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Andy
Warhol
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Andy Warhol
(August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987),
Andy was an
American artist, avant-garde filmmaker, writer and social figure.
Warhol also worked as a (magazine) publisher, music producer and actor.
With his background and experience in commercial art,
Warhol was one of the founders of the Pop Art movement in the United
States in the 1950s.
Warhol is best known for his extremely simple,
larger-than-life, high-contrast color paintings (silk-screen prints)
of packaged consumer products, everyday objects -
such as Campbell's Soup, poppy flowers and the banana appearing on
the cover of
the rock music album The Velvet Underground and Nico (1967) -
and for his stylized portraits of twentieth century celebrity icons
-
such as Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis,
Judy Garland, and Elizabeth Taylor.
Outside the art world, Warhol is best known
for the quotation
"In the future everyone will be famous
for 15 minutes."
He later told reporters, "My new line is,
'In fifteen minutes, everybody will be famous'".
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Andy
Warhol and Members of the Factory (1969)
(photo: Cecil Beaton)
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Warhol's Sexuality
Andy Warhol was homosexual, and in The Warhol Diaries writes openly
about his relationships with several men.
However, early in his career he occasionally implied to the press that
he had girlfriends,
including a (possibly fictitious) girl he called "Taxi" who
allegedly went for long periods without bathing.
Warhol was gay in an era when America was much less informed about homosexual
culture,
and gay men such as Liberace and Paul Lynde were generally accepted
as simply being dandies.
Gay themes in Warhol's work were often overlooked by a public oblivious
to the symbolism of drag queens,
cowboys and the other icons and clichés of gay culture that frequently
appeared in his work.
On the occasions Warhol was publicly pressed about his sexuality, he
was often playfully evasive.
He often claimed to have little libido,
and those who knew him have said that being
hugged or otherwise touched made him quite uncomfortable.
Warhol's psycho logical and sexual attributes probably influenced his
artisitic ambition and directions.
A New York Times observer wrote recently,
"As a child, Warhol fixated on Shirley Temple and dreamed of being
her."
Years
later, a newcomer in New York, Warhol became obsessed with the young
Truman Capote
after recognizing a kindred spirit from the notorious,
fey portrait on the jacket of his first published novel, 'Other Voices,
Other Rooms.'
For a while, Warhol even stalked Capote, who rejected his overtures
of friendship.
"With his blotched skin, bulbous nose and early hair loss (concealed
under a series of bad wigs),
Warhol regarded himself as a physical freak and hated to be touched.
He was essentially a voyeur with a voracious appetite for fame."
A Portrait of the Artist as a Visionary, a Voyeur
and a Brand-Name Star
by Stephen Holden,
New York Times, September 1, 2006
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Richard
Avedon (United States of America born 1923)
Andy Warhol, artist, New York City 1969
printed 1975
gelatin silver photograph
25.0 x 20.1 cm
Collection of the National Gallery of Australia
Purchased 1981
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Socialite
& Recluse
Warhol used to socialize at Serendipity 3 and Studio 54,
nightspots in New York City.
He was generally regarded as quiet, shy and as a meticulous observer.
More than one person jokingly referred to him as "death warmed
over."
Warhol regularly volunteered at homeless shelters in New York,
particularly during the busier times of the year.
He described himself as a religious person,
though he was not fully accepted by religion because of his homosexuality.
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.
In 1968, Warhol
was shot in the chest by Valerie Solanas.
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, 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.
Solanas had received the gun in exchange for a stolen Warhol painting
from artist David Horvitz.
To this day, Horvitz has refused to return the painting, claiming
that he had received it in a fair exchange.
Warhol adopted
the band the Velvet Underground as one of his projects in the 1960s,
"producing" their first album The Velvet Underground and
Nico
(his actual participation in the album's production amounted to simply
paying for the studio time)
as well as providing the album art.
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.
Warhol
also designed the cover art for The Rolling Stones album Sticky Fingers,
released in 1971.
Four years later, Warhol would be 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 Velvet Underground
alumnus John Cale.
On Drella, Reed apologizes and comes to terms with his part in their
conflict.
Warhol was also friendly with many musicians, including Bob Dylan
and John Lennon,
and he 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 had a crush on Duran Duran's Nick Rhodes, with whom he met fairly
often.
Warhol strongly influenced the new wave/punk rock band Devo.
The
Andy Warhol Foundation
Andy
Warhol Gallery
418 west 15th street
New York, NY 10011
(212) 871 6700 (212)871 6983
Andy
Warhol Quotes
+ The most beautiful
thing in Tokyo is McDonald's.
The most beautiful things in Stockholm is McDonald's.
Peking and Moscow don't have anything beautiful yet.
+ I love Los Angeles. I love Hollywood. They're beautiful.
Everybody's plastic, but I love plastic. I want to be plastic.
"I am a deeply superficial person."
"Even beauties can be unattractive.
If you catch a beauty in the wrong light at the right time, forget
it.
I believe in low lights and trick mirrors. I believe in plastic surgery."
"Art is what you can get away with."
"They
always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them
yourself."
+ Making money is art and working is art and good business is the
best art.
+ Being born is like being kidnapped. And then sold into slavery.
+ Death means a lot of money, honey. Death can really make you look
like a star.
+ Fantasy love is much better than reality love.
Never doing it is very exciting.
The most exciting attractions are between two opposites that never
meet.
+ Why do people think artists are special? It's just another job.
+ I have Social Disease. I have to go out every night.
If I stay home one night I start spreading rumors to my dogs.
+
Don't pay any attention to what they write about you. Just measure
it in inches.
+ I suppose I have a really loose interpretation of 'work',
because I think that just being alive is so much work at something
you don't always want to do.
+ I really do live for the future, because when I'm eating a box of
candy, I can't wait to taste the last piece.
+ It's the movies that have really been running things in America
ever since they were invented.
They show you what to do, how to do it, when to do it, how to feel
about it, and how to look how you feel about it.
+ When I got my first television set, I stopped caring so much about
having close relationships.
+
My instinct about painting says, 'if you don't think about it, it's
right.'
As soon as you have to decide and choose, it's wrong.
And the more you decide about, the more wrong it gets.
+ If you want to know all about Andy Warhol,
just look at the surface of my paintings and films and me, there I
am. There's nothing behind it.
+ I'm the type who'd be happy not going anywhere as long as I was
sure
I knew exactly what was happening at the places I wasn't going to.
I'm the type who'd like to sit home and watch every party that I'm
invited to on a monitor in my bedroom.
+ A lady friend of mine asked me,
"Well, what do you love most?"
That's how I started painting money.
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