Andy Warhol – PopWars

October 27, 2011August 20, 2019

Appropriation

"Jaqueline Kennedy III" 1966 Warhol silkscreen print at MAG in Rochester, NY — “Jaqueline Kennedy III” 1966 Warhol silkscreen print at MAG in Rochester, NY

This morning’s paper had an article about the photographer, Nan Goldin. Living in Paris “since Bush stole the election”, as she puts it, she has an upcoming show at at Matthew Marks gallery in Chelsea where she will be showing photos from as far back as the seventies along with a slideshow of photos she shot inside the Louvre at night. As popular as Jerry Lewis and Mickey Rourke over there she was given free access to the museums collection. Any artist’s dream come true.

I was rummaging around the Memorial Art Gallery’s collection recently, online of course, and found this delightful Tiepolo drawing. I wish the photos were bigger and there is so much in the collection with “Image Not Available” tags. I can’t understand why a museum wouldn’t put a priority on photographing the collection. Wouldn’t it be fun to let artist and social networking types assemble their favorite pieces on the MAG’s site. Sounds like a php job for Joe Tunis.

I grabbed this picture of Warhol’s Jackie at the MAG on my way up to say hi to Dreamland Faces. Playing three sets there left no time to see the “Extreme Materials” show. My father liked it quite a bit so I plan to get over there soon. And same story at the Eastman House. I want to get back over there to see that giant photo collection of people with their eyes closed. The collection is so big that this Robert Maplethorpe photo of Alice Neel was out in the hall.

So much of art these days is appropriation, the Warhol silkscreens from photos of course, my scrapbooks from newspaper clippings, the drawings I’ve been making from crime page mugshots, photos of the woods even, all photography for that matter, landscape painting! Come on.

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February 1, 2011August 21, 2019

Winter Mugs

Warhol Mug Shots at the Johnson Museum, Cornell University

“Nowadays if you’re a crook you can write books, go on TV, give interviews—you’re a big celebrity and nobody even looks down on you.”
from the The Philosophy of Andy Warhol

I have sort of a false memory of seeing Andy Warhol’s “Thirteen Most Wanted” at the New York State of the 1964 World’s Fair. I was there with my father and brother. We drove down and slept in the car in a parking lot in Queens. My father is big on architecture and I know we went in the Philip Johnson designed New York State Pavilion but Warhol had probably already painted over the mug shots.

I have my own mug shot piece, a watercolor, in the new show at the Lucy Burne Gallery at the Creative Workshop.

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February 1, 2010August 23, 2019

Don’t Trample On This

It is so exhilarating to come across a new path in the woods. We drove over near the clubhouse in Durand and parked our car along Kings Highway so we could ski off into the undeveloped western part of park. We’ve been over here before and we’re always surprised how big this park is. We are still able to explore and get lost and that is a wonderful feeling.

John Gilmore brought an Andy Warhol movie over on Saturday night. It was more than I needed to know about his sex life. Give the guy a little respect. You wouldn’t even be in this movie if it wasn’t for Andy. It was called the “The Complete Picture” so we were warned. Had some great footage of the early hand drawn pop days and paintings that were painted rather than screened. Kind of old fashioned. The thing that bothered me the most was having someone read Andy’s words. The producers didn’t have access to real recordings so an actor read quotes out of “A to B and Back Again” or “The Philosophy of” I couldn’t even listen to what they were reading, the voice was so not Andy. I wouldn’t think that any one who ever heard his voice would trample on it. Don’t even get me started on Bowie’s portrayal in the Basquiat movie. Warhol had a distinctive, delicate and charming speaking voice. You didn’t know whether to take the words at face value or look for the philosophical twists. Same experience as looking at his art.

Our neighbors bought a new tv yesterday and I helped set it up. I came back across the street to paint and I heard later that Rick was only able to get dvd picture in black and white only. I guess I plugged one of the yellow cables in the wrong spot. Rick picked up a “District 9” to christen the thing with and he popped the corn. It is a sci-fi mocumentary and I found it hard to get a look at the aliens with all those squirmy thing attached to their face. And I didn’t give a hoot about the lead character so I fell asleep – in someone else’s house. I can’t wait to hear if our friends on the west coast liked it or not. I saw it on their NetFlix list.

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October 16, 2009August 23, 2019

Post Warhol

Andy Warhol is rumored to have stolen Yoko Ono’s idea for helium filled mylar balloons or “pillows”. Or is it the other way around? I can’t remember. Doesn’t matter. The three Colorado kids upstaged them both when they set their dad’s weather ballon free and pretended that one of them was in it. This YouTube savvy family captured the nation’s attention with their pop event and it made for the best tv since OJ’s slow speed chase. And we never would have seen it if we weren’t out at Peggi’s mom’s place where the tv has no off button. In fact, I bet this event wouldn’t even have happened if we weren’t out there to watch.

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October 11, 2009August 23, 2019

You Can’t Reheat A Soufflé

I could have put on the Velvet Underground box set that I bought, ripped and then filed away but I was still diggin my new turntable so I reached for the “The Velvet Underground & Nico” lp which I noticed is only labeled “Andy Warhol” on the front of the album. And then there is that tiny type up top that says, “Peel Slowly And See”. My copy has the upside down Billy Name photo on the back but it’s beat to hell and the banana skin is missing. I put it on and played the Dean & Britta Warhol Screen Test dvd without the sound. The scratchy VU vinyl sounded fantastic and then ultra-fantastic when Nico’s screen test came on.

Our Friday night was just beginning though. We hopped in the car to ride over to the Village Gate where Cuong Vu was playing with Rochester’s Ted Poor on drums. On the way the Velvets came on the ipod and transported us. Cuong had two bass players and all sorts of knob twisting (see photo above). They were too loud for the space and a little too muscular when stacked against the Velvets but they sounded great once we were inside the record store. They reminded me of those early jazz rock combos like Tony Williams Lifetime and John McLaughlin’s Devotion.

Antony appearing in Lou Reed's Berlin — Antony appearing in Lou Reed’s Berlin

Back home we put our latest Netflix selection on, “Lou Reed’s Berlin”. Lou’s guitar sounded amazing and there were some brilliant moments but Berlin was a pretty dreary lp the first time around and this monstrous production couldn’t disguise that. The Schnabel footage of models in heat was pure crap and the backup singer stole the show.

We cued up the extras a watched Elvis Costell interview Lou and Schnabel. Schnabel wouldn’t let Lou talk and when he declared that he and Lou were best friends we thought we saw Lou wince.

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