warholstars.org

home - news - about - superstars - interviews - articles - soup can - films - art - timeline - abstract expressionism - sources - citations

February 2010
(to January 2010)

Bob Colacello at the Steven Kasher Gallery

Bob Colacello will be signing copies of Andy Warhol: Unexposed Exposures at the opening reception of the exhibition of the same name at the Steven Kasher Gallery in New York on March 2, 2010.

Details here.

Interview with John Cale

An interview with ex-Velvet Underground member, John Cale, has been published in the Independent on Sunday in the U.K. Cale will be performing the music from his album, Paris 1919, at the Royal Festival Hall in London on Friday, 5 March 2010, supported by Patrick Wolf.

The interview can be found here.

Details of the RFH performance here.

Genesis P-Orridge and new Burroughs documentary at opening of CIMMfest

Genesis P-Orridge will be performing at the opening of CIMMfest (Chicago International Movies and Music Festival) on March 4, 2010. The new documentary, William S. Burroughs: A Man Within will also be shown.

Details here.

Trash

A book published late last year about Paul Morrisey's film Trash is currently available from Amazon. Beginning with an introduction titled "Trash is Truth" (borrowed from a quote by George Kuchar), Jon Davis explores the movie as an allegory "for the experiences of Woodlawn, Dallesandro, their co-stars, and countless other 'leftovers,' whose self-fashioning for Warhol and Morrissey's gazes transformed them... from nobodies into somebodies." Part of the Queer Film Classic series.

Happy Birthday Billy Name

Warhol star Billy Name will be celebrating his birthday in his home town of Poughkeepsie on Sunday, February 28th at the Mad Hatter on 51 Market Street from 6:00 - 11:00 p.m, with music by Prephab. His birthday is actually on the 22nd of February - the same day as Warhol's death - but he'll celebrate it on the 28th at the Mad Hatter.

In addition to photographing Andy Warhol and his cohorts (as well as designing and living in the original silver Factory) Name also appeared in more than ten Warhol films during the 1960s. He continues to be active as a photographer-artist and most recently was the subject of an article in The New York Times in regard to his photographic negatives which went missing while under the care of his ex-agent Kevin Kushel who is currently being investigated by law enforcement agencies. The New York Times article can be found here.

Lawrence Alloway and the origin of the term "Pop Art"

For decades, art writers (including Arthur C. Danto in his recent book on Andy Warhol) have been crediting Lawrence Alloway with the origination of the term "Pop Art." As Danto wrote in Andy Warhol, "the term Pop art was first used in 1958 by Lawrence Alloway, a British critic, initially to designate American mass media popular culture, Hollywood movies in particular." The 1958 date that is cited by Danto is a reference is to Alloway's article "The Arts and the Mass Media" which was published in Architectural Design magazine in February, 1958. But although Alloway made reference to "popular" art in the article, he never actually used the term "Pop Art" in it. I have cleared up the confusion as to how it came to be that Alloway was credited with the term in a revised paragraph of my review of Danto's book here.

In regard to Danto's reference to Billy Name as a "muddlehead" in the same book, Name points out it was he (Name) who installed the exhibition that Danto has characterized as a "transformative experience."

Billy Name:

"I have never met Arthur C. Danto, but he says the Brillo Box show at the Stable Gallery was transformative for him, and I was the 'muddlehead' who did the complete gallery installation. Andy sent me up to do it and it was a transforming installation... In the early Factory years Andy would send writers and interviewers to me to explain to them what Andy was doing... I don't care to be written about in such a way as Danto has written."

The full review can be read here.

Arshile Gorky Retrospective at the Tate Modern in London

The Arshile Gorky Retrospective opens at the Tate Modern in London on 10 February 2010.

Henry Geldzahler (Associate Curator of American Paintings and Sculpture at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY in 1965):

"By his courage as a painter, Gorky helped to free his fellow painters. After his suicide in 1948 a touching tribute was paid him in the magazine Art News by his friend de Kooning: 'In a piece on Arshile Gorky's memorial show - and it was a very little piece indeed - it is mentioned that I was one of his influences. Now that is plain silly. When, about fifteen years ago, I waked into Arshile's studio for the first time, the atmosphere was so beautiful that I got a little dizzy and when I came to, I was bright enough to take the hint immediately. If the bookkeepers think it necessary continuously to make sure of where things and people come from, well then, I come from 36 Union Square [Gorky's studio]. It is incredible to me that other people live there now. I am glad that it is almost impossible to get away from his powerful influence. As long as I keep it with myself I'll be doing all right. Sweet Arshile, bless your dear heart." (AP182)

The website for the Arshile Gorky Foundation can be found here.

Arshile Gorky links from The AbEx Chronology

Arshile Gorky survives the Armenian genocide
Arshile Gorky arrives in the U.S.
Arshile Gorky begins painting The Artist and His Mother
Arshile Gorky's Newark Airport murals
Arshile Gorky meets Matta

Arshile Gorky solo exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Art
Waterfall
The Liver is the Cock's Comb

Arshile Gorky's first solo show at the Julien Levy gallery
Arshile Gorky's paintings are destroyed in a fire
Cancer and an abdominoperinal resection
Connecticut
Arshile Gorky's father dies

Arshile Gorky's final exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery
Car crash

Arshile Gorky roams the streets of New York

Suicide

Obituary

Candy Darling documentary to premiere at the Berlinale

The documentary on Andy Warhol's transsexual superstar Candy Darling, who died in 1974, will premiere at the Berlinale in Berlin on 12 February 2010, with further screenings on the 18th and 19th. Details here.

Beautiful Darling: The Life And Times Of Candy Darling, Andy Warhol Superstar is directed by James Rasin, produced by Jeremiah Newton and includes interviews with George Abagnalo (co-writer of Andy Warhol's Bad who also appeared with Candy in Women in Revolt), photographer Peter Beard, Sam Green, Pat Hackett, Helen Hanft, Robert Heide, Melba LaRose, Jr., Fran Lebowitz, Gerard Malanga, Taylor Mead, Paul Morrissey, Julie Newmar, Michael J. Pollard, John Waters, Holly Woodlawn and others.

Happy Birthday Bibbe Hansen

Warhol star Bibbe Hansen celebrated her recent birthday at a special surprise party at the Black & White Bar in downtown Manhattan on Sunday 31 January 2010. Guests included Danny Fields, Patrick McMullan, Jack Dishel from Only Son, Julian Woolsey from And the Revelers Fell, filmmaker Chris Dalrymple, Joseph Keckler, Fluxus artist Geoff Hendricks, Jeff Salzer, writer Jim Yoakum and his partner - the artist Ilene, Laurie Becker Oliver, jewelry designer Eileen Kasofsky, Susan Simmons, artist Ethan Shoshan, Jeff Rubenstein and Sur Rodney Sur. Happy Birthday Bibbe!

Andy Warhol Artist Room in Perth in April and the Tate Modern in the summer

Works by Andy Warhol will be exhibited at the Perth Museum and Art Gallery in Scotland from 17 April to 23 October 2010 and the Tate Modern from the summer 2010 to spring 2011as part of the Tate's Artist Rooms tour.

Merce Cunningham Dance Company to disband in 2011

The Merce Cunningham Dance Company is to disband at the end of 2011 after their Legacy Tour which will feature his dance piece, RainForest, with Silver Clouds by Andy Warhol. Cunningham died in July and preferred that the company continued for only a limited time after his death. The final performance will take place in New York on New Year's Eve in 2011. After then Cunningham's works will continue to be performed when licensed to other companies.

Jasper Johns:

"When I approached Warhol to say that Merce would like him to design the decor for RainForest, Andy said, 'Oh, just take a lot of those pillows.' And I said, 'What about costumes?' and he said, 'Oh, they shouldn't wear any clothes.' And I said, 'I don't think that idea would work with Merce,' and he said, 'Oh.' But he didn't suggest any other idea. And when the subject of the costumes came up with Merce, he brought this garment that I think he had been wearing when he practiced and tying knots in it as it got torn, and he said, 'I think something like this might be all right.' So I imitated the thing he had brought me, cutting into the garments and tying knots." (JJ237)

Women in Pop Symposium at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia

A symposium on women Pop artists will take place Friday, February 5 – Saturday, February 6, 2010 at Terra Hall, Connelly Auditorium (8th floor), 211 South Broad Street in Philadelphia in conjunction with the "Seductive Subversion: Women Pop Artists 1958-1968" exhibition at the Rosenwald-Wolf, Hamilton Hall & Borowsky Galleries.

The Origins of Andy Warhol's Soup Cans or The Synthesis of Nothingness

I have updated my essay on Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup Can paintings. The updated essay can be found here.

Third volume of the Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonné to be published in June 2010

The third volume of the Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonné is now due to be published in June and can be pre-ordered from Amazon at a reduced price of $348.64 or $1,097.41 for all three volumes.

to more news

home - news - about - superstars - interviews - articles - soup can - films - art - timeline - abstract expressionism - sources - citations