Recently Glen O'Brien has become the co-editor of Interview magazine. I think that is a great choice by the publisher - a kind of prodigal son returns home kind of thing. One of the great things about a son returning home is that all his friends are going to start dropping in, this month it's Richard Prince, Christopher Wool, and Richard Hell.

Interview has RP photographing the actresses from the new Battlestar Galactica show. He has shot them in a way that directly points at some of his work - notably "Girlfriends". You might remember the "Girlfriends" as the biker girl photographs. I call theses images "The New Girlfriends" - Hollywood starlets wearing all the right clothing labels and attitudes - but not the same sense of freedom or even sexiness. It makes perfect sense now why the "Girlfriends" are stronger (and sexier) when re-photographed. Maybe RP should have had some bikers take the photos, and then photographed those. Offhanded joke aside, I'm not sure RP needs to be re-engineering his past work - it just seems like there is so much still to do.

I bought Interview at a news stand, I hope you live near a place that sells magazines.

Photo by: Richard Prince

Labels: Photography, Richard Prince, Warhol

I stumbled over these really interesting images from a 1967 copy of Esquire. (thanks to areaoftheunwell) Evidently, Warhol at one time made a movie called Batman Dracula which I'm sure DC Comics made sure never saw the light of day. Either way, I think these photos are too much fun.

I also think that its perfect that Warhol is dressed as the boy wonder...

Labels: 60's, Warhol

The above is a reference to a Velvet Underground song, if you know it, let's make some plans for drinks and talking about music. Anyway, back to the reason for writing this, the other day, I was playing a Velvets bootleg (and so on - is the name) that included this radio ad for the record The Velvet Underground. I think it's good manners to share, so here it is.

Also it's crazy, lately I have been on a tear with the whole factory scene - bad enough that I recently bought a Polaroid Big Shot camera (although I'm not making portraits with it). As with my thoughts on Robert Rauschenberg, it's interesting how certain artists keep coming back to you.

Bonus track from the etc. bootleg. Conversation.

Ingrid Superstar and Gerald Malanga perform with the Velvet Underground in the film by Ronald Nameth.
© 1966-2005 Ronald Nameth, All rights Reserved

Labels: 60's, New York, Warhol

The Velvet Underground, April 26, 1966
National Roller Skating Arena, 1661 Kalorama Road, N.W., Washington DC

NOW Festival

Callie Angel said: A performance event called "Linoleum" by Robert Rauschenberg "ended with an electronic bang when Pop Artist Andy Warhol and the Velvet Underground, a rock and roll band from his New York night club, The Plastic Inevitable, turned the roller rink into a giant discotheque." (quote from Leroy F. Aarons, "New Theater's 'Happening' Amuses, Angers Audience," The Washington Post, April 27, 1966, p. B2.). So, despite the fact the Velvets were booked at the Dom (a new york club, if I'm not mistaken) all that month, they apparently weren't performing every night.

The Now Festival was the brain child of Alice Denney - who would later be crucial to the formation of the Washington Project for the Arts. I would love more info, use the comments or send me an email.

Photo by Billy Name

Labels: 60's, New York, Warhol

What do you think of Jasper Johns?
Warhol on Johns - You Tube

Warhol eats Burger King
so delicious - You Tube

Robert Raushenberg - Erased de Kooning Drawing
RR interviewed about this artwork - You Tube

Basquiat Interview
This is pretty self explanatory - You Tube

Brice Marden
A PBS interview around the time of his recent show at MoMA - You Tube

Velvet Underground Performance - EPI - European Son
Velvet Underground Performance - Exploding Plastic Inevitable - The Factory Andy Warhol - European Son - You Tube

John Cale and Lou Reed
Lou Reed & John Cale performing Waiting for My Man at the Bataclan in Paris in 1972. - You Tube

Labels: 60's, Brice Marden, music, Video, Warhol

Archivist Matt Wrbican talks about Warhol's Time Capsules with Peter Nesbett in Art on Paper

I've copied a few questions from this interesting, but short article on the Art on Paper website - please do read the whole thing here

Quick Overview:
At the time of his death in 1987, Andy Warhol left behind a warehouse full of cardboard boxes that contained the ephemera of his daily life, cleared from his desk on a regular basis from 1974 onward. Most of the material, which includes invoices, publicity stills, newspaper clippings, photographs, etc., is not sorted, and remains in storage at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. Peter Nesbett spoke briefly with Matt Wrbican, archivist at the museum, about the Time Capsules and what is being done with them.

How many Time Capsules have you opened?
About 160. I opened number 25 yesterday and I found half a dozen Warhol artworks: a portrait drawing from the fifties, a Polaroid of Bridgit Polk, a self-portrait cube from "Portraits of the Artists," and three photobooths, including one of the most salacious I've ever seen—an unidentified clothed man, whose face is unseen, exposing his penis. Most of the documents were from 1963 to 1970: notes about his early films, some rare exhibition catalogs and underground publications, juicy correspondence, bills for art supplies and medicines, a Chubby Checker LP, and a Velvet Underground single.

How long would it take to finish cataloging all the contents of the boxes?
Four people working full-time for fifty years.

++++++++++++
This is fascinating to me, I love pack rat stories. Like it or not, Warhol just continues to fascinate.

Please read the whole thing here

Labels: Collecting, Warhol

As time passes, Andy Warhol's art continues to become more and more relevant (weather you like it or not). This season we are seeing more of AW than ever (the celeb paintings, the piss abstractions, and we will see plenty at the fairs this fall/winter) Warhol's understanding of the mundane is in force now more than ever. On July 25th 1964, from 8:06pm till 2:42am, Warhol (or an assistant) trained a camera from the Time-Life Building to the Empire State Building and treated this architectural icon, he once described, as "a star" to the full on Warhol method. Just watching - not judging - not interfering. The Camera's lens never moves, nothing happens, lights on and lights off, people enter and leave..."nothing" happens -- for eight hours.

Empire is on view in Andy Warhol Supernova: Stars, Deaths and Disasters, 1962-46 at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, Canada

Labels: Film, Warhol