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Andy Warhol's Exposures

back to NOVEMBER 1979: ANDY WARHOL PROMOTES EXPOSURES

Bob Colacello:

"In the end, Andy Warhol's Exposures, like every book by Andy from the Philosophy to the posthumous Diaries, was as much about denial as revelation... We hired Chris Makos as art director, a good decision creatively, but a financial disaster. I had offered him the standard $3,000 fee, but he insisted on being paid $10 an hour, and then took two years to lay out the book.

This was costing Andy and me money, not the publisher, Grosset & Dunlap, because Exposures was to be the first book in a co-publishing company we had formed with them. It was called Andy Warhol Books and I was the editorial director.

That meant we received 50 percent of the profits, instead of a 15 percent royalty, but it also meant that we paid production costs... Our $35,000 advance, of which I was to receive half, went almost entirely on such expenses... Chris also printed our photographs, another creative plus and money minus... we found out that he had trained a young Italian immigrant how to print in his style, and paid him a dollar of the ten dollars we were paying him per print. 'Chris is such a hustler,' Andy often said... (BC419)

Social Disease was what we wanted the book to be called... Then someone at B. Dalton... said that they'd have to order fewer copies for their suburban and small-town stores if that was the title, and we settled on Exposures...

Brigid [Berlin] and I finished the text at the end of February. Andy said it was 'boring'... His only specific suggestion was to delete The Best Family chapter, on Jackie, Lee, and assorted other Bouviers and Kennedys. That was the chapter Grosset wanted in the most... Andy acquiesced.

He wouldn't give in on paying Brigid, however, saying that she didn't really do anything. 'But she worked at night' I told him, 'and edited me as I went along.'

'Then you pay her,' he said.

As our advance had been eaten up by our expensive art director, I promised Brigid 20 percent of my furture royalities... He [Andy Warhol] readily agreed to split ownership of the limited-edition portforlios of Exposures photographs that Bruno Bischofberger published: The deal was 50 percent to Bruno, 25 percent each to Andy and me. Chris Makos printed those too and, as of this writing, profits have not yet covered expenses... (BC422)

"The Exposures tour, which went on for three more weeks, was almost as depressing as writing the book had been... (BC435)

back to NOVEMBER 1979: ANDY WARHOL PROMOTES EXPOSURES

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