Born On This Day- August 6th... Andy Warhol I remember quite well, my parents shaking their heads & saying- that is not art... it is a painting of a soup can!, when I expressed my appreciation for the work of Andy Warhol at a young age. The point of the matter was, I really got him, even at age 8... or especially at age 8. Andy Warhol was the subject of much scorn & derision from the critics, the public & my parents, & I know that my favorite painter in the world, Stephen ODonnell, is not a fan, but Warhol is arguably the most important artist of the 20th century. Andrew Warhola, the Pope of Pop, embraced pop art, fascinated with the commercialism of popular icons in media & in everyday life. Warhol helped to shape pop culture & foresaw society’s fascination with the media to the extreme extent to which it is now accessible at the touch of the button, 24/7. Claiming that each individual would have his or her 15 minutes of fame, Warhol would certainly not be surprised by the popularity of such venues as YouTube, MP3s, American Idol, The Facebook, Reality TV, or Kardashians. A master & practitioner of multiple creative forms of expression, Warhol was a painter, writer, music producer, avant-garde filmmaker, magazine creator, sculptor, & photographer. Focusing on diverse & contrasting interests all at once, he was fascinated with all forms of media, a blurring of gender identities, & the contrast between a sense of celebrity & privacy. He was a ground breaker in the idea of self as product. He even set up his studio as The Factory, overseeing a staff that turned out prints, silkscreens & products of his work. He was still a remarkable & transcendent artist & a commanding craftsman. The Husband & I once saw an enchanting exhibit of his commercial drawings from the early 1950s, mostly of ladies shoes & flowers, produced for advertising. These works predated his huge fame, but the essence of what he was to bring was already there. I have a lot of material by & about him, including the very readable ANDY WARHOL’S DIARIES where he writes about his relationships with several men. His longtime lover was interior designer Jed Johnson. I saw him at Studio One in the summer of 1976. I didn’t dare approach him, even fortified by Quaaludes, but I slipped him a mash note written on a cocktail napkin via a bartender. Around that time, Warhol began saving ephemera from his daily life: correspondence, newspapers, souvenirs, childhood objects, even used plane tickets & food—which was sealed in plain cardboard boxes dubbed: Time Capsules. By the time of his death, the collection grew to include 600, individually dated capsules. The boxes are now housed at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburg. I would like to think my note is included in a box marked- EARLY SEPTEMBER 1976. Warhol has been portrayed on screen by Crispin Glover, Jared Harris, Guy Pearce, & most effetely by David Bowie in Julian Schnabels film BASQUIAT (1996). My friend Gus Van Sant was planning a version of Warhols life with River Phoenix in the lead role just before Phoenixs death in 1993. Warhol died after successful gall bladder surgery from a heart arrhythmia in 1987. Johnson died in the TWA flight 800 explosion off the coast of Long Island in 1996. Neither of them left me anything in their estates, even though they were world-class collectors of American Art Pottery. Still, Warhol remains one of my favorite people ever. An artist is somebody who produces things that people dont need to have.
Posted on: Wed, 06 Aug 2014 16:00:28 +0000
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