Andy Warhol Biography
Summary
"Andrew Warhola" (August 6, 1928 - February 22, 1987), better known as "Andy Warhol", was an American artist who was a central figure in the movement known as Pop art. After a successful career as a commercial illustrator, Warhol became famous worldwide for his work as a painter, an avant-garde filmmaker, a record producer, an author and a public figure known for his presence in wildly diverse social circles that included bohemian street people, distinguished intellectuals, Hollywood celebrities and wealthy aristocrats.
A controversial figure during his lifetime (his work was often derided by critics as a hoax or 'put-on'), Warhol has been the subject of numerous retrospective exhibitions, books and documentary films since his death in 1987. He is generally acknowledged as one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century.
Childhood and early career
Andy Warhol was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His parents, Ondrej (Andrew) Warhola (the surname was spelled Varchola in Europe, and was modified after immigrating to America) and Julia Warhola, née Ulja (Julia) Justyna Zavacka, were working-class immigrants of Rusyn (Ruthenian) ethnicity from Miková, Austria-Hungary (now in northeast Slovakia).Warhol's father worked in a coal mine, and the family lived at 55 Beelen Street and later at 3252 Dawson Street in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh. The family was Byzantine Catholic and attended St. John Chrysostom Byzantine Catholic Church. Andy Warhol has two brothers John and Paul.
In third grade, Warhol came down with St. Vitus' dance, an affliction of the nervous system causing involuntary movements which is believed to be a complication of scarlet fever. This disease led to a blotchiness in pigmentation of his skin and, as a child, he became somewhat of a hypochondriac, developing a fear of hospitals and medical doctors. Because he was at times bed-ridden as a child, he became an outcast among his school-mates and bonded with his mother very strongly (Guiles, 1989). When in bed he used to draw, listen to the radio and collect pictures of movie stars around his bed. Looking back later, Warhol described the period of his sickness as very important in the development of his personality and in the forming of his skill-set and preferences.
Warhol showed an early artistic talent and studied commercial art at the School of Fine Arts at Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh (now Carnegie Mellon University). In 1949, he moved to New York City and began a successful career in magazine illustration and advertising. He became well-known mainly for his whimsical ink drawings of shoes done in a loose, blotted ink style. These figured in some of his earliest showings in New York at the Bodley Gallery
The 1960s
It was during the 1960s that Warhol began to make paintings of famous American products such as "Campbell's Soup Cans" from the Campbell Soup Company and Coca-Cola, as well as paintings of celebrities like Marilyn Monroe, Troy Donahue, and Elizabeth Taylor. He founded 'The Factory', his studio, during these years, and gathered around himself a wide range of artists, writers, musicians and underground celebrities. He switched to silkscreen prints, which he produced serially, seeking not only to make art of mass-produced items but to mass produce the art itself. In declaring that he wanted to be 'a machine', and in minimizing the role of his own hand in the production of his work, Warhol sparked a revolution in art - his work quickly became very controversial, and popular.
Warhol's work from this period revolves around American Pop (Popular) Culture. He painted dollar bills, celebrities, brand name products, and images from newspaper clippings - many of the latter were iconic images from headline stories of the decade ("e.g." photographs of mushroom clouds, and police dogs attacking civil rights protesters). His subjects were instantly recognizable, and often had a mass appeal - this aspect interested him most, and it unifies his paintings from this period. Take, for example, Warhol's comments on the appeal of Coke:
This quotation both expresses his affection for popular culture, and evidences an ambiguity of perspective that cuts across nearly all of the artist's statements about his own work.
New York's Museum of Modern Art hosted a Symposium on pop art in December 1962, during which artists like Warhol were attacked for 'capitulating' to consumerism. Critics were scandalized by Warhol's open embrace of market culture. This symposium set the tone for Warhol's reception - though throughout the decade it became more and more clear that there had been a profound change in the culture of the art world, and that Warhol was at the center of that shift.
A pivotal event was the 1964 exhibit 'The American Supermarket', a show held in Paul Bianchini's Upper East Side gallery. The show was presented as a typical small supermarket environment, except that everything in it-the produce, canned goods, meat, posters on the wall, etc.-was created by six prominent pop artists of the time, including the controversial (and like-minded) Billy Apple, Mary Inman, and Robert Watts. Warhol's painting of a can of Campbell's soup cost $1,500, while each autographed can sold for $6. The exhibit was one of the first mass events that directly confronted the general public with both Pop Art and the perennial question of what is art.
As an advertisement illustrator in the 1950s Warhol used assistants to increase his productivity. Collaboration would remain a defining (and controversial) aspect of his working methods throughout his career - in the 1960s, however, this was particularly true. One of the most important collaborators during this period was Gerard Malanga. Malanga assisted the artist with producing silkscreens, films, sculpture, and other works at 'The Factory', Warhol's aluminum foil-and-silver-paint lined studio on 47th Street (later moved to Broadway). Other members of Warhol's Factory crowd included Freddie Herko, Ondine, Ronald Tavel, Mary Woronov, Pietro Psaier, Billy Name, and Brigid Berlin (from whom he apparently got the idea to tape record his phone conversations). During this decade, Warhol also groomed a retinue of bohemian eccentrics upon whom he bestowed the designation 'Superstars', including Edie Sedgwick, Viva, and Ultra Violet. These people all participated in the Factory films, and some, like Berlin, remained friends with Warhol until his death. Important figures in the New York underground art/cinema world ("e.g." writer John Giorno, film-maker Jack Smith) also appear in Warhol films of the 1960s, revealing Warhol's connections to a diverse range of artistic scenes during this period. By the end of the decade, Andy Warhol was himself a celebrity, appearing frequently in newspapers and magazines alongside Factory cohorts like Sedgwick.
Shooting
On June 3, 1968, Valerie Solanas shot Warhol and art critic and curator Mario Amaya at Warhol's studio.
Before the shooting, Solanas had been a marginal figure in the Factory scene. She founded a 'group' called S.C.U.M. (Society for Cutting up Men) and authored the scabrous S.C.U.M. Manifesto, a separatist feminist attack on patriarchy. Solanas appears in the 1968 Warhol film, 'I, A Man.' Earlier on the day of the attack, Solanas had been turned away from the Factory after asking for the return of a script she had given to Warhol. The script, apparently, had been misplaced.
Warhol was seriously wounded by the attack and barely survived (doctors opened his chest and massaged his heart to help stimulate its movement again). He suffered physical effects for the rest of his life. The shooting had a profound effect on Warhol's life and art.
Solanas was arrested the day after the assault. By way of explanation, she said that 'He had too much control over my life.' After the shooting, the Factory scene became much more tightly controlled, and for many this event brought the 'Factory 60s' to an end.
The 1970s
Compared to the success and scandal of Warhol's work in the 1960s, the 1970s would prove a much quieter decade. This period, however, saw Warhol becoming more entrepreneurial. According to Bob Colacello, Warhol devoted much of his time to rounding up new, rich patrons for portrait commissions — including Mick Jagger, Liza Minnelli, John Lennon, Diana Ross, Brigitte Bardot, and Michael Jackson. Warhol's famous portrait of Chinese Communist dictator Mao Zedong was created in 1973. He also founded, with Gerard Malanga, "Interview" magazine, and published "The Philosophy of Andy Warhol" (1975). In this book, he presents his ideas on the nature of art: 'Making money is art, and working is art and good business is the best art.'
Warhol used to socialize at Serendipity 3 and, later in the 70s, Studio 54, nightspots in New York City. He was generally regarded as quiet, shy, and as a meticulous observer. Art critic Robert Hughes called him 'the white mole of Union Square'.
The 1980s
Warhol had a re-emergence of critical and financial success in the 1980s, partially due to his affiliation and friendships with a number of prolific younger artists, who were dominating the 'bull market' of '80s New York art: Jean-Michel Basquiat, Julian Schnabel, David Salle and the so-called Neo-Expressionists, as well as Francesco Clemente, Enzo Cucchi and members of the Transavantguardia movement, which had become influential.
Warhol also had an appreciation for intense Hollywood glamour. He once said: 'I love Los Angeles. I love Hollywood. They're so beautiful. Everything's plastic, but I love plastic. I want to be plastic.'
Sexuality
Many people think of Warhol as 'asexual' and merely a 'voyeur', but these notions have been debunked by biographers (such as Victor Bockris), explored by other members of the factory scene such as Bob Colacello (in his book "Holy Terror: Andy Warhol Close Up"), and by scholars like art historian Richard Meyer (in his book "Outlaw Representation"). The question of how his sexuality influenced Warhol's work and shaped his relationship to the art world is a major subject of scholarship on the artist, and is an issue that Warhol himself addressed in interviews, in conversation with his contemporaries, and in his publications ("e.g." "Popism: The Warhol Sixties").
Throughout his career, Warhol produced erotic photography and drawings of male nudes. Many of his most famous works (portraits of Liza Minnelli, Judy Garland, Elizabeth Taylor, and films like "Blow Job", "My Hustler", and "Lonesome Cowboys") draw from gay underground culture and/or openly explore the complexity of sexuality and desire. Many of his films premiered in gay porn theaters. That said, some stories about Warhol's development as an artist revolved around the obstacle his sexuality initially presented as he tried to launch his career. The first works that he submitted to a gallery in the pursuit of a career as an artist were homoerotic drawings of male nudes. They were rejected for being too openly gay. (... more) In "Popism", furthermore, the artist recalls a conversation with the film maker Emile de Antonio about the difficulty Warhol had being accepted socially by the then more famous (but closeted) gay artists Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg. De Antonio explained that Warhol was 'too swish and that upsets them.' In response to this, Warhol writes, 'There was nothing I could say to that. It was all too true. So I decided I just wasn't going to care, because those were all the things that I didn't want to change anyway, that I didn't think I 'should' want to change ... Other people could change their attitudes but not me'. In exploring Warhol's biography, many turn to this period - the late 1950s and early 1960s - as a key moment in the development of his persona. Some have suggested that his frequent refusal to comment on his work, to speak about himself (confining himself in interviews to responses like 'Uhm, No' and 'Uhm, Yes', and often allowing others to speak for him), and even the evolution of his Pop style can be traced to the years when Warhol was first dismissed by the inner circles of the New York art world.
Religious beliefs
Warhol was a practicing Byzantine Rite Catholic. He regularly volunteered at homeless shelters in New York, particularly during the busier times of the year, and described himself as a religious person. Many of his later works contain almost-hidden religious themes or subjects, and a body of religious-themed works was found posthumously in his estate. Warhol also regularly attended Mass during his life, and the priest at Warhol's church, Saint Vincent's, said that the artist went there almost daily. His art is noticeably influenced by the eastern Christian iconographic tradition which was so evident in his places of worship.
Warhol's brother has described the artist as 'really religious, but he didn't want people to know about that because it was private'. Despite the private nature of his faith, in Warhol's eulogy John Richardson depicted it as devout: 'To my certain knowledge, he was responsible for at least one conversion. He took considerable pride in financing his nephew's studies for the priesthood'.
Death
Warhol died in New York City at 6:32 a.m. on February 22, 1987. According to news reports, he had been making good recovery from a routine gallbladder surgery at New York Hospital before dying in his sleep from a sudden heart attack. The hospital staff had failed to adequately monitor his condition and overloaded him with fluids after his operation, causing him to suffer from a fatal case of water intoxication, which prompted Warhol's lawyers to sue the hospital for negligence. Prior to his diagnosis and operation, Warhol delayed having his recurring gallbladder problems checked, as he was afraid to enter hospitals and see doctors.
Warhol's body was taken back to Pittsburgh by his brothers for burial. The wake was at Thomas P. Kunsak Funeral Home and was an open-coffin ceremony. The coffin was a solid bronze casket with gold plated rails and white upholstery. Warhol wore a black cashmere suit, a paisley tie, a platinum wig, and sunglasses. He was holding a small prayer book and a red rose.
The funeral liturgy was held at the Holy Ghost Byzantine Catholic Church on Pittsburgh's North Side. The eulogy was given by Monsignor Peter Tay. Fellow artist Yoko Ono also made an appearance. The coffin was covered with white roses and asparagus ferns.
After the liturgy, the coffin was driven to St. John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Cemetery in Bethel Park, a south suburb of Pittsburgh. At the grave, the priest said a brief prayer and sprinkled holy water on the casket. Before the coffin was lowered, Paige Powell dropped a copy of "Interview" magazine, an "Interview" t-shirt, and a bottle of the Estee Lauder perfume 'Beautiful' into the grave. Warhol was buried next to his mother and father.
Weeks later a memorial service was held in Manhattan for Warhol on April 1, 1987 at St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York.
Warhol had so many possessions that it took Sotheby's nine days to auction his estate after his death; the auction grossed more than US$20 million. His total estate was worth considerably more, in no small part due to shrewd investments over the years.
On the twentieth anniversary of his death The Gershwin Hotel in New York City held a week-long series of events commemorating Warhol's art and his superstars. There was an award ceremony, a fashion show, and Blondie performed at the closing party. At the same time, The Carrozzini von Buhler Gallery in New York City held an exhibit titled, "Andy Warhol: In His Wake." The exhibit featured the art of Warhol's superstars Ultra Violet, Billy Name, Taylor Mead, and Ivy Nicholson as well as art by a younger generation of artists who have been inspired by Warhol. One interactive sculpture in the exhibit, "The Great Warhola", by Cynthia von Buhler, depicted Warhol as an arcade fortune-telling machine. The gallery was transformed to look like Warhol's silver factory. "Factory Girl", a film about the life of Edie Sedgwick, starring Sienna Miller and Hayden Christensen, was also released one week before the anniversary of Warhol's death.
Works
Paintings
By the beginning of the 1960s, Warhol was a very successful commercial illustrator. His detailed and elegant drawings for I. Miller shoes were particularly popular. These illustrations consisted mainly of 'blotted ink' drawings (or monoprints), a technique which he applied in much of his early art. Although many artists of this period worked in commercial art, most did so discreetly. Warhol was so successful, however, that his profile as an illustrator seemed to undermine his efforts to be taken seriously as an artist.
In the early 1960s, Warhol tried to exhibit some of his drawings using these techniques in a gallery, only to be turned down. He began to rethink the relationship between his commercial work and the rest of his art. Instead of treating these things as opposites, he merged them, and began to take commercial and popular culture more explicitly as his topic.
Pop Art was an experimental form that several artists were independently adopting; some of these pioneers, such as Roy Lichtenstein, would later become synonymous with the movement. Warhol, who would become famous as the 'Pope of Pop', turned to this new style, where popular subjects could be part of the artist's palette. His early paintings show images taken from cartoons and advertisements, hand-painted with paint drips. Those drips emulated the style of successful abstract expressionists (such as Robert Rauschenberg). Eventually, Warhol pared his image vocabulary down to the icon itself-to brand names, celebrities, dollar signs-and removed all traces of the artist's 'hand' in the production of his paintings.
To him, part of defining a niche was defining his subject matter. Cartoons were already being used by Lichtenstein, typography by Jasper Johns, and so on; Warhol wanted a distinguishing subject. His friends suggested he should paint the things he loved the most. In his signature way of taking things literally, for his first major exhibition he painted his famous cans of Campbell's Soup, which he claimed to have had for lunch for most of his life.
He loved celebrities, so he painted them as well. From these beginnings he developed his later style and subjects. Instead of working on a signature subject matter, as he started out to do, he worked more and more on a signature style, slowly eliminating the hand-made from the artistic process. Warhol frequently used silk-screening; his later drawings were traced from slide projections. Warhol went from being a painter to being a designer of paintings. At the height of his fame as a painter, Warhol had several assistants who produced his silk-screen multiples, following his directions to make different versions and variations.
Warhol produced both comic and serious works; his subject could be a soup can or an electric chair. Warhol used the same techniques-silkscreens, reproduced serially, and often painted with bright colors-whether he painted celebrities, everyday objects, or images of suicide, car crashes, and disasters (as part of a 1962-1963 series called 'Death and Disaster'). The 'Death and Disaster' paintings (such as 'Red Car Crash', 'Purple Jumping Man', 'Orange Disaster') transform personal tragedies into public spectacles, and signal the use of images of disaster in the then evolving media.
The unifying element in Warhol's work is his deadpan Keatonesque style-artistically and personally affectless. This was mirrored by Warhol's own demeanor, as he often played 'dumb' to the media, and refused to explain his work. The artist was famous for having said that all you need to know about him and his works is already there, 'on the surface.'
Warhol's work as a Pop Artist has always had conceptual aspects. His series of do it yourself paintings and Rorschach blots are intended as pop comments on art and what art could be. His cow wallpaper (literally, wallpaper with a cow motif) and his oxidation paintings (canvases prepared with copper paint that was then oxidized with urine) are also noteworthy in this context. Equally noteworthy is the way these works-and their means of production-mirrored the atmosphere at Andy's New York 'Factory.' Biographer Bob Colacello provides some details on Andy's 'piss paintings':
Films
Warhol worked across a wide range of media — painting, photography, drawing, and sculpture. In addition, he was a highly prolific filmmaker. Between 1963 and 1968, he made more than sixty films. One of his most famous films, "Sleep", monitors poet John Giorno sleeping for six hours. The 35-minute film "Blow Job", is one continuous shot of the face of DeVeren Bookwalter supposedly receiving oral sex from filmmaker Willard Maas, although the camera never tilts down to see this. Another, 1964's "Empire", consists of eight hours of footage of the Empire State Building in New York City at dusk. The 45-minute film "Eat" consists of a man eating a mushroom for 45 minutes.
"Batman Dracula" is a 1964 film that was produced and directed by Warhol, without the permission of DC Comics. It was screened only at his art exhibits. A fan of the Batman series, Warhol's movie was an 'homage' to the series, and is considered the first appearance of a blatantly campy Batman. The film was until recently thought to have been lost, until scenes from the picture were shown at some length in the 2006 documentary "Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis".
Warhol's 1965 film ""Vinyl"" is an adaptation of Anthony Burgess' popular dystopian novel "A Clockwork Orange". Others record improvised encounters between Factory regulars such as Brigid Berlin, Viva, Edie Sedgwick, Candy Darling, Holly Woodlawn, Ondine, Nico, and Jackie Curtis. Legendary underground artist Jack Smith appears in the film "Camp".
His most popular and critically successful film was 1966's "Chelsea Girls". The film was highly innovative in that it consisted of two 16 mm films being projected simultaneously, with two different stories being shown in tandem. From the projection booth, the sound would be raised for one film to elucidate that 'story' while it was lowered for the other. The multiplication of images evoked Warhol's seminal silk-screen works of the early 1960s. The influence of the film's split-screen, multi-narrative style could be felt in such modern work as Mike Figgis' "Timecode" and, however indirectly, the early seasons of "24".
Other important films include "Bike Boy", "My Hustler", and "Lonesome Cowboys", a raunchy pseudo-western. These and other titles document gay underground and camp culture, and continue to feature prominently in scholarship about sexuality and art - see, for example, Mathew Tinkom's "Working Like a Homosexual" (Duke University Press, 2002) or Juan Suarez's "Bike Boys, Drag Queens, and Superstars" (Indiana University Press, 1996). "Blue Movie", a film in which Warhol superstar Viva makes love and fools around in bed with a man for 33 minutes of the film's playing-time, was Warhol's last film as director. The film was at the time scandalous for its frank approach to a sexual encounter. For many years Viva refused to allow it to be screened. It was publicly screened in New York in 2005 for the first time in over thirty years.
After his June 3, 1968 shooting, a reclusive Warhol relinquished his personal involvement in filmmaking. His acolyte and assistant director, Paul Morrissey, took over the film-making chores for the Factory collective, steering Warhol-branded cinema towards more mainstream, narrative-based, B-movie exploitation fare with "Flesh", "Trash", and "Heat". All of these films, including the later "Andy Warhol's Dracula" and "Andy Warhol's Frankenstein", were far more mainstream than anything Warhol as a director had attempted. These latter 'Warhol' films starred Joe Dallesandro, who was more of a Morrissey star than a true Warhol superstar.
In order to facilitate the success of these Warhol-branded, Morrissey-directed movies in the marketplace, all of Warhol's earlier avant-garde films were removed from distribution and exhibition by 1972.
Another film, "Andy Warhol's Bad", made significant impact as a 'Warhol' film yet was directed by Jed Johnson. "Bad" starred the infamous Carroll Baker, Susan Blond and a young Perry King.
The first volume of a catalogue raisonne for the Factory film archive, edited by Callie Angell, was published in the spring of 2006.
Factory in New York
Factory: 1342 Lexington Avenue (the first Factory)
Factory: 231 East 47th street 1963-1967
Factory: 33 Union Square 1967-1973 (Decker Building)
Factory: 860 Broadway (near 33 Union Square) 1973-1984 (the building has now been completely remodeled and was for a time (2000-2001) the headquarters of the dotcom consultancy Scient)
Factory: 22 East 33rd Street 1984-1987 (the building no longer exists)
Home: 242 Lexington Avenue
Home: 57 East 66th street (Warhol's last home)
Last personal studio: 158 Madison Avenue
Filmography
Music
In the mid 1960s, Warhol adopted the band The Velvet Underground, making them a crucial element of the Exploding Plastic Inevitable multimedia performance art show. Warhol, with Paul Morrissey, acted as the band's manager, introducing them to Nico (who would perform with the band at Warhol's request). In 1966 he 'produced' their first album "The Velvet Underground and Nico", as well as providing its album art. His actual participation in the album's production amounted to simply paying for the studio time. After the band's first album, Warhol and band leader Lou Reed started to disagree more about the direction the band should take, and the contact between them faded.
In 1990, Reed recorded the album "Songs for Drella" with fellow Velvet Underground alumnus John Cale. 'Drella' was the Factory-era nickname —, a portmanteau of Dracula and Cinderella — bestowed upon Warhol. On "Drella", Reed apologizes and comes to terms with his part in their conflict.
Warhol designed many album covers for various artists starting with the photographic cover of John Wallowitch's debut album, "This Is John Wallowitch!!!" (1964). Warhol designed the cover art for The Rolling Stones albums "Sticky Fingers" (1971) and "Love You Live" (1977). In 1975, Warhol was commissioned to do several portraits of the band's frontman.Warhol was also friendly with many musicians, including , and - he designed the cover to Lennon's 1986 posthumously released "". Warhol also appeared as a bartender in ' for their 'Hello Again', and 's video for their 'Misfit' single (both videos, and others, were produced by Warhol's video production company). Warhol strongly influenced the / band , as well as . Bowie recorded a song called '' for his 1971 album "". Lou Reed wrote the song 'Andy's Chest', about , the woman who shot Warhol, in 1969. He recorded it with the Velvet Underground, but this version wasn't officially released until the album appeared in 1985. He recorded a new version for his solo album "", produced by Bowie and . ===Books and print===Beginning in the early 1950s, Warhol produced several unbound portfolios of his work. The first of several bound self-published books by Warhol was "", printed in by Seymour Berlin on Arches brand watermarked paper using his blotted line technique for the lithographs. The original edition was limited to 190 numbered, hand colored copies, using Dr. Martin's ink washes. Most of these were given by Warhol as gifts to clients and friends. Copy #4, inscribed 'Jerry' on the front cover, was given to , who at the time was with I. Miller Shoes. Later the president of and then while head of Panache Press an imprint of she used this copy for a facsimile printing in 1987. Her estate consigned the original limited edition to where it sold in May 2006 for US $35,000.Other self-published books by Warhol include:* "Gold Book"* "Wild Raspberries"* "Holy Cats"Later Warhol 'wrote' several books that were commercially printed.* "" (1968, ISBN 0-8021-3553-6) is a literal transcription - containing spelling errors and phonetically written background noise and mumbling - of audio recordings of and several of Andy Warhol's friends hanging out at the Factory, talking, going out.* "" (1975, ISBN 0-15-671720-4) - according to Pat Hackett's introduction to "The Andy Warhol Diaries", Pat Hackett did the transcriptions and text for the book based on daily phone conversations, sometimes (when Warhol was traveling) using audio cassettes that Andy Warhol gave her. Said cassettes contained conversations with (also known as Brigid Polk) and former "Interview" magazine editor .* "" (1980, ISBN 0-15-672960-1), authored by Warhol and Pat Hackett is a retrospective view of the sixties and the role of Pop Art.* "" (1989, ISBN 0-446-39138-7, edited by Pat Hackett) is an edited diary that was dictated by Warhol to Hackett in daily phone conversations. Warhol started keeping a diary to keep track of his expenses after being audited, although it soon evolved to include his personal and cultural observations.Warhol created the fashion magazine "" that is still published today. The loopy title script on the cover is thought to be either his own handwriting or that of his mother, Julia Warhola, who would often do text work for his early commercial pieces.===Other media===As stated, although Andy Warhol is most known for his paintings and films, he has authored works in many different media.* : Warhol started his career drawing commercial illustrations in 'blotted-ink' style for warehouses and magazines. Most well known are his pictures of shoes. Some of his drawings were published in little s, like 'Yum, Yum, Yum' (about food), 'Ho, Ho, Ho' (about Christmas) and (of course) 'Shoes, Shoes, Shoes.' His most artistically acclaimed book of drawings is probably 'The Gold Book', compiled of sensitive, personal drawings of young men. 'The Gold Book' is thus dubbed because of the that decorates the pages.* : Warhol's most famous sculpture is probably his 'Brillo Boxes', silkscreened bronze replicas of soap boxes. Other famous works include the 'Silver Floating Pillows'; gas-filled, silver mylar, pillow-shaped s that were floated out of the window during the presentation. A 'Silver Floating Pillow' was included in the traveling exhibition 'Air Art' (1968-1969) curated by .* : At one point Warhol carried a portable recorder with him wherever he went, taping everything everybody said and did. He referred to this device as his 'wife.' Some of these tapes were the basis for his work. Another audio-work of Warhol's was his 'Invisible Sculpture', a presentation in which burglar alarms would go off when entering the room. Warhol's cooperation with the musicians of The Velvet Underground was driven by an expressed desire to become a music producer.* s: Throughout his life, Warhol saved many of his correspondences, articles about himself and those which fascinated him, and numerous other items (everything from food to gay porn). Several of these items were boxed up and, progressively, numbered. They eventually totaled in the dozens. Today the Warhol Museum houses them and is in the process of opening and sorting them. As of 2007 there remain boxes which, while cataloged, have not been re-opened since their original sealing. (see external links below for more info). * : Andy Warhol dreamed of a television show that he wanted to call 'The Nothing Special', a special about his favorite subject: Nothing. Later in his career he did create two cable television shows, 'Andy Warhol's TV' in 1982 and 'Andy Warhol's Fifteen Minutes' (based on his famous '' quotation) for MTV in 1986. Besides his own shows he regularly made guest appearances on other programs, including '' wherein a Midwestern wife () fears Andy Warhol will reveal to her husband (, who starred alongside Ross in sitcom "") her secret past as a Warhol superstar named Marina del Rey. Warhol also produced a TV commercial for Restaurants in New York City, for an ice cream dessert appropriately titled the ' (Underground Sundae) '* : Warhol is quoted for having said: 'I'd rather buy a dress and put it up on the wall, than put a painting, wouldn't you?' One of his most well-known Superstars, , aspired to be a fashion designer, and his good friend was a famous one. Warhol's work in fashion includes silkscreened dresses, a short sub-career as a catwalk-model and books on fashion as well as paintings with fashion (shoes) as a subject.* : Warhol and his friends staged happenings; theatrical multimedia presentations during parties, containing music, film, slide projections and Gerard Malanga in an S&M outfit cracking a whip. The is the culmination of this area of his work.* : To produce his silkscreens, Warhol made photographs or had them made by his friends and assistants. These pictures were mostly taken with a specific model of camera that Polaroid kept in production especially for Warhol. This photographic approach to painting and his snapshot method of taking pictures has had a great effect on artistic photography. Warhol was an accomplished photographer, and took an enormous amount of photographs of Factory visitors, friends - given the importance of this medium to both his paintings and to film, one might say that an interest in photography lies at the center of his artistic practice.* : Warhol used computers to generate digital art.===Producer and product===In many ways Warhol refined and expanded the idea of what it means to be an artist. Warhol frequently took on the position of a producer, rather than a creator - this is true not only of his work as a painter (he had assistants do much of the work of producing his paintings), it is true of his film-making and commercial enterprises as well. He liked to coin an idea and then oversee or delegate its execution. As he refined this element of his work The evolved from an atelier into an office. He became (and still is) the public face of a company, and a brand. He founded the gossip magazine , a stage for celebrities he 'endorsed' and a business staffed by his friends. He collaborated with others on all of his books (some of which were written with Pat Hackett.) He adopted the young painter , and the band , presenting them to the public as his latest interest, and collaborating with them. One might even say that he produced people (as in the Warholian 'Superstar' and the Warholian portrait). He endorsed products, appeared in commercials, and made frequent celebrity guest appearances on television shows and in films (he appeared in everything from to and the movie, "Dynamite Chicken"). In this respect Warhol was a fan of 'Art Business' and 'Business Art' - he, in fact, wrote about his interest in thinking about art as business in "The Philosophy of Andy Warhol from A to B and Back Again." This was a radical new stance, as artists traditionally positioned themselves against commercialism. Warhol and other pop-artists helped redefine the artist's position as professional, commercial, and popular. He did this using methods, imagery and talents that were (or at least seemed to be) available to everyone. In this respect Pop Art has contributed to a philosophical and practical incorporation of art into popular culture and society, and art offered to us as a product of that society.===Museums===Two museums are dedicated to Andy Warhol. The , one of the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, is located at 117 Sandusky Street in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is the largest American art museum dedicated to a single artist, holding more than 12,000 works by the artist himself.The other museum is the , established in by Andy's brother John Warhola, the Slovak Ministry of Culture, and the Warhol Foundation in New York. It is located in the small town of , . Andy's parents were born 15 kilometers away in the village of Miková. The museum houses several originals donated mainly by the Andy Warhol Foundation in New York and also personal items donated by Warhol's relatives.==Films portraying Warhol==Andy Warhol is portrayed by in 's film "" (1991). He is also played by in "", a film by . In the film "", directed by (1996), the actor portrayed Warhol. Actor Mark Bringleson makes a brief cameo as Warhol in , painting a supine woman's outfit to match the pattern on the floor of the Electric Psychadelic Pussycat Swingers' Club while looking at a Campbell's Soup can. Also, many films by Jonas Mekas have the moments of Andy's life caught (for example 'Super 8 films'; 'Scenes From The Life Of Andy Warhol' and many more). Sean Gregory Sullivan depicted Warhol in the film "". The latest film actor to portray the artist is in the film, ""."" is a reverential four-hour 2006 movie by .The 2001 documentary, "", was produced by German director Stanislaw Mucha, featuring Warhol's parents' family and hometown in Slovakia. was planning a version of Warhol's life with in the lead role just before the Phoenix's death in (as discussed in an interview with the two, included in the published "" script book).==Notes====References==*'A symposium on Pop Art.' "Arts Magazine", April 1963, pp.36-45. The symposium was held in 1962, at , and published in this issue the following year.* * * Butt, Gavin (2006). "Between You and Me: Queer Disclosure in the New York Art World, 1948-1963." Durham: Duke University Press.* * * Doyle, Jennifer, Jonathan Flatley, and eds. (1996). "Pop Out: Queer Warhol." Durham: Duke University Press.* * James, James, 'Andy Warhol: The Producer as Author', in "Allegories of Cinema: American Film in the Sixties" (1989), pp. 58-84. Princeton: Princeton University Press.* * (Lobel, Michael. We're Here: Gay and Lesbian Presence in Art and Art History, Art Journal (Winter 1996).) * *Suarez, Juan Antonio (1996). "Bike Boys, Drag Queens, & Superstars: Avant-Garde, Mass Culture, and Gay Identities in the 1960s Underground Cinema." Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. * * ==See also==* * * * * largest single artist gallery in the world. Part of the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh.* in Pittsburgh.* ==External links==* (Andy Warhol's biographic sketch) at * * (Warhol Foundation) in New York, New York.* (The Andy Warhol Museum) in , Pennsylvania* (Warhol Family Museum) in , * (Two short articles about Warhol's 2002 museum retrospective from the art magazine 'X-TRA') * (Andy Warhol) at Gagosian Gallery* (Time Capsules: the Andy Warhol collection) * (Andy Warhol at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)) * (Living with Legends: Hotel Chelsea Blog) *http://www.warholstars.org*http://www.ThankYouAndyWarhol.com* (Pop Art Masters - Andy Warhol) * (Transubstantiating The Culture: Andy Warhol's Secret) * (interpretations and descriptions of some of his works) * (Art Directors Club biography, portrait and images of work) ===Listening===* ('Warhol, Soup Cans, Cowboys') ("Studio 360" radio program, , )
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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article about Andy Warhol.
