Victor P. Corona Q & A at Rizolli
Victor P. Corona's book Night Class (mentioned here previously) has now been published and he will be doing a Q & A at Rizzoli in New York on Thursday, July 13th. Details here.
Corona's book documents the characters who have populated New York night life since the advent of the Club Kids - with a nod to the Warhol era. My favourite sections of the book, however, detail his struggle as a young, politically involved Mexican living in the U.S. In addition to his academic career, Corona also worked as Michael Alig's personal assistant after Alig left prison - an account of which appears in the book.
"Ugo Rondinone: I ♥ John Giorno" in New York
"Ugo Rondinone: I ♥ John Giorno" opens June 21, 2017 and consists of works by and about John Giorno, including Andy Warhol's Sleep, at numerous New York venues - Space, High Line Art, Howl! Happening, Hunter College Art Galleries, the Kitchen, New Museum, Red Bull Arts New York, Rubin Museum of Art, Sky Art, Swiss Institute, White Columns and 80WSE Gallery. Details in the New York Times here.
More on Sleep: "Notes on John Cage, Erik Satie's Vexations and Andy Warhol's Sleep" and "Jonas Mekas and the Film-Makers' Cinematheque" (p. 3).
Legends Gala tonight
The Legends Gala and Studio 54 party will take place tonight (Saturday, June 10, 2017) at the Norman Rockwell museum to celebrate the opening of "Inventing America: Rockwell & Warhol" which runs June 10 - October 29, 2017. In addition to work by Andy Warhol, the work of his nephew James Warhola will also be exhibited. James is also the honorary co-chair of the gala.
The Boost Project
The Boost Project by Ant Hamlyn (L: Liverpool, 2016 R: Albania Biennale, 2017)
Ant Hamlyn is a young U.K. artist who has recently been getting a lot of attention in Europe and the U.K. as a result of his work, "The Boost Project." Although the work has been referred to as "Pop" because of its references to the popular culture of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, it is difficult to categorize. (But is it necessary to categorize art anymore?)
The installation consists of an orb that grows in size if "liked" through Facebook, tweeted about in Twitter or hash-tagged through Instagram. So far, it has been shown in Liverpool, London (V & A) and most recently the Albania Biennale. It is currently en transit back to London where it is hoping to find a new home.
About the work, Hamlyn explains, "This interactive, living installation explores how social media allows us to live within an alternate reality; one in which we can easily attain a heightened sense of belonging, or a fleeting state of appreciation. The inflating orb aims to emulate the acceptance and self worth we can feel after receiving ‘likes’ on our posts or pictures online. Each time the orb is followed, receives a like, or is tagged with #theboostproject it gradually increases in size until it reaches its peak. If ignored, it begins to subtly deflate over time and fade into the background of our lives."
Ant Hamlyn (Photo: Gary Comenas)
Previous work by Hamlyn includes:
5 Invisible Tins (Ant Hamlyn)
and:
Beautiful Sludge Pt. 2 (2016) (Ant Hamlyn)
More work by Hamlyn can be seen on his website here. (Scroll down once you get there - there are some great preparatory sketches in addition to further works.)
Heat in Amsterdam
Andy Warhol's Heat (directed by Paul Morrissey) will be showing at the Eye Film Museum in Amsterdam on June 10, 2017 as part of the their Cinema Erotica series. Details here.
Spring into Summer with Andy Warhol and Friends
"Spring into Summer with Andy Warhol and Friends" opens at the Bruce Museum on June 10, 2017 and continues until September 3, 2017. Details here.
3D Warhol Book Launch at the A & D Gallery
The launch of the new book on Andy Warhol's sculpture - 3D Warhol - took place at the A & D Gallery in London on Thursday, June 1, 2017. An overflowing crowd of Warhol fans, scholars and students attended the event at one of London's most interesting galleries. Previous Warhol exhibitions at the gallery included a show of Billy Name's work in 2004 and Warhol's Love is a Pink Cake in 2014 - 2015.
The evening began with a statement by the author of the book which took a scholarly view of Warhol's work - akin to other European scholars such as Peter Gidal:
One thing the book emphasizes is Warhol’s acute awareness that art represents, or mirrors, those people who think they own it; whether that is a feeling of ownership, paid out in currencies of interest and interpretation, or via more direct means. The importance art people tend to ascribe to their objects, extends, through those objects, to art’s subjects, the people themselves. And in Warhol’s most famous sculptural statement, when he installed hundreds of facsimile packing boxes in the stable gallery, these too acted as proxies; milling about in the viewer space and the corridors.
There is a basic object-lesson here. It is the premise of sociological materialism: people get defined by things in the world, its conditions. In the arena of taste, in the bubble that is the artworld, this is also true. The difference is that in the real world you don’t often get much of a choice about the things that come to define you, whereas the artworld is all about self-defining choicest he only problem w being that not just anyone can just choose to be in the artworld, and not just anyone would want to. It’s complicated. Warhol’s challenge is, we might say, the challenge of queer artwork following the legacy of John Cage: re-inserting that element of non-choice, of uncertainty, into the artworld, into the arena of aesthetic experience.*
The objects in this book are all like this in one way or another: they queer the self one gets back in art’s mirror. Queer in this sense is a way of being that isn’t so much about having it all your own way, it is about disrupting that tendency towards control.
And, finally, I would like to turn this is to a kind of formula.
What we are dealing with here, I would suggest, is being open to seeing how things turn out as a 'way of seeing', and a way of seeing that allows us to be turned-out by how we see things when we see them openly.* I would also emphasise this word uncertainty, because in its place academics usually put ‘ambiguity’. There are very commendable discourses in favour of ambiguity, however, I think ambiguity subtly contains precisely the anxieties about ownership and control, about territory, that I want to problematise. One can own ambiguity, give it a value, weaponise it and turn it on one’s enemies. Uncertainty, however, infers that oneself, as much as that which is identified, has also become contingent and out of control.
Andy Warhol in L.A.
Los Angeles Free Press ad (October 1966) for Andy Warhol's My Hustler, along with Andrew Milligan's Vapors - one of the first gay films. Milligan was a playwright at the Caffe Cino in New York. La Mama's inaugural play was Andy Milligan's production of Tennessee Williams' One Arm which had previously played the Cino.
J.J. Englender has included adverts from the Los Angeles Free Press for Warhol's films when they were playing in L.A. during the sixties on his excellent ADSAUSAGE site. Andy Warhol's connection to Los Angeles and his contribution to the underground film scene there is often given scant attention by researchers even though that's where he had his first exhibition of the Ferus-syle Soup Cans. Warhol first gained fame because of an exhibition in Los Angeles, not New York.
Warhol and his entourage travelled to Los Angeles for the premiere of the some of the screenings on Englender's site. (That's in addition to his trips to California and Arizona for the filming of movies like San Diego Surf and Lonesome Cowboys, as well as his Hollywood trip documented by John Hallowell in The Truth Game. Warholstar Eric Emerson had at least one child in Los Angeles (see "Wonderboy: The life, loves and death of Eric Emerson.")
Englender's entire site of vintage ads is is fascinating.
The Warhol ads are here.
The home page is here.
"Parental Guidance" warning at Schnitzer exhibition of Sex Parts
According to AJC.com's coverage of the "Andy Warhol: Prints from the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation" exhibition due to open in Atlanta's High Museum, Warhol's Sex Parts prints are accompanied by "what might be termed a 'Parental Guidance' sign." The exhibition runs June 3 - September 3, 2017. A "Warhol Factory party will be held the night before the show opens.
The exhibition was previously at the Jepson Center for the Arts (March 1 - May 17, 2015) and the Portland Art Museum (October 8, 2016 - January 1, 2017).
Warhol Capote at the American Repertory Theater
In September 2017, a play based on nearly 100 hours of newly discovered audio recordings between Andy Warhol and Truman Capote, will be performed at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge. Press Release here.
Offprint at the Tate Modern
Just a reminder that today is the last day of the Offprint London 2017 book fair in the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern, featuring 130 stalls of booksellers of artists' books and books of contemporary art, photography and graphic design. Exhibitors include Dashwood Books from New York - the only bookseller and publisher devoted entirely to the art of photography - including Larry Clark, Richard Prince, Robert Mapplethorpe and, of course, Andy Warhol.
Student Group accuses Lou Reed of "transphobic" lyrics
Archived Facebook comment of University of Guelph Student Association
MRC TV is reporting that a student group in Ontario, Canada has issued an apology after playing Lou Reed's song, Walk on the Wild Side, calling the lyrics "transphobic." The statement from the University of Guelph Central Student Association, accuses the song of being "hurtful to our friends in the trans community." The song actually does the opposite, of course, celebrating the characters who were part of the underground scene at the time, such as Holly Woodlawn. Lou Reed had a partner, Rachel, in the 1970s who was transgender.
Forbes makes a Warhol error
Jonathon Keats misquotes Mark Lancaster in Forbes magazine and incorrectly identifies Mark as Warhol's "new assistant" in the Forbes review of the Florence Stettheimer exhibition at the Jewish Museum. Mark was never Warhol's assistant. He was visiting New York from the U.K. and visited the Factory while he was in New York. He helped to stretch a few canvases but he was not Warhol's assistant. Nor has he ever claimed to have been Warhol's assistant. Warhol's art assistant at the time was Gerard Malanga. The Forbes error is part of an article in which Mr. Keats quotes Mark quoting Andy Warhol as saying "She's soooo great" and "Stettheimer is my favourite artist." These are misquotes from my interview with Mark (uncredited). It is true that Warhol was a fan of Stettheimer's work but the Forbes information is incorrect. (Mr. Keats - if you're going to use something from this site, I'd appreciate it if you quoted it properly and gave the appropriate credit.)
Jean Stein has committed suicide
Jean Stein committed suicide on Sunday, April 30, 2017. She was the author of Edie: American Girl. Tina Moore writes in The New York Post "She jumped to her death from her 15th-floor bedroom balcony and landed on an eighth-floor terrace at 10 Gracie Square around 10:30 a.m. Sunday, police sources said. Stein suffered from depression and had attempted to kill herself in the past, sources said." R.I.P. Jean. Details here.
3D Warhol is now out in the U.S.
Two pages from 3D Warhol by Thomas Morgan Evans
3D Warhol by Thomas Morgan Evans is now out in the United States. Published by I.B. Tauris. Evans explores Warhol's sculptural work, including his association with the famous "Dr. Laser," whose hologram of Warhol is featured on the front cover of the book. Details on the publisher's website here.
Gerard Malanga Poetry Reading in Brooklyn
Gerard Malanga will read from his first full-length book of new poetry in 15 years, Whisper Sweet Nothings & Other Poems (Bottle of Smoke Press, 2017) at Berl's Brooklyn Bookshop at 141 Front Street, Brooklyn on Monday, May 8, 2017 at 7 pm. He'll be signing books after the reading. No admission charge. Details here.
Blake and Bob give a talk
Blake Gopnik (L) and Bob Colacello (Photo: Victor P. Corona)
Blake Gopnik, author of the forthcoming biography of Andy Warhol and Bob Colacello, author of Holy Terror, gave a talk at Victor P. Corona's sociology class at NYU on April 26, 2017. Corona is the author of Night Class: A Downtown Memoir which is due to be published in July.
The Daily Mail celebrates the birthday of Studio 54
"Designer Halston threw a 1,000-guest 1 a.m. breakfast disco party following the June 1977 premiere for Liza Minnelli's movie New York, New York; the actress puts on makeup in the club's mirrors" From the Daily Mail's slideshow of 23 images celebrating Studio 54
Mother and son team take control of the Ray Johnson Estate
Richard L. Feigen & Co. have relocated to a new space at 36 East 73rd Street in New York. The now "President Emerita" of Feigen Gallery, Francis Beatty, will stay at the old location at 34 East 69th Street, establishing a new company, Adler Beatty, which will represent the Ray Johnson Estate. (Adler is Beatty's son, Alexander Adler.) The David Zwirner Gallery will share the space at E. 69th St.
Ray Johnson authority and chief proponent, William S. Wilson, died on February 1, 2016 and it will be interesting to see what happens to the market for Johnson's collages after Wilson's death. Johnson's work rarely comes up at auction and it is unknown how many "Johnsons" there are out there, given his profilic output.
Johnson helped Warhol film Jill Johnston Dancing and later did a series of photographs with a constructed Warhol silhouette looming in the background in various locations. (Jill Johnston was friends with William S. Wilson, his wife the artist Ann Wilson and the art writer Gene Swenson - see "Gene Swenson, Andy Warhol and the Personality of the Artist.") Wilson was working on an analysis of Johnson's Warhol silhouettes prior to his death.
Ray Johnson at Matthew Marks
There will be a Ray Johnson exhibition at the Matthew Marks Gallery from May 5 - June 24, 2017, at 523 W. 24th St. , NY, 10011, Tel: 212-243-0200. (I'd put a link here to the gallery here but their website is not yet updated with details of show.)
Author of Andy Warhol Was a Hoarder to give a talk
Tomorrow, Claudia Kalb, author of Andy Warhol Was a Hoarder, will be giving a talk at the Jewish Community Center Without Walls Bookfest tomorrow, April 26, 2007. Details here.
Joe Dallesandro roasts Michael Musto on May 22, 2017
Warhol star, Joe Dallesandro, has recorded a video for "Broadway Roasts Michael Musto" at the Actor's Temple on May 22, 2017 at 339 West 47th Street in New York. Details of the evening at broadwayroast.com. All proceeds go to the Callen-Lorde Organization.
Printed Matter presents the work of John Dowd
Announcement for Dowd's show here
Printed Matter in New York will be showing the work of John Dowd in their exhibition, "The John Dowd Fan Club" in New York from April 21 - May 20, 2017. Dowd was a friend of the mail artist Ray Johnson and the neo-Dada artist May Wilson and her son, William S. Wilson. As with Ray Johnson, Dowd often appropriated "found" imagery and other people's photographs in his work (and never got threatened with legal action by the photographers whose work he appropriated). One of his two sons is the artist Luke Dowd who has a studio in London.
Joel Wachs comments on the Warhol Foundation's case against Lynn Goldsmith
Joel Wachs, the president of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, has now commented on the Foundation's lawsuit again the photographer Lynn Goldsmith. Artnet is quoting Mr. Wachs as saying, "The Foundation has long been an outspoken advocate for artistic freedom of expression... As a steward of Warhol’s legacy, the Foundation has chosen not to allow itself to be extorted by Lynn Goldsmith’s frivolous claims, which would limit artists’ ability to express themselves freely.”
See more.
Lynn Goldsmith threatens legal action against the Warhol Foundation
Photographer Lynn Goldsmith is threatening to sue the Warhol Foundation. The Foundation (not the "estate" as it has sometimes been reported) brought a legal action against Goldsmith to establish the legality of Warhol's use of a publicity photograph of the musical artist, Prince, taken by Goldsmith. Now Goldsmith is threatening to bring a "counter claim for copyright infringement," according to the New York Daily News...
See more.
Glenn O'Brien has died
The first issue of Interview magazine that Glenn O'Brien edited - February 1972
Glenn O'Brien, who was the managing editor of Interview magazine in the early 1970s, died yesterday, April 7, 2017, at the age of 70, due to complications from pneumonia.
After his time at Interview, O'Brien went on to host the cable public access television program TV Party and to write the GQ column "The Style Guy," for for fifteen years. When he was fired from that job he commented “I created the 'Style Guy,' not GQ… Their proprietary attitude toward what I’ve done is not only insulting, but really unoriginal... They could have at least called their replacement the ‘Style Intern.’ ” (ArtNews)
Jim Nelson has written what is meant to be a tribute to O'Brien on the GQ website: "Did Glenn have a 'career'? No, it was way more interesting than that. He had a life of creative work. In that way, once again, he was both ahead of his time and ahead of the pack, living the true life so many freelance 'creatives' today wish they could inhabit."
O'Brien's prolific career included editing Madonna's notorious Sex book, as well as numerous contributions to art exhibition catalogues and magazine work. He also wrote and produced the film, Downtown 81.
Vincent Fremont steps down
Vincent Fremont has stepped down from his position of CEO at Art Media Holdings which publishes ARTnews, The Magazine Antiques, MODERN, and Art in America. No explanation has been given for the change. He was made CEO in January of last year.
James Rosenquist has died
Barbaralee Diamonstein interviews James Rosenquist and Leo Castelli on You Tube here
Pop Artist James Rosenquist died on Friday, March 31, 2017. He was 83 years old. Born James Albert Rosenquist in Grand Forks, North Dakota on Nov. 29, 1933, he and his family moved to Minneapolis in 1944. He moved to New York in 1955 to study at the Arts Student League on a one year scholarship. Rosenquist worked as a sign painter before becoming successful as a fine artist.
It was after seeing Rosenquist's paintings that Andy Warhol's friend, Ted Carey, made his oft-quoted phone call to Warhol:
Ted Carey:
I can remember right about this same time, going to the Green Gallery, and I remember I called Andy. I said, 'There's somebody at the Green Gallery called Rosenquist, who's doing paintings, like a bottle of 7 Up.' I said 'They're fabulous.' I can remember saying 'I think they're really wonderful. I think I'd like to buy one.' And Andy said, 'Oh.' He said, 'If you buy one of those paintings, I'll never speak to you again.' I mean, he was just so depressed that it was all happening and he was not getting any recognition... (I've expressed doubts about Carey's sequence of events in "The Origin of Andy Warhol's Soup Cans or The Synthesis of Nothingness," here.)
James Rosenquist met Andy Warhol in 1963 or 64. (The Andy Warhol cat. rais. says that Rosenquist posed for a Warhol Polaroid during a period that "probably dates from late 1962-63" (RN468) but Rosenquist claimed that he didn't meet Warhol until 1964 in his autobiography.)
Anthony E. Grudin's "Warhol's Working Class" to be published in September 2017
Anthony E. Grudin's extensive study of how Andy Warhol's work was closely associated to the American working class, Warhol's Working Class: Pop Art and Egalitarianism, will be published in September 2017 by the University of Chicago Press.
Grudin has previously contributed to the (excellent) 13 Most Wanted Men catalogue and Warhol: Headlines in addition to being the co-author of last year's Sargent to Basquiat catalogue.
Larry Fink book signing at Rizzoli
Larry Fink will be signing copies of his book, Fink on Warhol: New York Photographs of the 1960s, at the Rizzoli Bookstore in New York, today from 6 to 8 pm.
Thomas Morgan Evans' book on Andy Warhol is now out
Front cover of Thomas Morgan Evans' 3D Warhol
Thomas Morgan Evans' new book on Andy Warhol - 3D Warhol - is published today.
The book examines Andy Warhol from a new angle - his "3D" or sculptural work - including "rain machines, alarmed kosher pickle jars lined with gemstones, replica corn flakes boxes, ‘disco décor’, time capsules, art bombs, birthday presents, perfume bottles, and floating silver pillows that are clouds, that are paintings, that are films also." Also included are "museum interventions, collecting and curating projects, expanded performance environments, holograms." A truly important addition to the world of Warhol scholarship.
Evans is a Henry Moore Post-Doctoral Fellow, with a PhD in art history from the University College London. He has also served as a visiting lecturer at the Courtauld Institute.
Highly recommended.
The book is available via the publisher I.B. Taurus here - or at the usual outlets.
The American Dream at the British Museum
Mel Bochner (b. 1940). I've Had It Up to Here. Etching and aquatint, 2013. © Mel Bochner. Courtesy of the artist and Simon Lee Gallery
"The American Dream: pop to the present" opened on March 9, 2017 and continues until June 18, 2017 at the British Museum in London. Artists include Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, Edward Ruscha, Wayne Thiebaud and others. An exhibition catalogue published by Thames & Hudson is also available.
Details here.
Patrick Moore is the new Warhol Museum director
Patrick Moore has been appointed as the new director of The Warhol Museum. Moore had served as the interim director of The Warhol after Eric Shiner left in 2016 to join Sotheby's. Moore was previously the business development director at The Persad Center, a LGBTQ counselling center, in Pittsburgh. Speaking about Andy Warhol, Moore is quoted in the March 10th Pittsburgh Post-Gazette as saying "You’ll be seeing an increase of emphasis on his faith... For Andy Warhol to be an openly gay man who did enjoy the high life in New York does not negate the fact that he was a man of deep religious faith.”
The Warhol Museum's website is here.
Bibbe Hansen, Anne Waldman and Beth Lisick in New York on Friday
Warhol star Bibbe Hansen and iconic Beat poet, Anne Waldman, will be appearing with Beth Lisick at the Cornelia Street Cafe in New York (bet. W. 4th St & Bleecker) this Friday, March 3, 2017.
Details of the evening here. (Scroll down)
Lisick is the author of five books including Yokohama Threeway.
Bibbe Hansen is the daughter of Fluxus artist Al Hansen and performed in a number of Warhol films, including Prison, Restaurant and Kiss. Her son is the recording artist, Beck. More on Bibbe Hansen here.
About Anne Waldman:
From When I was Cool: My Life at the Jack Kerouac School by Sam Kashner (Kindle ed.):
The phone rang. It was Anne Waldman. I could her her voice coming from the phone pressed against Allen [Ginsberg]'s cheek. Allen had to hold the phone a little away from his head, because sometimes Anne's voice gave Allen a headache. She loved deep-dish gossip... Anne was beautiful. I think everyone was in love with her in some fashion. There were even rumours that she had just been having an affair with Bob Dylan during the Rolling Thunder Revue... Anne billed herself at poetry readings as Fast Talking Woman. She made long list poems and recited them in a rapid, breathy, style, taking over the stage in her long boots. During her readings, people got swept up in the excitement and applauded her like a rock star. Anne wanted to be a rock star, a rock star of poetry. She was a real-life bohemian. She may have had lovers but she was married to poetry.
She loved Allen [Ginsberg]. She was the only woman Allen seemed to see. He recognized her in a way he didn't recognize any other woman, except those from his past... He gave Anne his undivided attention. She, in turn, tolerated his temper tantrums, his bursts of ego, his euphoric ideas about the Jack Kerouac School, and his melancholy despair about Peter [Orlovsky] drifting away from him.
Gerard Malanga's love interest of the '60's models in London Fashion Week
Benedetta Barzini on the catwalk of Simone Rocha's show, 2017
Bendetta Barzini, Gerard Malanga's love interest in the 1960s, modelled for designer Simone Rocha during London Fashion Week. Simone is John Rocha's daughter. Her show, featuring Benedetta who is now 73 years old, took place on February 18, 2017. Malanga had met Benedetta at Robert Rauschenberg's loft on February 6, 1966 and fell in love with her. His first published book of poetry was 3 Poems for Benedetta Barzini and his film, In Search Of The Miraculous, was about three generations of the Barzini family.
Blake Gopnik to speak at Pomona College Museum of Art
Blake Gopnik
Blake Gopnik will be giving a lecture on "Andy Warhol's Screen Gems" at the Pomona College Museum of Art on Thursday, March 2, 2017. The focus will be on Warhol's use of silkscreening in conjunction with the exhibition "NOW SCREENING: Andy Warhol Prints," which runs at the museum from January 17 to May 14, 2017.
Gopnik is currently working on a biography of Warhol called Andy Warhol: A Life as Art.
Details here.
How did Andy Warhol die?
Andy Warhol died today in 1987. I've always thought that if you want to know the real Warhol, look at his medical records and his bank accounts (and read the catalogue raisonné).
In regard to his medical records, a retired surgeon (who is a relative of Pop expert Hal Foster) was interviewed recently by Blake Gopnik over the telephone. Gopnik is writing a biography of Warhol.
The retired surgeon, Dr. John Ryan, confirmed that the gallbladder surgery Warhol had just before he died, was "major surgery" in a very "sick person." Previously, Warhol's operation has been described as "routine." Warhol's personal doctor indicated that the artist's health was "good" on his hospital admission papers.
See more.
Victor P. Corona's Night Class to be published in July 2017
Night Class: a downtown memoir by Victor P. Corona
Victor P. Corona's Night Class: a downtown memoir will be published in July 2017. Corona, who was once dubbed "Professor of Nightlife," is a Sociologist who was educated at Columbia and Yale and currently teaches at New York University. The book follows Corona's voyage from a life in the suburbs as a young Mexican to the high life of New York City's underground - a world populated by drag queens, Warhol superstars and the notorious Club Kid, Michael Alig, who gave talks to Corona's students at NYU not long after being released from prison for murder. Corona's experience as a Sociologist elevates the book from just a memoir to a fascinating study of the New York underground as it exists today and as it existed yesterday.
Interviewees include Warhol stars Bob Colacello, Joe Dallesandro, Vincent Fremont, Bibbe Hansen, Jane Forth, Billy Name, Holly Woodlawn, and Ultra Violet.
Paul Ambrose has died
Paul Ambrose, who appeared in Jackie Curtis' play, Vain Victory, and was interviewed in Craig Highberger's excellent documentary on Jackie, Superstar in a Housedress, died yesterday morning. R.I.P. Paul. (More on Vain Victory, here.)The Velvet Underground's Maureen Tucker posts a beheading on Facebook
January 30, 2017: Maureen "Moe" Tucker, who played with the Velvet Underground, has posted a video of a woman being beheaded on her Facebook page. Tucker posted the video on Sunday as support for Donald Trump's racist immigration policies. The only problem is that the video takes place in Saudi Arabia and Saudi Arabia isn't on Trump's banned list. Tucker, who now lives in Georgia, should be ashamed of herself, particularly as she has children - Kerry, Keith, Austen, Kate, and Richard. Does she really want her children to grow up in a racist America?
Meanwhile, here in the U.K., a petition to prevent Trump's state visit to the U.K. has gathered over 1.6 million signatures. If you are resident in the U.K. you can sign it here.
Torsten Otte, Robert Heide and Walter Steding talk about Dali and Warhol
A free panel discussion, "Salvador Dalí and Andy Warhol: Encounters in New York and Beyond" will take place on February 19th at 7 PM at Howl Happening, 6 E. 1st Street in New York. Panelist Torsten Otte is the author of the book of the same name - published in the U.S. last year and due to be published in early February in the U.K. Heide is the author of the 60s play, The Bed, a version of which was filmed by Andy Warhol. Steding was the electric violinist that Warhol produced under "Earhole" productions for a short period of time. In addition to Otte, Heide and Steding, the panel will also include artist George Mason, photographer Jade Albert and Gala's ex-lover, William Rothlein.
Danny Says at ICA
Danny Says, the documentary about rock manager Danny Fields who worked for a number of bands, including Nico and The Doors, will be playing the ICA in London from January 27, 2017 to February 2, 2017. It is already available through iTunes in the states. The film will be available on DVD here in the UK in March. The ICA page is here.
Andy Warhol (April 3, 1978):
Tom Sullivan came by with Margaret Trudeau in a red dress... and then we went to Studio 54... Danny Fields was next to me and he had a great idea for a movie like Saturday Night Fever, about a boy who's straight but wants to be the bst faggot in town because he sees all the fags having such a good time and he thinks it would be more fun. It's the Ronnie Cutrone story."
Joey Arias at Zédel!
New York counter-culture icon and jazz vocalist, Joey Arias, will be performing in London at Brasserie Zédel (in the "Live at Zédel" room) from February 11 to February 14, 2017. Not to be missed. Details here.
Andy Warhol: The Pop Image Subverted
The opening reception for the "Andy Warhol: The Pop Image Subverted" exhibition at the Marshall Fine Arts Center in Pennsylvania takes place this Friday, January 27, 2017. The exhibition runs from January 27 to April 23, 2017. Details here.
Publisher of Independent Film and Video Monthly joins Warhol Foundation Board
Three new Board Members and a new Chair have been appointed to the Warhol Foundation. The new Board members include the publisher of the Independent Film and Video Monthly, Ruby Lerner. Details on Artforum here.
Lerner was also the founding Executive Director and President of Creative Capital, Executive Director of the Association of Independent Film and Videomakers (AIVF) and Executive Director of Alternate ROOTS, a coalition of Southeastern performing artists based in Atlanta, Georgia.
Added to 80s+: Edward Wallowitch Dies
I have added to the 1980s section of this site the following entry:
MARCH 25, 1981: EDWARD WALLOWITCH DIES.
Eddie Wallowitch
Edward Wallowitch was an early boyfriend of Warhol. He was a photographer and his photographs served as the source for quite a few of Warhol's Campbell's Soup Can paintings, including Five Campbell's Soup Cans, Big Crushed Campbell's Soup Can (Cream of Chicken), Four Campbell's Soup Cans, Small Campbell's Soup Can, 19₵ (Chicken Noodle), Big Campbell's Soup Can, 19¢, Big Campbell's Soup Can with Can Opener (Vegetable), Small Crushed Campbell's Soup Can (Beef Noodle), Crushed Campbell's Soup Can (Beef Noodle), Big Crushed Campbell's Soup Can (Beef Noodle), Big Torn Campbell's Soup Can (Pepper Pot), Small Torn Campbell's Soup Can (Pepper Pot), Big Torn Campbell's Soup Can (Pepper Pot). (The source for the Campbell's Soup Can paintings shown at the Ferus Gallery was an image of the Campbell's logo that they used on their company envelope.) A photograph by Wallowitch was also the source of Warhol's One Dollar Bill painting.
In his diary, Warhol mentions being informed of Wallowitch's death by his brother, the pianist John Wallowitch:
Andy Warhol (April 21, 1981):
"... John Wallowitch called. I raved to him about seeing him playing the piano on cable TV, and I told him to come to the office. He was calling to tell me that his brother Eddie, my first boyfriend about twenty-five years ago - that he just went down to Florida to visit Eddie and found hm bloated and dead in his house. He'd been drinking, gone off A.A and had a fit. He always got depressed and I never knew why because he was good-looking and he was a photographer. John didn't want to look at the body, so a friend came over and identified it."
See here.
Joe Dallesandro t-shirts
Some great Joe Dallesandro t-shirts are for sale at the official Joe Dallesandro shop here. (Joe's "superstar" page is here.)
May Wilson show closes at Pavel Zoubok Gallery on Saturday
Untitled (Centrefold I), c. 1960s by May Wilson
The exhibition of collages by May Wilson at the Pavel Zoubok Gallery in New York closes this Saturday, January 14th. Wilson was known for her often ironic collages and sculptures during the 60s. Her work was included in the ground-breaking group exhibition, "New Media - New Forms: In Painting and Sculpture" at the Martha Jackson Gallery in 1960, two years before Sidney Janis' "The New Realists" show, when Pop artists were being referred to as "Neo-Dada." Her work was also included in the "Seductive Subversion: Women Pop Artists 1958-1968" exhibition in 2010/11 in Philadelphia and Brooklyn.
May Wilson was the mother of art writer William S. Wilson (who was the cousin of the recently deceased owner of the Phoenix Book Store, Robert A. Wilson - whose NY Times Obituary is here.) Valerie Solanas kept her gun under May Wilson's bed before she used it to shoot Andy Warhol. William S. Wilson was the author of the often quoted "Prince of Boredom" article about Warhol here - commissioned by Mario Amaya who was the other person shot by Solanas when she shot Warhol in 1968.
The website for Pavel Zoubok is here.
Warholstars Timeline
I have updated the following years on the timeline - click on the year to go the appropriate page.
Andy Warhol exhibition at the Cole Art Center in Texas
The opening reception for the Andy Warhol exhibition at The Cole Art Center in Texas will take place on January 26, 2017 at 6 pm. The show includes photos, prints and the Silver Clouds. The exhibition will run January 26 - March 5, 2017. Website here.
Warhol Museum curator's first show is Farhad Moshiri
Luis Vuitton window by Farhad Moshiri (the format of the painting brings to mind Warhol's S & H Green Stamps)
The first exhibition organized by The Warhol Museum's new Milton Fine Curator of Art, Jose Carlos Diaz, will be the work of Iranian Pop artist, Farhad Moshiri.
Similar to Warhol, who first exhibited his Pop paintings as part of a window display for retailer Bonwit Teller, Moshiri has also displayed his art in shop windows. In 2011 Luis Vuitton commissioned him to do four works of art for the windows of their UAE stores. (The Bonwit Teller building that displayed Warhol's paintings was demolished in 1980 and replaced by one of the tackiest buildings in New York - Trump Tower.)
Moshiri's show is due to open in October, 2017 at The Warhol Museum. The artist is currently represented by the Gallerie Perrotin. A selection of his works can be found on their website here.
Lady Antonia Fraser's daughter writes a Warhol book
Front cover of After Andy: Adventures in Warhol Land by Natasha Fraser
The daughter of Lady Antonia Fraser has written a book about her adventures in "Warhol land" which will be published in August, 2017. Natasha Fraser worked for Andy Warhol Enterprises during the '80s. (Her mother is an Earl's daughter and, hence, a "Lady." In the '80s her mother married the playwright, Harold Pinter, and she has written a considerable amount of books about royalty in addition to a series of detective novels written under a pseudonym.)
Lady Antonia's daughter, Natasha Fraser (full name Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni ), is a high-profile fashion journalist who has also worked for the Chanel fashion house and is the author of a biography of the Hollywood producer Sam Spiegel. Her book about the time she spent working for Warhol will be published by Blue Rider Press - an imprint of the Penguin Random House Group. Details here.
Larry Fink's photos of Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol, Ingrid Superstar and unknown girl with hat (Photo: Larry Fink)
Larry Fink's photographs of Andy Warhol and his entourage will be published by Damiani in April, 2017. The 128 page book Fink on Warhol: New York Photographs of the 1960s (not yet listed on the publisher's website) will sell for $50.
Ingrid Superstar (pictured with Warhol, above), went missing in December 1986. She is presumed dead but her body has never been found.
Andy Warhol (Wed., Feb. 4, 1987):
And the Post had a picture of Ingrid Superstar with a big story: "Warhol Star Vanishes." I thought she was going to be at the reunion Billy Name is setting up. I wonder if Gerard gave this to the papers just to get his name in. Brigid never even told me they called about her. I would've cared that Ingrid was missing. People magazine had been calling because they're doing a story on Ivy Nicholson and they wanted me to give a quote and for her. I did tell Brigid to tell People we'd "never heard of her," but that was only because it was Ivy - Ingrid I would've cared about. But I bet something did happen to her. It said she went out for a pack of cigarettes and never came back. This is in upstate New York. (AWD800)
More on Ingrid Superstar, here.
Andy Warhol box set due in 2017
Taschen will be publishing a boxed set of reproductions of Warhol's self-published artist books in August 2017. Costing $200.00, the set will include Love Is A Pink Cake, 25 Cats Name Sam and One Blue Pussy, À la Recherche du Shoe Perdu, A Is for Alphabet and Wild Raspberries. Includes an introductory essay by Nina Schleif who curated the "Reading Warhol" exhibition in 2013 - 2014.
More info on Love Is A Pink Cake here, 25 Cats Name Sam and One Blue Pussy here, Á la Recherche du Shoe Perdu here and Wild Raspberries here.
The Chelsea Girls
I have considerably revised my essay on Andy Warhol's film, The Chelsea Girls. Included are the dates it played at different venues in New York during 1966 to 1967, the trip to Cannes in '67, a time frame for Nico's dates as a solo artist at the Dom (and the Velvet Underground at The Gymnasium), the ban in Boston, the Los Angeles and San Francisco premieres, and the first screenings of the film in the U.K. The new essay is here.
Brigid Berlin prepares her syringe in The Chelsea Girls