #2, Suicide,Paul Swan, and Vinyl.

In Paris Warhol announceshis intention to "retire"from painting and to focuson filmmaking.

1966

Self-Portraits, Cow Wallpaper, Silver Clouds.

Films Bufferin, The Chelsea Girls, Eating TooFast, ****, and The Velvet

Underground and Nico .

Holy Cow!, Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati; Andy Warhol, Institute of ContemporaryArt, Boston; and FerusGallery, Los Angeles.

1967

Electric Chairs.

Continues to film ****and begins filming BikeBoy; I, a Man; LonesomeCowboys; The Loves ofOndine; and Nude Restaurant.

Exhibitions: Kiihe undSchwebende Kissen vonAndy Warhol, Galerie Rudolf Zwirner, Cologne;Andy Warhol Most Wanted, Galerie Rudolf Zwirner, Cologne; Andy Warhol—The Thirteen MostWanted Men, Galerie IleanaSonnabend, Paris.

Group exhibition: Expo-'67, Montreal, UnitedStates Pavilion (Self-Portraits).

1968

Films Blue Movie andFlesh.

June 3, Valerie Solanis,founder and sole memberof S.C.U.M. (Society forCutting Up Men), shootsWarhol at the Factory.

Andy Warhol. Liza Minnelli. 1978. Silkscreen ink on synthetic

polymer paint on canvas. Dia Art Foundation, New York.

Courtesy The Menil Collection, Houston. Photo: Carl Picco.

Exhibitions: Andy Warhol, ModernaMuseet, Stockholm, and KunstnernesHus, Oslo; and Andy Warhol, Rowan Gallery, London (Most Wanted Menand Marilyn prints).

1969

Makes the film Trash.

Exhibition: Andy Warhol,Nationalgalerie andDeutsche Gesellschaft furBildende Kunst, Berlin.

1970

Exhibition: Andy Warhol,Pasadena Art Museum(also seen at Museum ofContemporary Art, Chicago; Stedelijk Van AbbeMuseum, Eindhoven, TheNetherlands; Musee d'ArtModerne de la Ville deParis; Tate Gallery, London; and Whitney Museum of American Art,New York).

1971

Exhibitions: Andy Warhol, Cenobio-Visualita,Milan; Andy Warhol:His Early Works, 1947-1959, Gotham Book MartGallery, New York; andAndy Warhol, Musee d'ArtModerne de la Ville de Paris.

Andy Warhol. Mao. 1972.Synthetic polymer paint and

silkscreen ink on canvas. Dia

Art Foundation, New York.Courtesy The Menil Collection,

Houston. Photo: Jon Abbott.

1972

Maos.

Films Heat, Women in

Revolt.

1974

Films Andy Warhol's Frankenstein and Andy Warhol'sDracula.

1975

Publishes The Philosophyof Andy Warhol (From A toB and Back Again).

1976

Skulls.

1977

Athletes, Hammer andSickles, Torsos.

Films Andy Warhol's Bad.

1978

Oxidations, Shadows.

1979

Retrospectives, Reversals.

Publishes Andy Warhol'sExposures, a book of photographs.

Exhibition : Andy Warhol :Portraits of the 70s, Whitney Museum of AmericanArt, New York.

1980

Joseph Beuyses, DiamondDust Shoes.

Publishes POPism : TheWarhol '60s with PatHackett.

1981

Crosses, Dollar Signs, Guns,Knives, Myths.

1982

Goethes, Stadiums.

1984

Munchs, Rorschachs.

Collaborates on paintingswith Jean-Michel Basquiatand Francesco Clemente.

1985

Publishes America.

1986

Camouflages, Cars, Self-Portraits.

1987

Last Suppers.

Begins work on The History of American TV.

February 22, dies.

The Museum of Modern Art Library

The Modern Star

ANDY WARHOL: A RETROSPECTIVEOpens at The Museum of Modern Art !

Andy Warhol: A Retrospective, the firstfull-scale exhibition of the work of thePop artist, features many examples ofhis art that have never been shown before. The show spans Warhol's entirecareer from the early designs of the fifties to his last paintings of the eighties.The exhibition is arranged according tothemes that occur in his work : celebrityportraits (Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, and Jackie Kennedy, for example),Disasters (Car Crash, Electric Chair),Campbell's Soup Cans, Flowers, Maos,and more. Also on view are many of

the Self-Portraits made throughout hislife, numerous drawings, and the mostredent works made just before his deathin 1987.

One of the best-known figures ofour times, Andy Warhol was a celebrity,and his paintings were enjoyed by a vastpublic. His art focused on the visiblefacts of contemporary American life,reflecting what was often disregarded orignored, and illuminating what was notyet commonly perceived. Regardless ofany feelings prompted by a particularsubject, Warhol processed his visual observations through his unique aesthetic,maintaining a cool unwavering emotional detachment. His familiar imagesare derived from newspapers, magazines, and television, but on the canvas,they are isolated and treated as objects.

Andy Warhol. Photo: © Ken Hey man. CourtesyArchive Pictures, Inc.

A prolific artist, Warhol workedinventively in many mediums. In thesummer of 1965, he announced his "retirement" from painting in order to concentrate on films. He began paintingintensively again in 1972, beginningwith the Mao images. In the following

"I've made a career out of being the right thing in thewrong space and the wrong thing in the right space.That's one thing I really do know about." - w.

Born in 1928, Warhol came to NewYork after graduating from Carnegie Institute of Technology and quicklyachieved notable success as a commercial artist. When he began to paint,about 1960, he adapted the look andtechniques of his advertising work to thecanvas. Along with a number of otherartists — Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg, andJames Rosenquist — Warhol becameknown as a Pop artist, challenging thevalues and philosophies of the previousgeneration of Abstract Expressionists.In contrast to the Abstract Expressionistartists emphasis on individual expression and the large-scale gesture, theseartists responded to the specific urbanenvironment: they took account of themost mundane facts of daily lifein America — how ordinary thingslooked, and how most information wastransmitted. As Warhol observed: "ThePop artists did images that anybodywalking down Broadway could recognize in a split second — comics, picnictables, men's trousers, celebrities,shower curtains, refrigerators, Cokebottles — all the great modern things

that the Abstract Expressionists tried sohard not to notice at all."

years, Warhol continued to execute fiftyto one hundred commissioned portraitseach year until his death, produced several new series, and began collaborativeprojects with younger artists.

Organized by Kynaston McShine,Senior Curator of Painting and Sculpture at The Museum of Modern Art, thisexhibition brings together Warhol's entire body of work for the first time andshould be on every museum-goer's list.

Andy Warhol. Heinz Box (Tomato Ketchup).

1964. Silkscreen ink on wood. The Estate ofAndy Warhol.

'# never wanted to be a painter. I wanted to be a tap-dancer.

—Andy Warhol

*****

Andy Warhol. The Six Marilyns (Marilyn Six-Pack). 1962. Silkscreen ink on synthetic polymer paint oa*canvas. Collection Emily and Jerry Spiegel.

Page 4 *

Serial Imagery Seen inWarhol RetrospectiveMany artists have made use of serial imagery, but few with the variety, originality, and range of effect achieved byAndy Warhol. The term serial imagerycan refer either to a group of artworksconceived as a series or to the repeatedor sequential use of similar or identicalunits within a single artwork. AlthoughWarhol often worked within the contextof the series, his achievement in serialform is mostly to be seen in a range ofindividual works.

1 ¥g i 3B i,K».

i HI* SIt 1 1 i i

Warhol's works in series run thegamut from the narrowly defined seriesof thirty-two Campbell' s Soup Cans,1962 (the number of which was determined simply by the varieties of Campbell's soup available), to the Flowersand Maos, all of which seem limitlessand, when installed by Warhol, createan environment that transcends thespecificity of the group.

The range of effects and meaningsimplied by Warhol's use of serial image

TAJ*' j. : W55** \ "v I

!

i J !

8 i

ry in individual works is impressive.The first works in which a single imageis repeated are the Airmail and S & HGreen Stamps and Dollar Bill paintingsof 1962. They are among Warhol's firstpaintings made by means of thesilkscreen process. Not unlike the Flagsand Targets of Jasper Johns, these worksreplicate real things which themselvesact as stand-ins for other things.

Later in 1962, Warhol began to usesilkscreens treated with a photosensitivelayer so that he could transfer photographic images onto the canvas. Pulledfrom various sources, the photographbecame Warhol's primary unit of form.

It is perhaps in the area of portraiture that Warhol brings to his art hismost inventive and varied use of serialform. In the portrait of Natalie Wood, asingle image of the young starlet's faceis screened in black ink onto a bare

"I like boring things. I like

things to be the same

Over and Over."— Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol. Campbell's Soup Cans. 1962. Synthetic polymerplint on canvas; thirty-two works.

Collection Irving Blum, New York.

7 don't think I have an image , favorable or unfavorable ."

— Andy Warhol

white canvas forty-eight times in sixparallel rows. Texture and movementare suggested both by the varying densities of ink and by the overlap or spaceleft between each image. The overall ef-

ON THE SURFACE'If you want to know all about AndyWarhol, just look at the surface: of mypaintings and films and me, and there Iam. There's nothing behind it."

This often-repeated statement by theartist has been interpreted as evidenceof Warhol's emptiness and superficiality. In fact, it informs us that thework itself provides all the clues to itsmeaning and suggests that we look carefully and consider his methods of making art.

The irregular blotted line that sustained so much of his design work of thefifties was discovered when, as a student, he used blotting paper on an inkdrawing. Warhol preferred the delicatehesitancy and chance breaks of thetransferred imprint to the original, andthe accidental discovery became a technique. The drawing was generally madefirst in pencil on a nonabsorbent paper,hinged to a more absorbent sheet. Aftereach section of the drawing was retracedin India ink, the sheets were pressed to

gether, so that the ink was transferred tothe heavier paper.

Warhol employed a variation of theblotted-line method for his later work.

7 tried doing them by

hand, but I find it easier

to use a screen. This way,

I don't have to work on

my objects at all. One of

my assistants or anyone

else, for that matter, can

reproduce the design

as well as I could."

— Andy Warhol

To establish the outlines of the image (aCampbell's Soup Can for instance) hetransferred a single pencil tracing to thecanvas by rubbing the other side of thepaper. Soon after, it occurred to him thata hand-cut silkscreen would be more effective. The silkscreen is an elaboratestencil widely used in commercial print

ing but, at the time, rarely employed byartists. In the process, silk or a syntheticfabric is stretched tightly across a frameand covered with thick glue or varnish,which is allowed to harden. The artistcuts a design into the surface, and ink isthen pushed through the fabric where itis not blocked.

By August 1962 Warhol had progressed from hand-cut screens to continuous-tone screens produced commercially from black-and-white photographs. When a screen coated withlight-sensitive material is exposed tolight, the coated areas harden, selectively blocking the screen to let inkthrough in a pattern of tiny dots. For himthe process provided a means to appropriate an existing image directly, with aslittle interference as possible. Silk-screening eliminated evidence of theartist's hand, allowed for infinite reproductions, and was especially appealingto Warhol for its mechanized look.

Photography and silkscreen printing continued to be central to Warhol'sart, and his techniques at times weredazzling in their complexity. Ironically,while the results appear effortless,Warhol worked hard to disguise hisartistry.

The Modern Star

Andy Warhol. The American Man — WatsonPowell. 1964. Silkscreen ink on synthetic

polymer paint on canvas; thirty-two panels.

Collection American Republic Insurance

Company, Des Moines.

feet is an image of a movie star, ubiquitous yet elusive; it also says somethingabout the artificial late-twentieth-century notions of stardom and celebrity.

The impact of movie stardom infiltrates Warhol's portraits of the less famous, as for example in his portrait ofthe Pop art collector Ethel Scull. Insteadof repeating the same image many timeson one canvas, here Warhol joins thirty-six canvases with different images ofthe same person. As in his portraits ofcelebrities, the photographs used werenot taken by the artist, but in a standard,mechanical photo booth. Thus the sitterplays a large role in the making ofWarhol's portrait. The result is a tour deforce of compositional skill, for ten ofthe thirty-six panels are actually repeatsof others, some are reversed, and someshow the image cropped in a new way.The dime-store colors used for each

"But when you see a

gruesome picture over

and over again, it doesn't

really have any effect."

— Andy Warhol

panel further enhance the overall sophistication of the picture.

In contrast to the seemingly endless variety of the Scull portrait is the1964 portrait of Watson Powell, thenpresident of an insurance company inDes Moines, Iowa. His image is repeated thirty-two times with slight variation in color only. Titled The AmericanMan — Watson Powell, the pictureseems to gently ridicule the rigidity ofAmerican corporate culture.

Another level of meaning is suggested in Warhol's treatment of the pho-

The Modern Star Page 5

ENQUIRING REPORTER

Andy Warhol. Jackie (The Week That Was). 1963. Silkscreen ink on synthetic polymer paint on canvas;

sixteen panels. Collection Mrs. Raymond Goetz. Photo : John Blumb.

tographic image in a portrait of thedancer Merce Cunningham, whereWarhol makes reference to the work ofthe nineteenth-century photographerEadweard Muybridge. Famous for hisstudies of human and animal locomotion, Muybridge 's photographs areoften broken into several horizontalbands, each showing bodies in motion atsequential intervals of time. Warhol'ssimilar division of the field and our viewof Cunningham in strict profile is reminiscent of Muybridge's analyses ofmovement.

Andy Warhol. White Burning Car III . 1963.

Silkscreen ink on canvas. Dia Art Foundation,

New York. Courtesy The Menil Collection,

Houston. Photo: Noel Allum.

A similar range of effects is produced by the use of serial imagery inWarhol's Death and Disasters series.Take, for example, the various waysWarhol treats one group of subjects, thecar crash. In White Burning Car III, therepetition of the gory image of destruction produces a numbing response onthe part of the viewer.

Warhol's Portraits and Disastersintersect at many points, but perhapsnowhere else as effectively as in the series based on the assassination of John F.Kennedy in 1963, featuring the president's widow, Jacqueline. In Jackie(The Week That Was) Warhol's multipleimages offer the viewer an obsessive re-enactment, since the actual events hadalready been repeated ad infinitum ontelevision; their inescapable repetitionhad itself become a part of everyone'sconsciousness of that time.

The artist's reaction to the assassination, reported in his book POPism,sheds light both on the work and on hisuse of serial imagery in general: "I'dbeen thrilled having Kennedy as president; he was handsome, young, smart— but it didn't bother me that much thathe was dead. What bothered me was theway the television and radio were programming everybody to feel so sad." Inother words, Warhol used serial imagery not only for its emotional effect butalso to refer to the means employed bythe media to portray the event.

Today's question : What is Pop art?

through things larger thanlife, the impact of thingsthrown at us, at such aspeed and with such aforce that painting andthe attitudes toward painting and communicationthrough doing a paintingnow seem very old-fashioned."

what I can make fromthem. Also I use real objects because I need to useobjects, not because objects need to be used."

Robert Indiana :

'Pop is everything arthasn't been for the last twodecades. It is basically aU-turn back to a representational visual communication, moving at abreakaway speed in several sharp late models Pop is a re-enlistment inthe world. ... It is theAmerican Dream, optimistic, generous and naive."

James Rosenquist :

'I'm amazed and excitedand fascinated about theway things are thrust at us,the way this invisiblescreen that's a couple offeet in front of our mindand our senses is attackedby radio and television andvisual communications,

Tom Wesselmann :

'I dislike labels in generaland Pop in particular, especially because it overemphasizes the materialused. There does seem tobe a tendency to use similar materials and images,but the different ways theyare used denies any kind ofgroup intention.

"Some of the worstthings I've read about PopArt have come from its ad-mirers. They begin tosound like some nostalgiacult — they really worshipMarilyn Monroe or Coca-Cola. The importancepeople attach to things theartist uses is irrelevant Advertising images exciteme mainly because of

Andy Warhol :

'I don't think Pop Art is onthe way out; people arestill going to it and buyingit but I can't tell you whatPop Art is, it's too involved. It's just taking theoutside and putting it onthe inside or taking the inside and putting it on theoutside, bring the ordinaryobjects into the home. PopArt is for everyone. I don'tthink art should be only forthe select few, I think itshould be for the mass ofAmerican people and theyusually accept art anyway.I think Pop Art is a legitimate form of art like anyother, Impressionism, etc.It's not just a put-on. I'mnot the High Priest of PopArt, I'm just one of theworkers in it. I'm neitherbothered by what is written about me or what peo-ple may think of mereading it."

'The interviewer should just tell me the words he wants

me to say and I'll repeat them after him. I think that

would be so great because I'm so empty I just can't

think of anything to say. " —Andy Warhol

Installation of Cow Wallpaper by Andy Warhol at Leo Castelli Gallery, New York , 1966.

Photo: Rudolph Burckhardt. . '.

Page 6 *

The Modern Star

SOCIETY PAGE

Factory, Fame, and Fortune i*

From childhood, Andy Warhol yearnedto be someone else. More than anythinghe wanted to transcend the limitations ofhis immigrant family in rural Pennsylvania, and partake of life in the glamorous America of movies, radio, magazines, and newspapers. Quite simplyput, Warhol wanted most of all what helacked by birth: beauty, wealth, status,or fame. As the writer Truman Capotesaid, "Andy Warhol wanted to be anyone but Andy Warhol."

Constantly fascinated with beautyand stardom, tantalized by the sensa-

In addition to producing a tremendous output of painting and sculpture,such as the Brillo Boxes, Warhol usedthe indigenous chaos of the Factory as asetting for many of his films. He recorded everyday events — sleeping, eating, gossiping, and love-making — andmade them into films. For him it became an alternative to painting, a continual happening of sorts, and Warholassumed the role of impresario anddirector.

Almost anyone who wandered inand out of the Factory was captured on

film. Among the members of Warhol'sentourage who appeared on film wereEdie Sedgwick, Ultra Violet, Viva,Brigid Polk, Joe D'Allesandro, TaylorMead, Ingrid Superstar, Candy Darling,Jackie Curtis, and members of the Velvet Underground.

"In the future everybodywill be world famous forfifteen minutes."

—Andy Warhol

tional accounts of the rich and famouson the screen or in the tabloids, Warholwas preoccupied with celebrities. In thefifties he made drawings of shoes namedafter famous people, which he called

personality" shoes. In the sixties thisobsession was expressed in the serialportraits of Troy Donahue, Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor,and others. Marilyn and Liz were the ultimate embodiment of glamor and fame :intrigued by the tragedy that plaguedtheir lives, Warhol elevated them toiconic images.

"Publicity is like eatingpeanuts. Once you startyou can't Stop."—Andy Warhol

In the seventies Warhol began toaccept numerous commissions for portraits from those generally referred to as

beautiful people." Almost instantlyWarhol was a fixture in the jet-set socialscene, and he relished his fame: "Agood reason to be famous, though, is soyou can read all the big magazines andknow everybody in all the stories. Pageafter page it's just all people you'vemet. I love that kind of reading experience and that's the best reason tobe famous."

Warhol's place in the public eyewas twofold : that of an artist/celebrityand that of an entrepreneur. From hisPop images, which both shock and en

dure, to his unforgettable epigrams,Warhol was one of the most influentialand certainly the most famous artist ofhis time.

By the mid-sixties Warhol began toacquire his own level of celebrity andnotoriety as a Pop artist and culturalfigure. Warhol's studio, known as theFactory, was a legendary hangout forartists, poets, and socialites. There wasa continuous flow of people that provided him with constant stimulation anddialogue. The crowd Warhol attracted tothe Factory was always large and eclectic, and included assistants who workedon his art. \\

Viva, Andy Warhol, and Brigid Polk at Max's Kansas City.

Edie Sedgwick. Photo: Billy Name /Factory Foto.

think we're a vacuumhere at the Factory ;it's great. I like being avacuum; it leaves mealone to work. \Ne

are bothered though , wehave cops coming uphere all the time. Theythink we're doing awfulthings and we aren't."

— Andy Warhol

ss;:. Tayior Mead- un,de"'ified ^ —

The Modern Star * Page 7

ART BOOK DIGEST

Excerpts from "Warhol asArt History," by RobertRosenblum, in Andy Warhol : A Retrospective, published by The Museum ofModern Art.

'Despite his maxim, AndyWarhol's own fame has faroutlasted the fifteen minutes he allotted to everyone else. During the lastquarter-century of his life,from 1962 to" 1987, he hadalready been elevated tothe timeless and spaceless

realm of a fnodern mythology that he himself bothcreated and mirrored. Andnow that he is gone, thevictim of a preposterouslyunnecessary mishap, thefictions of his persona andthe facts of his art stillloom large in some remote, but ever-present,pantheon of twentieth-century deities."

***** *

"For one thing, the subjectmatter of his work, nowthat we are beginning tosee it in full retrospect,

covers so encyclopedic ascope of twentieth-centuryhistory and imagery that,in this alone, it demandsunusual attention. To besure, in the early sixties,his work could be sheltered under the Pop umbrella shared by RoyLichtenstein, James Ro-senquist, Tom Wessel-mann, and others, joiningthese contemporaries inwhat can now be seenmore clearly as an effort tore-Americanize Americanart after a period of Ab

stract Expressionist universal that renounced thespace-time coordinates ofthe contemporary world infavor of some mythic, primordial realm. Within thisdomain, Warhol quicklyemerged as a leader,choosing the grittiest,tackiest, and most commonplace facts of visualpollution in America thatwould make the aesthetesand mythmakers of the fifties cringe in their ivorytowers."

******

"This alone, if only in termsof inventory, would havebeen enough to make himthe king of Pop art. Butwhat is less obvious is howWarhol's initial inventoryof ugly, counter-aestheticAmericana expanded tounexpected dimensions.Looking back at his entireoutput, the sheer range ofhis subjects becomes notonly international (indeeduniversal in its concernwith death) but mind-boggling in its journalisticsweep. What other mod

ern artist's work comes soclose to providing a virtualhistory of the world in thelast quarter-century?"

*** ***

'Both ingenuous andshrewd, blasphemous anddevout, Warhol not onlymanaged to encompass inhis art the most awesomepanorama of the materialworld we all live in, buteven gave us unexpectedglimpses of our new formsof heaven and hell."

Warhol as FilmmakerBy John G. Hanhardt, Special to The Modern Star

At the time of their release, between1963 and 1968, the approximately sixtyFilms produced by Andy Warhol were anintegral part of his art practice andplayed a leading role in shaping hispresence in American culture. To screenthe films of Andy Warhol today, overtwenty years after their production, is torelive another time and place in American culture and social history. The placewas the Factory, a converted factory lofton East 47th Street, Which, from 1960 to1968, was Warhol's production centerand a gathering place for the New Yorkart scene.

The underground world in whichWarhol moved, and for which the Factory became a stage, was a compellingsubject for Warhol's camera. The silver-walled Factory became a place in whichsubculture heroes and transient strangers acted out their fantasies and mingled under the gaze of their mainaudience, that "tycoon of passivity,"Warhol himself. They became part ofWarhol's studio and underground starsystem, modeled on the "Hollywooddream factory" that had created mythsand heroes for twentieth-centuryAmerica.

'The lighting is bad, the

camera ivorfr is bad, the

projection is bad, but the

people are beautiful."

— Andy Warhol

Warhol's films paralleled his art.The camera's mechanical means of reproduction echoed the "production-line" system Warhol used to turn out hispaintings, silkscreens, and sculptures.For all of these mediums the aestheticwas predicated on duplication.

Warhol controlled the entire production process of filmmaking, distribution, and exhibition. Within fiveyears, he had recapitulated the historyof the cinema, as the Factory's filmswent from silent to sound, from the useof a stationary, Fixed-frame, contempla

tive camera to the exploration of a largerfilm space through zooms and pans andlater to editing strategies that includedstrobe effects. Through this "discovery" of film techniques, Warhol constructed narratives that compressed theaction and story within a single scene or

'The Empire State Building

is a Star! " — Andy Warhol

achieved the same compression throughellipses. Both of these devices mirroredthe proto-narrative achievements offilmmakers at the turn of the century.Warhol's later films took on a moreconventional dramatic line, reflectingthe established genres of Hollywood.

The different phases of Warhol'sfilmmaking career encompass a variety of filmmaking techniques. Post-production (editing, rewriting, reshoot-ing) was eliminated in a process thatrecalls the one-reelers produced at theturn of the century by filmmakers who

The Chelsea Girls. 1966. With Eric Emerson

Photo: Billy Name/Factory Foto.

My Hustler. 1965. With Paul America. Photo: Billy Name/Factory Foto.

Ingrid Superstar, International Velvet.

were discovering a new medium. AsWarhol put it: "With Film you just turnon the camera and photograph something. I leave the camera running until itruns out of film because that way I cancatch people being themselves." InWarhol's studio, in the words of authorStephen Koch, "the audience out therebecame part of the scene; everybodyin the Factory knew he was beingwatched, and a glowing, theatrical self-awareness was built into the place'svery life, endowing its most casualactions with a sense of moment. Youcouldn't make a wrong move; every impulse signified" Warhol's 16mm camera was a silent eye that recorded aculture of styles and gestures, of self-created superstars and outrageousscenes — the "cool" lifestyle of thesixties, in which, in Warhol's tellingphrase, everybody was "famous for fifteen minutes." It was a new cinemawhose raw energy became a powerfulpresence in the independent film

community.

Page 8 +

SPECIAL SCREENINGS: THE CHELSEA GIRLS

Wednesday, February 22, 6:30 p.m. Introduced by Jon Gartenberg, Assistant CuratorDepartment of Film, The Museum of Modern Art.

Wednesday, April 5, 6:30 p.m. Introduced by John G. Hanhardt, Curator, Film andVideo Department, Whitney Museum of American Art.

Tickets are $8, Museum Members $7, and students $5, available at the Lobby Information Desk.

FILM SERIES ANNOUNCED

A selection of Andy Warhol's films will be shown at The Museum of Modern Art onTuesdays at 3:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m.

February 7 Sleep, Kiss, EmpireFebruary 14 Eat, Blow JobFebruary 21 Henry GeldzahlerFebruary 28 Vinyl> Beauty #2

^prij 4 The Life of J uanit a Castro, My HustlerPri' 11 Lonesome Cowboys

Tickets, free with Museum admission, are available at the Lobby Information Desk.

SYMPOSIUM TO BE HELD AT MUSEUM

A symposium titled "Reflecting on Warhol" will be held on Thursday, March 16 at6:30 p.m. at the Museum. The moderator will be Walter Hopps, Director, The MenilCollection, Houston. Participants are Trevor Fairbrother, Associate Curator of Contemporary Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Richard Sennett, Professor of Sociology and University Professor of the Humanities, New York University KennethSilver, Associate Professor of Fine Arts, New York University; and Amy Taubin, FilmCritic, 7he Village Voice. Tickets are $8, Museum Members $7, and students $5available at the Lobby Information Desk.

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Andy Warhol. Nancy. 1960. Synthetic polymer paint on canvas.Collection Mr. and Mrs. S.I. Newhouse, Jr.Photo: Jim Strong, Inc.

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Andy Warhol. Crossword. 1960. Synthetic polymer paint on canvas. The Estate of Andy WarholPhoto: Kate Keller.

BOOK NEWS

The Museum has announced the publication of a lavish, authoritative book,Andy Warhol: A Retrospective, to accompany its historic Warhol exhibition.Inside its lively covers are an introduction by Kynaston McShine, illustratedessays by Robert Rosenblum, BeninminH. D. Buchloh, and Marco Livingstone,a collection of Warhol's writings, a portrait of the artist consisting of contributions by his colleagues, a chronology ofhis life, and a selected bibliography.The plate section provides the mostcomprehensive visual review ofWarhol's lifework available in print,with many images in full color. This isthe definitive Warhol book. 480 pages,460 plates (277 in color), 176 referenceillustrations. Clothbound $60, paper-bound $35.'Available in The MuseumStore.

Published on the occasion of the exhibition Andy

Warhol : A Retrospective, organized by Kynaston

McShine, Senior Curator, Department of Paintingand Sculpture, The Museum of Modern Art, NewYork, February 6 - May 2, 1989.

Copyright © 1989 by The Museum of Modern

Art, New York. All Andy Warhol artwork © The

Estate of Andy Warhol. This notice is appearing atthe request of The Estate of Andy Warhol. Allrights reserved.

The Museum of Modern Art11 West 53 Street

New York, New York

Contributors: John G. Hanhardt, Emily Bardack

Kies, Marjorie Frankel Nathanson, Daniel Schul-

man, Jennifer Wells. Design: Jeana Aquadro.

Special thanks to: Lily Auchincloss, Shirley C.

Burden, Robert L. B. Tobin, Cowles CharitableTrust, CTI Industries.