WARHOLSTARS.ORG| WARHOLSTARS.ORG |
|
|
|
|
November 2008
(to current news | October 2008)
Jane Holzer on the cover of Vogue magazine 1964
There has been a change of format for the Vincent Fremont evening at the Purcell Room in London on November 24, 2008. Vincent will now be joined on stage by Warhol's first major superstar - Jane Holzer (aka Baby Jane Holzer) - and the two of them plan on ringing Brigid Berlin in her apartment in New York during part of the evening. Brigid is, of course, no stranger to phone conversations. Her 1968 stage show, Brigid Polk Strikes!, consisted largely of Brigid making phone calls from the stage to unsuspecting recepients while the audience listened in. This time, at the Purcell Room, it will be Vincent and Jane onstage ringing Brigid while the audience eavesdrops on their conversation. Andy Warhol and Brigid spoke regularly on the phone - some of their conversations were included in the documentary directed by Vincent Fremont, Pie in the Sky - The Brigid Berlin Story
.
Nicknamed "Baby Jane" by columnist Carol Bjorkman and referred to as the "Girl of the Year" by writer Tom Wolfe in 1964, Jane Holzer was originally introduced to Warhol by Nicky Haslam after she returned from a trip to England where she had worked with the photographer David Bailey. She went on to appear in numerous Warhol films including ten Screen Tests and the full length films Soap Opera, Batman Dracula, Couch and Camp.
During the sixties Holzer was the U.S. equivalent of an "it" girl. Vogue editor Diana Vreeland once described Jane as "the most contemporary girl I know." Holzer continues to be active on the New York social scene - photographs of her and her art collection were featured earlier this year in the pages of the New York Times Women's Fashion Spring 2008 supplement. See: www.nytimes.com/indexes/2008/02/24/style/t/index.html#pageName=24holzer1.
Tom Wolfe (from "Girl of the Year," New York magazine, December 1964 reprinted in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
)
"The show hasn't even started yet, the Rolling Stones aren't even on stage... Girls are reeling this way and that way in the aisle and through their huge black decal eyes... they keep staring at - her - Baby Jane - on the aisle... Baby Jane, is a fabulous girl. She comprehends what the Rolling Stones mean. Any columnist in New York could tell them who she is... a celebrity of New York's new era of Wog Hip... Baby Jane Holzer, Jane Holzer in Vogue, Jane Holzer in Life, Jane Holzer in Andy Warhol's underground movies, Jane Holzer at the rock and roll, Jane Holzer is - well, how can you put it into words? Jane Holzer is This Years Girl, at least, the New Celebrity, none of your old idea of sexpots, prima donnas, romantic tragediennes, she is the girl who knows... the Stones, East End vitality... 'Andy calls everything super,' says Jane. 'I'm a super star, he's a super-director, we make super epics - and I mean, it's a completely new and natural way of acting. you can't image what really beautiful things can happen!'"
Tickets for the evening can be booked via the Southbank Centre's website at: http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/all-events/productions/brigid-berlin-and-vincent-frem-42941.
The Vincent Fremont/Jane Holzer evening is being presented in conjunction with the Hayward Gallery's exhibition "Andy Warhol: Other Voices Other Rooms" which runs until January 18, 2009. Details at: http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/minisite/andy-warhol.
"Andy Warhol: 15 Weeks of Fame" is currently running at the Arkansas Arts Centre in Little Rock. The exhibition - the first of its kind in Arkansas - includes a selection of Warhol's paintings, prints, Screen Tests and the Silver Clouds installation. Events include lectures on the Pop Phenomenon by Eileen Turan and Andy Warhol and the Pop Art Revolution by Professor David Cateforis as well as a photographic exhibition, Factories: Warhol, Sex and Disasters, by Tim Hursley. Films to be shown include Basquiat featuring David Bowie as Warhol (the best onscreen Warhol in my opinion) and I Shot Andy Warhol with Jared Harris as Warhol and Stephen Dorff as Candy Darling.
The exhibition closes on February 1, 2009. Details at:
http://www.arkarts.com/exhibitions/current_exhibitions/andy-warhol.asp.
Left: The new Andy Warhol pool at Thompson LES
Right: Detail of the bottom of the pool
The most recent addition to Thompson Hotels, the Thompson LES (Lower East Side), features a swimming pool with images of Andy Warhol by Gerard Malanga at the bottom of the pool. Located at 190 Allen Street in New York, the luxury hotel's architect was Ed Rawlings, with interior design by Jim Walrod and Rawlings and initial room concept by Dodd Mitchell Design.
The website for Thompson LES is at: http://www.thompsonles.com/index.php?page=thomles.
Warhol stars Holly Woodlawn, Bibbe Hansen, Taylor Mead, Penny Arcade and John Giorno will be appearing at the Chop Chop Gallery in Ohio on November 15, 2008. The event is being organized by multi-media artist Matt Mascaro who is funding it by selling limited edition silkscreens with a small (11"x17") version going for $40 and a larger one (19"x25") for $100.00. Sponsors will also be given the opportunity to participate in a "15 Seconds of Fame" installation - a live video portrait podcast that Matt will facilitate on the night.
Details on the event flyer here. The Chop Chop website is at: http://chopchopgallery.com.
The large silkscreen can also be purchased online at: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?ref=sr_list_2&listing_id=15864811.
The smaller silkscreen can be purchased online at:
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?ref=vl_other_2&listing_id=15865831.
Added November 5, 2008: "Conquest of the Ridiculous: Ronald Tavel, John Vaccaro and Charles Ludlam."
I've also added to the site a short bio of the Interview journalist, Tinkerbelle, who committed suicide in 1986. You will find it at: http://www.warholstars.org/tinkerbelle.html.
I've also added comments by "Bob" John Liikala about the Dom in the 1966 section of the chronology. Liikala ran the underground film program across the street from the Dom at the Bridge Theater and had a lease arrangement with "Stanley" who ran the Dom's bar. In regard to his film program at the Bridge, he recalls that when he submitted Empire to the censors for approval, "their eyes were spinning after watching it in shifts - sending out for coffee - they shouted 'never...never...bring us another thing like that!'
"Open Stage" poster
by "Bob" John Liikala
Liikala was also responsible for the "Open Stage" event (and poster) which featured the E.P.I. See: http://warholstars.org/chron/1966.html#nico66.
Andy Eighty?
Andy Eighty? - a conference organized by Benjamin H.D. Buchloh - will take place November 1-2, 2008 at the the Arthur M. Sackler Museum Auditorium in Cambridge, MA. Speakers will include Douglas Crimp, Hal Foster, Thomas Crow and Branden Joseph. Details at: http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~hoart/ANDY_WEB3.pdf.
Nico Icon Play opens at The Lowry in Salford, England on November 12, 2008 and is due to run until November 22nd. Details on the Nico Icon Play website at: http://www.nicoiconplay.com.
T-shirts featuring a reproduction of the Joe Cino memorial plaque can be ordered at:
http://www.zazzle.com/joe_cino_memorial_plaque_shirt-235615652401482597.Joe Cino opened the Caffe Cino in December 1958. (GO25) The experimental productions that took place at the Cino would later give rise to productions at off-off Broadway venues like La Mama. (Warhol-related productions that were performed at La Mama included Glamour Glory and Gold (1967/68); Cockstrong (1969/70); Son of Cockstrong (1970); Pork (1971); Vain Victory: The Vicissitudes of the Damned (1971) and Champagne (1985).) Playwrights who used the Cino for early productions of their work included Doric Wilson, Lanford Wilson, Robert Heide, H. M. Koutoukas, Robert Patrick and Tom Eyen. It was at the Cino that the musical Dames at Sea was first presented.
(http://users.aol.com/rbrtptrck/CINO14.html)Director John Vaccaro once commented about the Caffe Cino "This [the Caffe Cino] is the beginning! This is it! The major things done in New York were done there, and nowhere else. I don't give a shit what anybody else says. They're lying." (SB7) Some of the first plays that Ellen Stewart presented after she opened La Mama in 1961 were Andy Milligan productions that played the Cino - experimental versions of Tennessee Williams One Arm and Eugene O'Neill's Before Breakfast. The lighting designer at the Cino was Johnny Dodd who also appeared in a Kiss film (with Freddy Herko) by Warhol and Haircut No. 3. (It was from Dodd's apartment that Freddy Herko would jump to his death in 1964.) Warhol star Ondine was also involved in some of the productions at the Cino.
Andy Milligan:
"Johnny Dodd and I did not get along. One Arm was one of the last shows I did at the Cino. A sick little play. I wanted amber light down into the cell; Johnny wouldn't do it... and Johnny spit in my face and I decked him... The Warhol bunch was the nastiest. When they came into the Cino they destroyed it. They were all terrible actors... Candy Darling had a few good qualities, but they were really ugly people. Self-centered, egotistical personalities. Freak show time. Freaks bring drugs. The Warhol people ruined Cino." (GO59)
Ondine:
"The 'Warhol People'! There were no 'Warhol People' except me! I knew Joe Cino from Fire Island in the fifties - when he was a houseboy and we called him Ginger. Sure I gave Joe drugs. I gave everyone drugs, even my mother. I slipped LSD in her coffee; she went on some trip. I drugged everybody - I liked drugs... Everybody took drugs... I went to the Cino to purchase my peyote, and believe it or not I was introduced to hallucinogens at the Caffe Cino. The 'Warhol People' were an infusion of life blood at a point when the Caffe Cino needed it. I brought in an audience that was pretty spectacular. It wasn't just created to be pocket theater for a bunch of faggots." (GO63)
Jimmy McDonough [from The Ghastly One: The Sex-Gore Netherworld of Filmmaker Andy Milligan
]:
"...even [Johnny] Dodd concurred that drug use intensified upon the arrival of the Warhol set. Ondine and company brought in 'bushel baskets full of pure methedrine. It was like you had to sweep it out of the way - way beyond what people could use.' During the nightmarish month-long December 1966 run of A Christmas Carol, starring Ondine and filmed by Warhol, the Cino turned into a shooting gallery. 'Joe asked me to be in a show one of the Warhol people did,' said Robert Patrick. 'They were all drugged out of their minds. The dressing room was a mass of cookers and needles... it was just drugs day and night.'" (GO63)
Drugs would ultimately be the downfall of Joe Cino.
Angelo Levullo:
"Two weeks before he died, he told me he was on LSD in a cab heading toward the west side. And his head began to open up and his ears fell off. He was having a terrible hallucination. He said he was never gonna take it again... But he was on LSD the night he died." (GO66)
Jimmy McDonough [from The Ghastly One: The Sex-Gore Netherworld of Filmmaker Andy Milligan
"Michael Smith saw Cino a week before the end. Cino, Dodd, and Ondine were bouncing off the walls at Orion's uptown apartment. 'They had been there all night. Tripping, doing speed, crazed out of their minds. We actually wrote a play that night. Joe got very self-destructive and despairing that night, first time I'd ever seen it happen...
[A few nights later] Cino showed up at Neil Flanagan's apartment. 'He was talking suicide, all this stuff,' said Neil's wife, Jackie... The phone rang at Johnny Dodd's apartment that night. Dodd was asleep. Michael Smith answered. It was Joe Cino. 'He called for Johnny. He said, 'I'm just calling up to say good-bye.' He sounded very weird. I said, 'Where are you?' He wouldn't say. It was at the crack of dawn, just beginning to get light.'
Smith grabbed Johnny's keys and tore over to the Cino... Once inside, Smith found Joe Cino eviscerating himself. 'He [Joe Cino] was in the back by the coffee machine, covered with blood, trying to stab himself in the chest with this big knife, and it was just bending, just wouldn't go in. It was grisly, utterly horrifying. I tried to get the knife away from him, but he was very slippery from the blood... a total bloody mess.' (GO67)
Although Smith got Cino to the hospital, he (Cino) developed peritonitis from his wounds and died on April 2, 1967. The actor/playwright Charles Stanley and Michael Smith managed to keep the Caffe going after Cino's death but it finally shut its doors in March 1968. In March 1985 a tribute to the Caffe took place at Lincoln Center in New York. (GO69).
Robert Patrick's excellent site on the Cino can be found at:
http://members.aol.com/rbrtptrck/CINOCONTENTS.html.Michael Smith's website is at: http://michaeltownsendsmith.com. His blog page can be found at: http://michaeltownsendsmith.blogspot.com.
Doric Wilson's website is at: http://www.doricwilson.com. His blog page can be found at: http://doricwilson.blogspot.com. Some of Wilson's plays are available at: http://www.unitedstages.com/scriptInfo.php (And He Made a Her includes a recording of the Caffe Cino production on CD.) The website for "The Other Side of Silence" - the first professional gay theatre company in NYC - founded by Wilson, Billy Blackwell and Peter Dell Valle - can be found at: http://www.tosos2.org.
Grace Jones will be releasing a new CD, Hurricane, on November 3, 2008 in the U.K. It will be her first new CD release in twenty years. The 60 year old Jones was recently interviewed by Miranda Sawyer in the Guardian newspaper.
Miranda Sawyer [from the Guardian interview]:
"It is half past midnight. The interview, if you can call it that, is over. There are no other customers in the restaurant. We stomp to the bar, where Grace gets out a big wodge of cash and offers to settle the bill, a shock in itself. She is the only pop star in my 20 years of interviewing who has ever done this.
I pay; she shoves a tenner at the barman and orders another double sambuca. 'Father, Son and Holy Ghost,' she says, and whacks it down. We chat about the music that's playing: the Stones, the Doors. Then she jumps.
'Turn away, go away,' she orders Brendan [Jones' boyfriend], who does, the little git, trotting outside for a cigarette. Grace takes my face in her hands and strokes it. She kisses me full on the lips, grabs my breast and goes in for the kill. 'I must have your number,' she purrs urgently.
I am so taken aback that I burst out laughing. Grace Jones is trying to get off with me! How brilliant is that? I extricate myself by getting her phone number - 'File it under Grrrr,' she orders..."
The full interview can be read at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/oct/12/grace-jones-hurricane.
The official Grace Jones Hurricane website is at: http://www.thehurricaneiscoming.com.
Warhol star Mary Woronov will be appearing at the Carol Shen Gallery at the Packer Collegiate Institute in Brooklyn in conjunction with an exhibition of her art which runs from November 5 - December 19, 2008. Mary will be the Institute's Founder Day speaker and will also be working with students over a three day period as the Institute's artist in residence.
In addition to the upcoming show at the Carol Shen Gallery, Mary recently exhibited at Bert Green Fine Art in Los Angeles (July 10 - August 16, 2008). Samples of her previous work, from her book Wake for the Angels, appear below:
Left: Dope Deal (1984)/Right: Guilt (1991) - both by Mary Woronov
Details of Mary's exhibition at the Carol Shen Gallery can be found at:
http://www.packer.edu/page.cfm?p=490.Mary's work can also be found on the Bert Green Fine Art website at:
http://www.bgfa.us/artists/woronov/index.html.
The Children's Museum in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada is seeking volunteers for it's Warhol exhibition - "Andy Warhol's Factory" - which opens on January 10, 2009 and runs until April 19th. The museum is holding an open house for interested individuals and groups to learn more about the show.
Details at:
http://www.exchangemagazine.com/morningpost/2008/week43/Wednesday/102205.html.Museum website at: http://www.thechildrensmuseum.ca.
The Wexner Center in Ohio will be holding a symposium, "Andy Warhol: Outer and Inner Dichotomies" on November 14 - 15, 2008 in conjunction with their "Andy Warhol: Other Voices, Other Rooms" exhibition (a version of the same exhibition that is currently at the Hayward Gallery in London).
The symposium at the Wexner will open with author Wayne Koestenbaum and artist Francesco Vezzoli holding a "Keynote Conversation" at 7 p.m. on the 14th. The 15th will begin at 10.30 a.m. with a welcome by Sherri Geldin, the director of the Wexner and Eva Meyer-Hermann, curator of the exhibition. At 11 a.m. a "Give and Take" panel discussion moderated by Bill Horrigan, Director of Media Arts at the Wexner, will take place with speakers Callie Angell, author of the first volume of the Andy Warhol Film Catalogue Raisonné (and working on the second); Richard Meyer, Associate Professor of Art History and Fine Arts at USC; and Mary Woronov, author, artist and Warhol star. At 2 p.m. there will be a "Beauty and the Banal" discussion moderated by Catharina Manchanda, the Senior Curator of Exhibitions at the Wexner which will include Thomas Crow, author of The Rise of the Sixties: American and European Art in the Era of Dissent
; exhibition curator Eva Meyer Hermann; and Glenn O'Brien, Editorial Director of Interview magazine.
Details at: http://www.wexarts.org/ex/index.php?eventid=3271.
Ronald Tavel will be in New York October 11 - November 7 and can be contacted via info@ronald-tavel.com.
Joe Simon and his Warhol Self-Portrait
(Photo by Nick Rhodes (Duran Duran))
Joe Simon has launched a new website about his Warhol Self-Portrait which is currently embroiled in an authenticity controversy. The website includes a free downloadable image of the Self-Portrait (suitable for framing) and comments by Tom Sokolowski (director of the Andy Warhol Museum), Paul Morrissey, Sam Green, Gerard Malanga and John Richardson.
Joe's website can be found at: http://www.myandywarhol.com.
An exhibition of paintings by Sadie Lee of Holly Woodlawn - "And Then He Was a She" - is being presented by Homotopia in Liverpool during the Liverpool Biennial. (Liverpool has been designated as the European Capital of Culture this year by the EU.) Lee's paintings of Woodlawn were previously exhibited in London in 2007. The exhibition in Liverpool runs from September 20 - November 30, 2008. Details on the Homotopia website at: http://homotopia.net/2008/2008 And Then He Was A She.html.
Holly will be appearing in Liverpool in conjunction with the exhibition on October 8th. Details at: http://homotopia.net/2008/2008 Holly Woodlawn.html.
Brigid Berlin in her living room from the New York Social Diary
An interview with Warhol star Brigid Berlin has appeared in the New York Social Diary. You will find it at: http://www.newyorksocialdiary.com/node/72683.
to current news | October 2008
Andy Warhol
