WARHOLSTARS.ORG
by Gary Comenas, 2025
Welcome to the world of Warholstars.org. Twenty-five years of research (more than 3,000 files) on Andy Warhol, his films, art and superstars. 100,000+ hits worldwide each month.
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Joel Wachs to appear at Art Basel
Joel Wachs, the President of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, will be making a rare public appearance on a panel at Art Basel on Friday, June 30, 2025. (Not to be missed!)
For details, see "Patronage as a force for change: a fireside chat with Joel Wachs and Franklin Sirmans."
Andy Warhol and Group A
Andy Warhol would make history as one of the artists of the early 60s who returned to figuration over abstraction which also included Claes Oldenburg and Roy Lichtenstein. Yet, Warhol's teachers at Carnegie Tech largely promoted abstract art.
The Abstract Expressionists had gone through a long struggle to get Americans to accept abstraction as Art. Warhol's teachers at Carnegie Tech were founders of Group A which promoted abstract art. Balcomb Greene who arranged for Warhol's first apartment in New York (a sublease shared with Philip Pearlstein), was a founder of Group A.
A simplistic timeline of art history in the U.S. could be Realism (Ashcan School) → Abstraction (Abstract Expressionism) → Pop. Beyond Pop was a plethora of international styles as art and multiplied into a post-modern conglomeration of too many categories to list - some based on theory (Conceptualism), method (Digital) or style, and others that were personality-based like the YBAs (Damien Hirst, Tracy Emin etc. in England).
When the Abstract Expressionist Mark Rothko allegedly blanked Andy Warhol when introduced by Ruth Kligman in 1963, it was probably because Rothko considered Pop's return to figuration a step backward after struggling so hard to get the public to accept the 'new' abstract art.
Although art writers occasionally allude to possible Pop influences during Warhol's education at Carnegie Tech, the teachers such as Robert Lepper (above) and Samuel Rosenberg who were the founders of Group A would have promoted abstract art at the college during the 1940s when Warhol was a student there.
Harold Stevenson opens in New York on April 29, 2025
Harold Stevenson in his High School Annual (Class 1946-47) from the news section of his estate's website
April 22, 2025: An exhibition of works by Harold Stevenson opens at the Andrew Kreps Gallery in Tribeca April 29, 2025. It's difficult to fit his style into one category - it incorporates elements of pop, neo-realism and surrealism. Stevenson's most famous work is probably the 40 foot long male nude in the collection of the Guggenheim Museum, modelled on the gay Hollywood heartthrob Sal Mineo who starred with Marlon Brando in Rebel Without a Cause.
Harold Stevenson's The New Adam at the Guggenheim Museum in New York
Factory Poems by Bibbe Hansen
Front cover of Factory Poems by Bibbe Hansen
Warhol star Bibbe Hansen's book of poetry inspired by her fellow Warhol superstars has been published by the Waverly Press in New York - with photographs by Billy Name, Bobby Grossman, Kate Simon and Dagon James.
Bibbe was one of Andy Warhol's Thirteen Most Beautiful Women (her second Screen Test) and also appeared in Restaurant, Prison and an additional Screen Test.
Bibbe's writing reflects a lifetime of art, music and 'showbiz.' In addition to being part of the Warhol crowd, she was the daughter of the Fluxus artist Al Hansen, sang with Jack Kerouac's daughter in the The Whippets, is the mother of the recording artist Beck, and was the daughter of a fascinating beatnik cabaret performer Audrey Hansen who was also a poet.
If you want to know Warhol's superstars - to 'feel' what the scene was really like from someone who was there - you can order her book from the Waverly website.
Did"pop-art" originate in the U.K.?
Ark magazine (Royal College of Art) November 1956
April 5, 2025: The American art writer Lawrence Alloway was not the first writer to use the term "pop art" in print. Writers still credit him with using the term in his article The Arts and the Mass Media but he doesn't use the term in that article at all. (Even Arthur Danto made the mistake.)
The term was first used in the November 1956 issue of Ark, The Journal of The Royal College of Art in an article by Alison and Peter Smithson:
First page of the article containing the first use of the term "pop-art" in print from Ark magazine, November 1956
Alloway may have confused his "Arts and the Mass Media" article with another article he wrote with a similar title, "Notes on Abstract Art and the Mass Media," which appeared in the February 27 - March 12, 1960 issue of the U.K. magazine, Art News and Review (now Art Review magazine), in which he did use the term "pop art" (in small letters) to refer to popular art such as Hollywood movies. It was not meant to designate an actual art movement. The article was a review of an exhibition by "The Cambridge Group" - Tim Wallis, James Meller, George Coral and Raymond Wilson. (See: "Lawrence Alloway and The First Use of The Term Pop Art in Print" in Gary Comenas, Andy Warhol Pre-Pop.)
Andy Warhol, Patrick Fleming and Ed Hood in Peter Wolf's memoir
Waiting on the Moon: Artists, Poets, Drifters and Goddesses
March 31, 2025: Peter Wolf's memoir, Waiting on the Moon, was published on March 11, 2025 in the States and is due to be published April 24, 2025 in the U.K. by Little Brown U.S.A. Despite being on the New York Times best-seller list, it is yet to be featured on the publisher's website.
Peter Wolf (b. March 7, 1946 - a Pisces) was the lead vocalist of the J. Geils Band from 1967 - 1983. He was married to Faye Dunaway from 1974 - 1979.
His memoir includes some great stories about Andy Warhol and his superstars, including Patrick Fleming (one of the stars of The Chelsea Girls) and Ed Hood, the older man in The Chelsea Girls and the john in My Hustler (which also starred Genevieve Charbin who would later become Genevieve Charbin Cerf - she and her husband Christopher Cerf were referred to as the "the trendiest couple in America" by People magazine in 1975.
As Wolf's book has not been published in the U.K. yet, it's difficult to quote from it but I've included first an image of Ed Hood and Patrick Fleming in bed together in The Chelsea Girls:
And a page from the book dealing with Ed Hood's death:
There are several other mentions of Andy Warhol and his superstars in the book - pre-orders are being accepted at Amazon UK.
(Comments to garycom.now@gmail.com.)
Roy Lichtenstein Retrospective will open at the Whitney in 2026
March 30, 2025: The Whitney Museum in New York will host a Roy Lichtenstein Retrospective in 2026. Exact dates to be confirmed - probably during the summer season. A Sixties Surreal show runs from September 24, 2026 to January 29, 2027.
According to Andy Warhol's friend Ted Carey, Lichtenstein was one of the reasons that Warhol dropped painting cartoon characters in favour of soup cans.
First Volume of Robert Rauschenberg Catalogue Raisonné to be published in October 2025
March 29, 2025: The first volume of the Robert Rauschenberg cat. rais. is planned to be published in October of this year and will cover the years 1948 - 1953. Unlike most artist cat. rais., it will be an online digital version that will be free to access.
Angelina Jolie creates an art hub in the building owned by Andy Warhol where Jean-Michel Basquiat died of a heroin overdose.
57 Great Jones Street today - once owned by Andy Warhol
March 25, 2025: Angelina Jolie talks about the "art hub" (aka "atelier") she has created in the building where Jean-Michel Basquiat lived and died in the March 24, 2025 issue of the New York Times (updated March 25th).
The owner of the premises when Jean-Michel Basquiat lived there was Andy Warhol. Basquiat moved in during the autumn of 1983. He was 27 years old when he died there of a heroin overdose on August 12, 1988.
Angelina Jolie had originally intended the space to be a pop-up fashion studio but was concerned about the environmental impact of the fashion cycle. She is quoted as saying "I don’t want to tell people that they need to buy something new every few months.”
The French multimedia artist Prune Nourry is the atelier's artist-in-residence. She has a studio on the second floor where she plans on sculpting "mammoth works" during the next couple of years.
To Jolie's credit, graffiti is still a major aspect of the building's design.
(Comments to: garycom.now@gmail.com)
Leigh Bowery panel at the Tate Modern
Princess Julia - one of the participants on the Leigh Bowery panel discussion at the Tate Modern in London
March 25, 2025: A panel discussion on Leigh Bowery will take place at the Tate Modern on April 16, 2025 with Les Child, Sue Tilley, and Princess Julia. (I assume everyone knows who they are - Tickets will probably be sold out by the time you read this.)
The talk is in conjunction with the current Leigh Bowery show at the museum which runs until August 31, 2025 and which you really should not miss.
more news to follow...