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Andy Warhol News Archive January - June 2008

Andy Warhol
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June 2008

Bibbe Hansen and Sean Carrillo need ten cars

Warhol star Bibbe Hansen (Prison, Restaurant), and her husband Sean Carrillo need ten cars for a performance event at Flux-Fest in Birmingham on June 25, 2008.

Details here.

Lou Reed in person at the Curzon Cinema in London on June 29, 2008

Lou Reed will be at the Curzon Cinema in London on June 29th for a Q & A session with the audience after a preview screening of Julian Schnabel's film, Lou Reed's Berlin, which opens nationwide in the U.K. on July 25, 2008. Reed is currently on a European tour and plays the Royal Albert Hall in London on June 30th.

Lou Reed:

"Without Andy, I probably wouldn't have a career. He was right there saying everything you do is fine; don't let anybody change it and keep it exactly the way it is. And that was Andy Warhol saying that, so that was enough for me, and it's been enough for me up to this day. Andy said it was OK, so it was." (The Big Issue, June 16 - 22, 2008)

Exclusive U.S. showing of Andy Warhol: Other Voices Other Rooms

The Wexner Center in Columbus Ohio will be the only U.S. museum to host the "Andy Warhol: Other Voices Other Rooms" exhibition, previously at the Stedelijk in Amsterdam and the Moderna Museet in Stockholm. A members only preview will take place on September 12, 2008 and the exhibition will open to the public the following day.

The show focuses on Warhol's film and television work, including the early neo-narrative films scripted by Ronald Tavel - Screen Test #2 (with Mario Montez), The Life of Juanita Castro (featuring a drunken Marie Menken and Ultra Violet), Kitchen (with Edie Sedgwick), Vinyl (with Gerard Malanga and Edie Sedgwick) etc... Also included is a section devoted to Warhol's later television programs - Fashion, Andy Warhol's T.V., and Andy Warhol's Fifteen Minutes

Sherri Geldin (director of the Wexner Center):

"Upon visiting this astounding and ingenious exhibition in Amsterdam late last year, I immediately set the wheels in motion to bring it to the Wexner Center. It explores afresh the remarkable legacy of an artist who utterly transformed the cultural landscape of his own time, but also foretold with uncanny prescience today’s media-obsessed society. Given Warhol’s masterful manipulation of virtually every artistic medium, what better place than the multidisciplinary Wexner Center to present this exhibition? And what a spectacular opportunity to see it specially redesigned for the center’s distinctive galleries, which themselves have an almost cinematic character."

Not to be missed.

Retrospective at Gagosian N.Y.

"Retrospective" opens at the Gagosian Gallery in New York on June 20, 2008 and will include work from Andy Warhol's Retrospective Paintings series as well as Jasper Johns' The Seasons and Boîte-en-valise by Marcel Duchamp.

The Warhol Foundation's Art Writers Grant Program begins accepting applications on August 4, 2008.

The Creative Capital/Warhol Foundation's grant program will accept applications for its 2008 art writers' grants from August 4, 2008 to September 22, 2008.

Details here.

Andy Warhol paintings are sold by Sonnabend heirs via Larry Gagosian as part of the "largest private sale in history"

In an article titled "Sonnabend Goes Private," Artinfo.com reports that "In a move that left art market observers flabbergasted, the heirs of the dealer Ileana Sonnabend, who died last October at age 92, sold a portion of her postwar-art collection privately for $600 million. The early April transaction - the largest private sale in history - completely bypassed the major houses just ahead of their big spring evening auctions in New York.... it is understood that two sets of works were involved. One was a group of approximately 10 Warhol paintings that was split between two buyers in an approximately $200 million transaction brokered by the New York überdealer Larry Gagosian."

A written statement prepared by the Gagosian Gallery noted that “The substantial private sales made recently from the Sonnabend collection clearly convey the important message to collectors and institutions that some private galleries, such as Gagosian, can more effectively handle transactions of this scale than their auction counterparts.”

Thomas Hirschhorn on Andy Warhol

The current issue of Art Review (June 2008) features a Thomas HIrschhorn supplement Where do I stand? What do I want? which includes his comments on Andy Warhol under a section titled "My Warhol."

Thomas Hirschhorn:

"I love Andy Warhol and I love the work of Andy Warhol. I love Andy Warhol with an exclusive and egoistic love. It is not respect nor admiration that I have for him and his work, it is love. Andy Warhol dared to say 'yes.' Andy Warhol and Joseph Beuys were my professors, even if I was not in their academies. Thanks to Andy Warhol I discovered the revolutionary work of Stuart Davis.

The first time I saw an artwork by Andy Warhol was in 1978 in the Kunsthaus Zurich. It was the painting 129 die in jet painted in 1962. I felt included, immediately, included in the work of the artist, included in art. This was the first time in my life that art had an impact for me, the first time that I was directly in dialogue with an artwork. 129 die in jet did change my life."

Warhol-O-Rama to be published on Andy Warhol's birthday

Warhol-O-Rama, a book of poems by Peter Oresick will be published by Carnegie Mellon University Press on Andy Warhol's birthday, August 6, 2008.

Laurence Lieberman (poet, critic, and author of God's Measurements):

"Warhol-o-rama is brimming with a distinctive energy that genuinely evokes Warhol's genius....the sort of imitation that—like the best translations—pays highest tribute to the model's brilliance. Oresick's relentless experiments with form and sound-play are ingenious, sparkly, utterly resourceful."

Andy Warhol album covers catalogue raisonne to be published in September

A catalogue raisonné of Warhol's album covers is to be published by Prestel in September.

Warhol: Larger Than Life

The exhibition "Warhol: Larger Than Life," featuring 150 paintings, drawings, prints, sculptures, photographs, ephemera and films opened at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria on May 30, 2008 and continues until August 24, 2008.

Andy Warhol's Jews and Abstract Expressionism at The Jewish Museum in New York

The "Warhol's Jews: Ten Portraits Reconsidered" exhibition continues at The Jewish Museum in New York until August 3, 2008. Also on view is "Action/Abstraction: Pollock, de Kooning, and American Art, 1940-1976" which opened in May and runs until September 21, 2008. The Action/Abstraction show is, according to the museum, "the first major U.S. exhibition in 20 years to rethink Abstract Expressionism and the movements that followed." It features work from 32 artists including Mark Rothko, Arshile Gorky, Barnett Newman, Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Allan Kaprow, Helen Frankenthaler, Ibram Lassow, Philip Guston, Clyfford Still, and Jasper Johns. (As with Warhol, Jasper Johns' early paintings were shown as part of window displays at the Bonwit Teller department store in New York organized by Gene Moore.)

From Abstract Expressionism 1958:

Gene Moore:

Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns called themselves artists but were unknown when they first came to see me. Rauschenberg came first. He'd been down to Black Mountain College in South Carolina, had heard about me, and came up to my office at Bonwit's. He'd been doing work with enormous sheets of blueprint paper. He'd take these sheets and lay all sorts of things on them, flowers and ferns, sometimes a body. I used them in the windows at Bonwit's... During the period Rauschenberg was contributing to the displays at Bonwit's, he met Jasper Johns. They became friends and shared a loft downtown... The first showings of John's paintings were in exhibitions I organized at Bonwit's. I'd ask him for a painting, he'd bring one up to the store, and I'd put it in one of the windows. He was then doing lots of flags and targets; in 1957 I showed Flag on Orange Field in a Bonwit's window."

Martin Lawrence Galleries launches lawsuit over Andy Warhol Dollar Sign

Chalk & Vermilion Fine Arts Inc. doing business as the Martin Lawrence Galleries is suing Jason Beltrez and Christie's auction house in order to recover an Andy Warhol Dollar Sign painting stolen in 1998.

From Entertainment Law Digest:

"Chalk & Vermilion Fine Arts [dba Martin Lawrence Galleries] claims to have acquired the 1981 Warhol painting, described as a 20- by 16-inch 'synthetic polymer paint and silkscreen ink on canvas,' in 1997. Dollar Sign was immediately placed for sale in the Soho Gallery, where it was allegedly stolen on Valentine’s Day 1998... Brooklyn resident Jason Beltrez tried to consign the artwork to Christie’s Inc. in 2007, but the auction house requested a register search on Dollar Sign and discovered that it had been stolen, the lawsuit claims... Christie’s has allegedly agreed to hold onto the painting until the court can determine its rightful owner."

Pepe Jeans launches Andy Warhol Collection

U.K. Vogue magazine has announced the launch of Pepe Jeans' Andy Warhol Collection based on clothing inspired by (according to Vogue) transvestite superstar Candy Darling and Edie Sedgwick. If you ever wanted to look like a '70s transvestite or '60s icon, now's your chance.

Andy Warhol Mao = $120 million

A 14-foot Mao painting by Andy Warhol with a price tag of $120 million has gone on display at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre according to the Daily Telegraph.

Interview magazine celebrates Andy Warhol's 80th Birthday

The June/July issue of Interview magazine - the "Andy Warhol special issue" features an image of Marc Jacobs as Warhol on the cover. The issue includes comments from just about everyone associated with the artist including Billy Name and Brigid Berlin.

Alfonso Sabelli on You Tube

A video of artist Alfonso Sabelli (in one of the best Warhol wigs I've seen) at his "Larger Than Life Show" in Hollywood - a homage to Warhol - has surfaced on You Tube. The video can be seen here.

Sabelli, who died in 1990, was also the creative director of Torso magazine and worked primarily in Polaroids including the construction of a six foot cross made up of more than three hundred Polaroids of roses over a nude couple. An active member of the club scene in both New York and Los Angeles, Sabelli died in 1990 in Montreal.

May 2008

Andy Warhol Screen Tests at the Bluecoat

Four Andy Warhol Screen Tests are being shown at the Bluecoat in Liverpool as part of their "Variable Capital" exhibition, curated by artists David Campbell and Mark Durden (aka Common Culture), which opened Friday, May 23, 2008. The exhibition was originally scheduled to open on May 16th but was delayed due to a fire. Liverpool has been designated as the official "European Capital of Culture" for 2008 by the European Union.

Nan Goldin interview in The Guardian

The Guardian has printed an interview with Nan Goldin today, May 23, 2008. It can be read online here.

Slide shows of Goldin's work will be shown at the Tate Modern with a performance by the obscenely talented musician/singer/composer Patrick Wolf and performance artist John Kelley, tomorrow night (May 24th).

Details on the Tate website here.

Warhol on Warhol

The catalogue for the Warhol on Warhol exhibition at La Casa Encendida in Madrid which closed at the end of January 2008 is now available in English translation. Probably the most interesting chapter is Matt Wrbican's chapter on Time Capsule 21 - although if the Times Capsules are of interest I highly recommend the book on Time Capsule 21 published in 2003.

Robert Rauschenberg (updated - again)

Robert Rauschenberg died Monday May 12, 2008 of heart failure at the age of 82 in his home on Captiva Island, Florida.

From The New York Times:

"Mr. Rauschenberg was... instrumental in pushing American art onward from Abstract Expressionism, the dominant movement when he emerged, during the early 1950s. He became a transformative link between artists like Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning and those who came next, artists identified with Pop, Conceptualism, Happenings, Process Art and other new kinds of art in which he played a signal role.

No American artist, Jasper Johns once said, invented more than Mr. Rauschenberg. Mr. Johns, John Cage, Merce Cunningham and Mr. Rauschenberg, without sharing exactly the same point of view, collectively defined this new era of experimentation in American culture." (Michael Kimmelman, "Robert Rauschenberg, American Artist, Dies at 82," New York Times, May 14, 2008)

One of Rauschenberg's earlier works was Erased de Kooning (1953) in which he erased a drawing by Willem de Kooning. The erased de Kooning became a Rauschenberg. Often analyzed as a conceptual work, Erased de Kooning was Rauschenberg's attempt at using an eraser as a sort of drawing implement. The idea was to create an "all-eraser" drawing. The effect was the representation of the absence of something - in other words "nothing."

Warhol would also try to represent "nothing" with his Invisible Sculpture, but with less success. The desire to represent "nothing" may also have influenced Warhol's Soup Cans. According to Warhol's scriptwriter, Ronald Tavel, "When a friend of Andy's, Aaron Fine, dying of cancer in September 1962, inquired why he chose to depict the Campbell's soup can, Andy answered, 'I wanted to paint nothing. I was looking for something that was the essence of nothing, and that was it.'"

From "1953: Robert Rauschenberg erases a de Kooning:"

Robert Rauschenberg:

"I love drawing, and one of the things I wanted to try was an all-eraser drawing. I did drawings myself and I erased them, but that seemed like fifty-fifty. So then I knew I had to pull back farther. If it was going to be an all-eraser drawing, it had to be art in the beginning, and I went to Bill de Kooning and told him about it. When I was knocking on the door, I was hoping he wouldn't be there, so I wouldn't have to go through with it. But he was, and we went through this thing, and even though he said he didn't approve of it, he didn't want to interfere with my work.

I started with a portfolio of drawings, and he said, 'No, not those.' Then we went to another portfolio, and he said, 'These are drawings that I would miss.' So he pulled out one and put it back. Then he said, 'Now, I'm going to give you one really hard to erase,' and he picked out another. And he was right: I think I spent nearly three weeks with no fewer than fifteen different kinds of erasers. And that made it real. I wasn't just making a few marks and rubbing them out."

Rauschenberg also used found imagery and products in his "Combines" including Coca Cola bottles (as in Coca Cola Plan (1958)) prior to Warhol's representations of Coca Cola bottles in the early 1960s. Warhol was, of course, aware of the work of both Rauschenberg and his friend, Jasper Johns, when he created his early Pop paintings. Like Warhol, Rauschenberg and Johns had designed shop windows for Gene Moore. (It was in one of Moore's windows at Bonwit Teller that Warhol first exhibited his own Pop paintings.)

Gene Moore:

"Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns called themselves artists but were unknown when they first came to see me. Rauschenberg came first. He'd been to Black Mountain College in South Carolina and heard about me, and came up to my office at Bonwit's... During the period Rauschenberg was contributing to the displays at Bonwit's he met Jasper Johns. They became friends and shared a loft downtown... The first showings of John's paintings were in exhibitions I organized at Bonwit's... in 1957 I showed Flag on Orange Field in a Bonwit's window." (See Gene Moore.)

Although Rauschenberg and Johns publicly downplayed the nature of their friendship, Rauschenberg finally alluded to the fact that "each of us was the most important person in the other's life" when interviewed by Paul Taylor in 1990:

Paul Taylor: "How do you want history to describe your association with Johns?"

Robert Rauschenberg: (chuckles) "Richly."

Taylor: "How?"

Rauschenberg: "Not talking about money now?"

Taylor: "No."

Rauschenberg: "We were the only people who were not intoxicated with the Abstract Expressionists. We weren't against them at all, but neither one of us was interested in taking that stance. I think both of us felt there was too much exaggerated emotionalism around their art... My first break was that nobody took me seriously, even though I hung out at the Cedar Tavern, and drove Franz Kline home when he was too drunk. Jasper wasn't taken seriously either, and I was considered a clown. We were friendly, harmless critters, you know."

Taylor: We have previously talked about your relationship with Jasper. How much will you go on the record about this? I think there are lots of reasons to talk, especially in the current climate of suppression of gay art and artists.

Rauschenberg: "Well, I wouldn't go into any of the sexuality. One of the reasons is that - is this off the record?"

Taylor: "Can't you say it in a way that's on the record?"

Rauschenberg: "Well, I think I'd better just leave it alone. I'm not frightened of the affection that Jasper and I had, both personally and as working artists. I don't see any sin or conflict in those days when each of us was the most important person in the other's life."

(Taylor's interview with Rauschenberg appeared in Interview magazine in December 1990 and was reprinted in After Andy: Soho in the Eighties - a book which also included Andy Warhol's last interview.)

Chuck Wein (updated)

Chuck Wein died on March 18, 2008 of heart failure. There was a ocean send-off of his ashes on May 19th at "swamis" - the term used by surfers for the surf breaks behind the Self-Realization Fellowship Temple and Ashram Center in Encinatas - as per Chuck's request. Friends who attended the ceremony included Pamela Des Barres, Joel Tudor, and painter Lance Jost.

Wein's death followed that of another early friend of Edie Sedgwick, Ed Hennessey, who passed away during the winter.

Chuck Wein [c.1982]:

"Edie and I were mock elitists in fellowship based upon how fucked-up everyone else was. I was her roommate, shrink, astrologer, and Tarot instructor. I spent the Sixties adventuring in the Far East, managing bizarre nightclub acts like Rosita the python lady, a French drag queen and two over-the-hill Australian strippers. I spent '62 in Copenhagen stoned on absinthe. In '63 I sat at the Cafe de Paris in Tangier long enough to be asked to cover the Algerian/Moroccan border war for the English papers. I attended Harvard in the Leary acid-experiment days. Now I am too busy receiving ancient friends to describe my present trans-Amazon discoveries... besides, I'm sure to attract the most prurient of interest." (EDIE450)

Ed Hennessey [c. 1982]:

"I think it was in 1963, at the beginning of my senior year at Harvard that I met Edie in Cambridge. I was living in Paris the next year, when Edie arrived with Andy Warhol and her two white mink coats. I liked Edie's acquisitive new friends, and later in New York I became a 'Factory person' for a while and acted in a few of Andy's and Paul's movies. In the late Sixties I started working in a rare book shop and spent ten quiet and industrious years there. During that time I assembled the best Max Beerbohm collection in private hands. Tiring of dirty and dangerous New York, I moved to San Francisco a few years ago. Tiring of clean and safe San Francisco, I have recently moved back East and plan to return to New York, which I miss terribly - dirt, muggings, porno shops, sales tax, Moonies, and all.' (EDIE440)

Mark Rothko exhibition planned for the Tate Modern in September

The Tate Modern in London will be hosting a major Mark Rothko exhibition from September 26, 2008 to February 1, 2009. The show will include the Tate's nine Rothko Seagram murals grouped with a selection of the other Seagram mural panels in the permanent collections of the Kawamura Memorial Museum of Art in Japan and the National Gallery in Washington.

The murals (which were actually large paintings on canvas) were originally planned to be exhibited permanently in the Four Seasons Restaurant in the Seagram Building in New York. After accepting the commission for the murals, Rothko had apparently told a fellow passenger, John Fischer, on a cruise ship bound for Europe that he accepted the mural commission "with strictly malicious intentions" and that he hoped "to ruin the appetite of every son of a bitch who ever eats in that room." Rothko told Fischer that he wanted to make the wealthy diners at the Four Seasons "feel that they are trapped in a room where all the doors and windows are bricked, so that all they can do is butt their heads forever against the wall."

After painting about 40 panels Rothko backed out of the Four Seasons deal after eating there - see here.

Rothko was one of the Abstract Expressionists who resigned from The Sidney Janis Gallery in 1962 in protest at Janis' promotion of Pop Art in his gallery during the New Realists exhibition of 1962 - an exhibition that included 200 Campbell Soup Cans by Andy Warhol. When, in about 1963, Ruth Kligman reportedly attempted to introduce Rothko to Warhol, Rothko apparently blanked him.

From The Abstract Expressionism Chronology:

c. 1963: Ruth Kligman introduces Mark Rothko to Andy Warhol (sort of).

Ruth Kligman had apparently befriended Andy Warhol after his solo show at the Stable Gallery in November 1962. According to Kligman, she and Andy (who was, of course, gay) "had a terrific crush on each other and I think that it was sexual. We didn't act it out, but we spent a lot of time together, and we would hug sometimes."

Kligman recalled running into Mark Rothko on the corner of Sixth Avenue and 12th Street one Sunday afternoon when she was with Warhol. Ruth turned to Rothko and said, "Mark, this is Andy Warhol." Rothko walked away without a word.

Warhol (via Pat Hackett) also recalled attending a party where Rothko was one of the guests during the early sixties. Marisol, who was with the same gallery as Warhol, brought both Warhol and Robert Indiana to the party given by Yvonne Thomas. When they arrived Warhol apparently overheard Rothko say to Thomas, "How could you let them in?" Thomas replied, "But what can I do? They came with Marisol." (See AbEx)

Piet (Mondrian) in Pittsburgh at The Warhol

The Warhol museum in Pittsburgh will be hosting an exhibition of Mondrian's paintings from May 3rd to August 31, 2008. The exhibition will include 24 works - some of which will be shown for the first time in the U.S. (Highly recommended.)

Velvet Underground: Exploding Plastic Inevitable at the ICA.

Ron Namath's film, Velvet Underground: Exploding Plastic Inevitable (1966), will be shown at the ICA in London as part of the Secret Masterpieces of Cinema Pop! programme from April 27th.

Abstract Expressionism

Before Pop there was Abstract Expressionism. I have added to the site a chronological account of the lives of the first generation Abstract Expressionists here.

From 1985: Elaine de Kooning changes colour(s).

Elaine de Kooning succeeded in her efforts at adding new colours to her husband's palette. She had previously made attempts in 1983 and 1984 to suggest new colours for Bill by asking his assistant, Tom Ferrara, to open tubes of new colours and leave them on her husband's work table which he used as a palette. At that time, de Kooning had ignored the tubes of paint. But this time instead of just leaving open tubes of of paint for him, his assistants began to mix the colours he was already using to create new ones.

Robert Chapman [one of de Kooning's art assistants]:

"We all started getting anxious that he [de Kooning] was only interested in red, yellow and blue. For some reason his palette was becoming more and more limited.... Since he steered toward red, yellow, and blue still, we'd start setting up mixes of red, yellow, and blue so that they weren't the same red or cerulean blue that he had been using. It would be a little bit of deviation from one painting to the next. And then gradually we started introducing more and he seemed willing to try some. "

The paintings which the new colours appeared in included Untitled XIII and Untitled XX. The first incorporated a new shade of turquoise green and the latter a new purplish colour. (DK604/612)

Ultra Violet in Dinah East

In 1970 a film was released, Dinah East, starring Jeremy Stockwell as a she who was really a he, which also featured a lesbian sex scene with Andy Warhol superstar Ultra Violet. Mae West, assuming the film was based on rumours that she [West] was a male, brought a successful lawsuit against the film which was pulled from distribution. West then bought and destroyed as many prints of the film she could find. It became an underground b-movie classic that few people ever saw.

The film is now available on DVD through Amazon.

Empire II at the Tribeca Film Festival in May

Empire II, a film by Amos Poe inspired by Andy Warhol's Empire, will be presented as part of the Tribeca Film Festival on May 2nd at Pace University and May 3rd at the Village East Cinema.

David Dawson to speak on Andy Warhol's prints at the London Original Print Fair

David Dawson will be giving an informal talk on Andy Warhol's prints on Thursday, April 24, 2008 at 6 pm at The London Original Print Fair in conjunction with a show/sale of some of Warhol's original prints and drawings organized by Hilary and Georgie Gerrish in association with Dawson.

The print fair is being held at the Royal Academy in London from April 23 - 27, 2008. Dawson's talk will be held at the Gerrish's stand on the first floor at the top of the stairs in front of several rows of Warhol prints.

April 2008

Sleep at the Hirshhorn

Andy Warhol's Sleep will be shown at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C. on April 6, 2008 from noon to 5:30 pm. (Callie Angell gave a talk at the Hirshhorn on April 3rd.)

"Andy Warhol: The New Factory" at the Fondazione Magnani-Rocca

The "Andy Warhol: The New Factory" exhibition opened at the Fondazione Magnani-Rocca in Parma, Italy on March 16th and continues until July 6, 2008.

Andy Warhol on UbuWeb

UbuWeb is currently showing online the full length documentary Warhol's Cinema: A Mirror of the Sixties (1989) and Ronald Nameth's film of the Exploding Plastic Inevitable as well as numerous audio interviews with David Cronenberg, Amy Taubin and others on Warhol's art and films.

The Warhol's Cinema documentary is here.

The Ron Nameth film, Andy Warhol's Exploding Plastic Inevitable with the Velvet Underground (1966) is here.

The audio interviews are here.

Andy Warhol exhibition planned for 2009 at the Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais

A major Warhol exhibition, "Le Grand Monde d'Andy Warhol," is being planned for 2009 at the Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais in Paris.

Alain Cueff (curator):

"This exhibition sets out to deal with the issues surrounding portraits and faces in Andy Warhol’s work. It will focus on the portraits that he was commissioned to produce as from 1972. The people from the world of the jet set, fashion and art (artists, collectors and dealers) that passed in front of Warhol’s Polaroid lens gave the undertaking its legitimacy and broaden the compass of the sitters. Towards the end of the seventies, the portrait machine was working at full steam. It is estimated that between 1972 and 1987 (the year he died) Warhol painted between eight hundred and one thousand portraits. The exhibition Le Grand Monde d’Andy Warhol aims to bring to light the artistic ambition of this sometimes underestimated pantheon by giving it a genealogical and thematic context."

The exhibition will take place from March 16 to July 15, 2009.

Andy Warhol surpasses Pablo Picasso in sales

Andy Warhol is now no. 1 on the yearly artprice list of the ten top earning artists, surpassing the usual winner, Pablo Picasso. In 2007 public sales of Warhol's work reached $420 million whereas Picasso earned $319 million. Francis Bacon came in third and Mark Rothko fourth.

New Andy Warhol book by Glenn O'Brien and Ron Galella due in May.

Warhol by Galella:That's Great! with a foreword by Glenn O'Brien and photographs by Gallela is to be published by Monacelli in May 2008.

Nine pages of Andy Warhol's superstars in I.D. magazine

The April issue of U.K. fashion magazine, I.D., includes a nine page special feature on Andy Warhol's (and Paul Morrissey's) surviving superstars. The article, titled "Factory Revisted" was conceived by I.D. deputy editor Holly Shackleton (who also wrote some of the text) and includes more than 20 photographs by Billy Name, Anton Perich and Nat Finkelstein. Additional text/interviews were contributed by Sarah Hay, Matt Bochenski and Karen Leong.

Although a few oft-repeated claims that are more fiction than fact are included (Joe Dallesandro's crotch is not the crotch pictured on the Rolling Stones album, Sticky Fingers), the article includes some very interesting quotes and a rare interview with Ronald Tavel.

From the I.D. article:

Joe Dallesandro:

"I never looked at people for their sexual preference, and I didn't expect people to look at me and ask me what my sexual preference was. If I wasn't sharing that with you it means I wasn't interested in you, and it would be none of your business."

Holly Woodlawn [refering to the recent paintings of her by Sadie Lee]:

"I was born sixty years ago. When I was twenty I was beautiful and what we both [Sadie and Holly] tried to convey was that there's nothing wrong in growing old. My body might not work as well as it used to but my brain does and I am not afraid. When my boyfriend saw the paintings he said, 'you can't do this.' I said, 'I don't care what people think, this is who I am.'"

Bibbe Hansen:

"So many people that cruised through and/or wrote about the Factory actually came from quite middle class backgrounds and were easily horrified, I think. So much worse was going on in the shooting galleries, crash pads, and thieves' dens that I was living and playing in at that time - the Factory was quite calm and tame by comparison."

Jeremiah Newton:

"The beginning of Candy's illness was horrifying, she had a lump in her stomach. Candy said, 'Jeremiah, I'm pregnant!' I said, 'Dear that's not possible!' She went into hospital for investigative surgery but it was too late, the tumor was too far advanced. Candy was very angry, she wasn't ready to die..."

[Candy Darling died in March 1974. Her ashes were interred in Jeremiah Newton's family plot in upstate New York on October 27, 2007. A photograph of the gravestone (with an excerpt from the Edith Sitwell poem "Heart and Mind" on the reverse of the stone) can be found here.]

The April issue of I.D. magazine (which also includes an interview with Pete Burns) is available from most newstands or can be ordered online through their website.

Andy Warhol in Grand Rapids

The "Rapid Exposure: Warhol in Series" exhibition at the Grand Rapids Art Museum opened on March 15 and continues until June 15, 2008.

Auction history of Andy Warhol's Orange Marilyn

An online article by Ernst Beck tracing the auction history of Andy Warhol's Orange Marilyn which includes video footage of the auction of a Warhol Liz for $21 million can be found here.

"Warhol's Jews: Ten Portraits Reconsidered" at The Jewish Museum

Andy Warhol's series of Jewish portraits can be seen at The Jewish Museum from March 16 through August 3, 2008 - the same museum that showed the series when it was first presented to the public in 1980.

Michael Musto to present Holly Woodlawn's new film at the New York Underground Film Festival.

The world premiere of Holly Woodlawn's latest film, East of the Tar Pits, will take place as part of the 15th (and final) New York Underground Film Festival on April 3rd at 10:30 pm. It will be presented by Michael Musto of the Village Voice. The venue for the festival will be The Courthouse on 195 Chrystie Street in New York - part of the Anthology Film Archives.

In addition to Holly Woodlawn, the film includes soap star Frank Messina and and ex-Robert Mapplethorpe model Robert Sherman.

Both Holly and the director of the film, Gary LeGault intend to be at the screening.

Gary LeGault:

"Holly is very excited about this and plans to be there as well as I do, myself... Right now, Holly is fashioning her gown for the opening night from six yards of delicately- embroidered sheer white, net fabric with a flesh colored sheath of chiffon beneath it."

Photos from the film can be found here.

Holly Woodlawn's superstar page is here.

The website for the New York Underground Film Festival can be here.

March 2008

Andy Warhol exhibition planned by the Hayward Gallery in London

A major Andy Warhol exhibition is being planned by the most user-friendly public gallery in London - The Hayward Gallery at the Southbank. The exhibition will run from October 2008 to January 2009 and will include footage from his films and TV shows alongside paintings, prints and installations.

New Andy Warhol monograph to be published by The Museum of Modern Art

The Museum of Modern Art will be publishing a new monograph on Andy Warhol by Carolyn Lanchner on June 1, 2008.

Andy Warhol: Other Voices Other Rooms exh. catalogue to be available in March.

The catalogue for the Stedlijk Museum's Warhol show, "Andy Warhol: Other Voices Other Rooms" will be available in March from Amazon. (The exhibition is currently at the Moderna Museet Museum in Sweden.)

As reported last month, the classic Moderna Museet 1968 Warhol catalogue will be re-published in April. Details on the Amazon page here.

Andy Warhol Superstar Jane Holzer in The New York Times

An article on Andy Warhol superstar Jane Holzer (and her art collection) appeared in the Women's Fashion 2008 section of The New York Times last month. It can be found here.

Andy Warhol's Three Self Portraits tops £11 million

Andy Warhol's Three Self Portraits (1986) was sold for approx. £11.4 million pounds/$22.6 million (est. £10-15 million) at the Sotheby's auction house in London on February 27, 2008.

Anthony D'Offay sells/donates art collection to England/Scotland

Anthony D'Offay has sold/donated a collection of 725 works of art (including works by Andy Warhol) to the U.K. in a deal negotiated by the National Galleries of Scotland and the Tate Gallery in London. D'Offay will receive £26.5 million for his "gift" - the price that he originally paid for the works in the collection, now estimated to be worth in excess of £100 million. Sir Nicholas Serota, director of the Tate Gallery called the sale "an extraordinary act of philanthropy," adding "I don't know of anything equivalent anywhere else in the world. This represents most of Anthony's wealth."

Daily Telegraph incorrectly attributes Che Guevara silkscreens to Warhol.

Nigel Reynolds, the arts correspondent for the Daily Telegraph incorrectly stated last month in an article titled "Fidel Castro: the cultural icon" in the Telegraph that "Warhol, the greatest image-maker of the 20th century, made silkscreen prints of Guevara and another Marxist, China's Chairman Mao (a copy sold two years ago for $17.6 million), but never Castro."

Although it is, of course, true that Warhol made silkscreens of Mao, he never made silkscreens of Che Guevara. The pop art image of Che that is often found on market stall t-shirts and posters was actually by Jim Fitzpatrick, but is often incorrectly attributed to Warhol.

Nigel Reynold's article can be found here.

I'm Not There at the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival in London

Todd Haynes' "wildly experimental" film on the Bob Dylan, featuring Cate Blanchett as Bob Dylan, will be shown at this years B.F.I. London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival in London. Other highlights include Esther Robinson's acclaimed documentary, A Walk Into the Sea: Danny Williams and the Warhol Factory on March 31 and April 1.

Andy Warhol and Pietro Psaier

Note: Claims made about Psaier and Warhol remain unproven. The result of my research into Psaier can be found in the August 2008 news.

A press release issued by John Nicholson Auctioneers and distributed by Pressport claims that Psaier and Warhol had a "bisexual relationship." According to the press release "in 1961 [Psaier] found his way to Soho, New York. Whilst working as a waiter in the Greenwich Village Gaslight Café in 1964 he met Andy Warhol and an extraordinary bisexual relationship blossomed between the two."

A copy of the press release can be found here.

Andy Warhol Original Prints and Drawings at the London Print Fair in April.

The 23rd annual London Original Print Fair will take place at the Royal Academy of Art from April 23 - 27, 2008 and will include work by Warhol.

From the press release:

"Hilary and Georgie Gerrish in association with David Dawson have great pleasure in announcing a major exhibition of Andy Warhol’s prints and related drawings to be unveiled at this year’s London Original Print Fair. The show will include well-known sixties icons such as the Marilyns and the menacing Electric Chairs of the seventies alongside rare pieces from the eighties inspired by the masterpieces of Edvard Munch."

Jane Holzer and other 60s icons inspires Galliano's new collection for Dior.

On February 25th, Hilary Alexander reported in The Telegraph, "1960’s movie and style icons such as Jackie ‘O’, the model Verushka, Andy Warhol’s Baby Jane Holzer, “Mrs Robinson” of The Graduate fame, and Raquel Welch, were recreated on the catwalk in Paris today as Christian Dior turned the clock back to the 1960’s."

Details here.

Baird Jones dies

Baird Jones, the promoter who recently presented films in conjunction with Warhol superstar Ivy Nicholson at club venues in New York was found dead in his New York apartment on Thursday, February 21, 2008. An autopsy performed on Saturday, February 23rd was inconclusive.

New York Post article here.

Dorothy Podber's death makes U.K. press

The Daily Telegraph in London printed an article last month on recently deceased Dorothy Podber - the woman who shot Warhol's Marilyns.

It can be found here.

February 2008

Dorothy Podber obituary in The New York Times

An obituary for Dorothy Podber appeared in The New York Times yesterday, February 19, 2008.

From the obituary:

"Ms. Podber was an artist in her own right and in the late ’50s and early ’60s helped to run the Nonagon Gallery in Manhattan, which showed the work of a young Yoko Ono and was known for jazz concerts by performers like Charles Mingus. But she became famous, or infamous, in the art world mostly as a muse and a co-conspirator of more prominent artists like Ray Johnson, with whom she staged impromptu happenings on Manhattan streets... In a 2006 interview with the writer Joy Bergmann, Ms. Podber said: “I’ve been bad all my life. Playing dirty tricks on people is my specialty.”

Certainly the most outrageous was her unsolicited contribution to a few of Warhol’s “Marilyn” silk-screen paintings. In the fall of 1964 Ms. Podber, a friend of the photographer and Warhol regular Billy Name, visited Warhol’s Factory on East 47th Street in Manhattan with her Great Dane (named Carmen Miranda or Yvonne De Carlo, depending on the account). Ms. Podber asked Warhol if she could shoot a stack of the “Marilyn” paintings; he apparently thought that she wanted to take pictures of them and consented.

But she produced a pistol and fired at them, penetrating three or four. One of them, “Shot Red Marilyn,” with a repaired bullet hole over the left eyebrow, sold for $4 million in 1989, at the time setting a record at auction for a Warhol work."

Joy Bergmann's 2006 interview with Podber is here.

Factory 2 in Cracow

Factory 2, a theatre piece about Andy Warhol's Factory directed by Krystian Lupa, opens at the Stary Theatre in Cracow on February 16 , 2008.

Dorothy Podber

Dorothy Podber, the woman shot Andy Warhol's Marilyns, died in her East Village home on Saturday, February 9, 2008 at the age of 75.

Andy Warhol Moderna Museet catalogue to be reprinted

The rare, but often discussed Moderna Museet catalogue of Andy Warhol's 1968 exhibition in Sweden, packed with photographs by Billy Name, Stephen Shore, Rudy Burckhardt, Eric Pollitzer and John D. Schiff, is being reprinted to coincide with the the Moderna Museet's exhibition "Andy Warhol: Other Voices, Other Rooms" (in collaboration with the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam) which runs from February 9, 2008 to May 4, 2008.

Publication date is April 1, 2008. Details on the Amazon page here.

VIVA to appear in new Paul Morrissey film

The Daily News has reported that Paul Morrissey is returning to filmmaking with a film which includes Andy Warhol superstar Viva as well as Geraldine Smith who appeared in Flesh and Bad. The yet-to-be titled fictional film apparently features a male model that Morrissey met through Bruce Weber as the reincarnation of Jesus.

Details here.

New Andy Warhol book by Gary Indiana

Gary Indiana's new book, Andy Warhol and the Can That Sold the World, is due to be published June 17, 2008 by Basic Books. Indiana's book apparently draws on the personal recollections of some of Andy Warhol's superstars to tell the story of Warhol's 32 Soup Cans unveiled at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles in 1962 before there were any Andy Warhol superstars - before Warhol purchased a movie camera in 1963 and before he started the first Factory in 1964.

Andy Warhol in Grand Rapids

"Rapid Exposure: Warhol in Series," an exhibition of more than 100 paintings and prints by Andy Warhol will take place at the Grand Rapids Art Museum from March 14 - June 15, 2008.

Edie Sedgwick musical in L.A.

Silver for Gold, a musical based on the life of Andy Warhol superstar Edie Sedgwick, written by Bauhaus bassist and Love and Rockets co-founder David J., will be performed at the Met Theater in Hollywood from March 6 to 16, 2008.

David J:

"I sat down with John Cale and picked his brain, as well as Bibbe Hansen who knew Edie in her Factory days... I went through archives about Edie, and her drawings and films gave me a real insight... When I was writing it was if she was around as a spirit - it was very strange. I had never experienced anything like it. I felt a distinct presence, so I guess she was the archetypal muse... The play puts her life in mythic terms -- Edie is seen as Persephone and it chronicles her journey into the underworld, which is New York. Warhol is there as Hades and Bob Dylan is Orpheus." ("David J's 'Silver For Gold' set for LA premiere," NME, January 29, 2008)

"Woo Who? May Wilson" at Pavel Zoubok

The Pavel Zoubok Gallery at 533 West 23rd Street in New York is hosting a May Wilson retrospective exhibition from February 15 - March 15, 2008 (opening reception on February 15, from 6 to 8 pm). It was under May Wilson's bed that Valerie Solanas stored the gun she used to shoot Andy Warhol.

During the 1960s Wilson's work was included in Martha Jackson's "New Media New Forms: In Painting and Sculpture" exhibition which featured the works of artists that were often referred to as "Neo-Dada" or "New Realists" before the term "Pop Art" was adopted in the United States.

Wilson was also the subject of the excellent 1969 documentary, Woo Who? May Wilson, from which the current exhibition takes its name. Distributor for the film is New Day Films here.

The exhibition at Pavel Zoubok is running in collaboration with the May Wilson exhibition at the Morris Museum in New Jersey.

Glenn O'Brien returns to Interview

Glenn O'Brien has been appointed joint editorial director of Interview magazine after the resignation of Interview's editor in chief, Ingrid Sischy.

Ingrid Sischy:

"When I was first drafted as editor after Andy Warhol's death I thought I'd stay a few years, devote myself to helping the magazine find its post-Warhol life, and then get back to my writing. Although leaving the magazine and wonderful staff behind is difficult, it is the right decision and one that will allow the new owners to establish their own editorial stamp on the magazine. I am now more than ever, eager to get back to my writing and have several big projects in front of me that need my attention"

O'Brien will be sharing the position of editorial director with Fabien Baron, previously the creative director for French Vogue. O'Brien worked at Interview when Andy Warhol was still alive, serving as the managing editor and art director of the magazine during the early seventies and later writing the "Beat" column.

Bob Colacello [From Holy Terror: Andy Warhol Close Up]:

"In the year or so (spring 1972 to summer 1973) that he [Glenn O'Brien] was managing editor and art director, Interview kept getting bigger and better... In addition to discovering Fran Lebowitz, Glenn had expanded the contributing-editors list to include bright young journalists like Lisa Robinson... and added a page of 'London Smalltalk,' which recorded the monthly doings of the Zandra Rhodes/David Hockney set... Glenn also started a Hollywood 'bureau' in the person of Susan Pile, Pat Hackett's closest friend, and a former Factory transcriber, who had moved to L.A. and gone into P.R." (BC138/9)

Details at here.

"Warhol Dead at 21" at the World of Wonder

The "Warhol Dead at 21" exhibition at the World of Wonder gallery on Hollywood Blvd. continues until February 22, 2008. The opening party was attended by Mary Woronov, Holly Woodlawn, James St. James, Stephen Saban and others.

Details and a video of the exhibition can be found here.

John Giorno and Thomas Sokolowski in Saskatchewan

John Giorno and the Director of The Warhol museum, Thomas Sokolowski, will be speaking at the MacKenzie Art Gallery in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada in conjunction with their "Warhol: Larger Than Life" exhibition which runs from January 27, 2008 to April 20, 2008. Giorno will be reading his poetry at the gallery on February 7, 2008. Sokolowski's lecture will take place February 28, 2008.

Allen Midgette Revisited

An interesting eyewitness account of Allen Midgette's impersonation of Andy Warhol on a lecture tour in 1962 appears in the Deseret Morning News here.

January 2008

The Man with 800 Warhols

The Wall Street Journal has published an article on Jose Mugrabi and his sons who own 800 works by Andy Warhol - "the world's largest private stash of Andy Warhol's art." The article can be found here.

Andy Warhol: Portraits and Landscapes at Timothy Taylor

An exhibition of more than 200 photographs by Andy Warhol taken in New York, London and numerous other cities will open on January 17, 2008 at the Timothy Taylor gallery in London. The gallery has yet to post the details on their website but should have the information up soon.

Warhol Sobre Warhol

The exhibition "Warhol Sobre Warhol" at the La Casa Encendida de Obra Social Caja Madrid closes January 20, 2008. A site user writes "the catalogue for the Australian show is excellent and so is the one for the show in Madrid... it's mostly photos of Andy and the book has a silver cover and silver pages and looks great and has great essays in it. I got mine at the Strand."

Andy Warhol Live in Montreal

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts will be hosting a Warhol exhibit, "Warhol Live," from September 25, 2008 to January 18, 2009. Details: here.

Happy New Year from Warholstars.

Brigid Berlin:

"It's all downhill starting with tomorrow. Because it's gonna be this time next year in like five minutes anyway. It was this time last year five minutes ago. I mean it goes so quick." (BB)

Factory People near completion

The three-episode three hour documentary on Andy Warhol's superstars, Andy Warhol's Factory People, which has been in production for the past three years, will be completed in three weeks. Interviewees include Billy Name, Brigid Berlin, UltraViolet, Taylor Mead, Mary Woronov, Bibbi Hansen, Geraldine Smith, Louis Waldon, Allen Midgette, David Croland, Holly Woodlawn, Gerard Malanga, Danny Fields, Victor Bockris, Jonas Mekas, Steven Bruce, Leee Black Childers, Nat Finkelstein, Bob Heide and Vincent Fremont.

The film, directed by Emmy Award winner Catherine O'Sullivan Shorr, is being produced by Planet Group Entertainment (PGE) in association with Zarafa Films and France Television. Patrick Nagle is the Executive Producer.

Details at the Planet Group Entertainment website here.

Andy Warhol film series at the Australian Cinematheque

The comprehensive series, which runs until the end of March 2008, includes more than 300 films by Andy Warhol (279 Screen Tests and 51 restored films on loan from The Museum of Modern Art in New York) plus a selection of Michel Auder's rarely screened Warhol-related films, Keeping Busy (1969), The Valerie Solanas Incident (1971) and Chelsea Girls with Andy Warhol (1971–76). Other rarities include the documentaries Warhol's Cinema: A Mirror for the Sixties (1989), The Warhol Nation (1997), Absolut Warhola (2001) and Excavating Taylor Mead (2005).

The Warhol films to be screened in January 2008 include Harlot, Screen Test No 1 and No. 2, The Life of Juanita Castro, Horse, Poor Little Rich Girl, Restaurant, Kitchen, Beauty No. 2, Space, Outer and Inner Space and Lupe in addition to nurmerous Screen Tests.

The series is running in conjunction with the current Warhol exhibition at the Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane, Australia.

I Was Andy Warhol

Warhol star Allen Midgette is currently working on a book with the title of I Was Andy Warhol. An interview with Midgette recently appeared on the KUTV site here.

The Warholstars interview with Midgette is here.

Get Warhol'd at the Sioux City Art Center

If you are one of the few who have yet to acheive their fifteen minutes of fame, here's your chance to have a Warhol style portrait of yourself hanging in a public gallery. As a fundraising venture the Sioux City Art Center in Iowa, founded in 1938 as a Works Progress Administration project, is offering people the opportunity to have their photograph taken by a professional photographer and converted into a Pop Art print which will then be included in an exhibition scheduled for May 2008. (Alternatively, you can provide them with a photograph providing it meets their specifications).

Kids Andy Warhol Party

The Bunch Family organization in Toronto will be hosting a Factory-style kids party on February 3, 2008 as part of the WinterCity Festival.

Philip Johnson's apartment to be renovated

Philip Johnson's apartment in the Museum Tower buidling has been purchased by Amy and Michael Cosgrove (president of the Houston energy brokerage company, Amerex Brokers) who have hired architect François de Menil to oversee repairs to the apartment. Mrs. Cosgrove has said that she is trying to "make these repairs as minimal and touch-ups as respectful as possible.” The apartment includes signed Andy Warhol Cow Wallpaper in the powder room. (Josh Barbanel, "Celebrity Power Goes Only So Far," The New York Times (December 16, 2007))

Both Johnson and his long-time partner, David Whitney, died in 2005.

Interview with Abigail Rosen

I have added to the site an interview with Abigail Rosen (now Abigail McGrath). Abigail was the first door person at Max's Kansas City and the woman in the afro in the bathtub with Viva in Andy Wahol's Tub Girls.

The interview is here.

Paul America

Ryan Hill, the nephew of Warhol star Paul America, is working on a book/film on his uncle and would like to hear from anyone who knew Paul or has any information about him. (He has confirmed that Paul died after being hit by a car while returning from a dental appointment on October 19, 1982 in Florida.)

Ryan Hill can be reached at: ryfilm@gmail.com.

 

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