Photo Pest: December 2018

Wednesday, December 19, 2018

Andy Warhol: A to B & Back Again

I thought about skipping the Andy Warhol retrospective at the Whitney. After all, I'd recently made a pilgrimage to see his hometown museum.

Soooooooooo glad I didn't make that mistake. It's truly wonderful to see how the curators have traced the arc of his career. And appetite. When Burger King used this footage for a 2019 Super Bowl ad (#EatLikeAndy), they exposed him to his biggest live audience yet, just shy of 32 years after his death.

The room devoted to his commissioned portraits is my favorite, mostly because they were mostly new to me. Did the Queen of Soul ever look more regal?

Truman Capote on top (as if!), Henry Geldzahler and Ross Bleckner below.

Keith Haring on the left.

He and Andy collaborated, too.

Here's Jon Gould, Andy's last boyfriend and so closeted that he forbade Drella from writing about their relationship in his diaries. Gould, swinging from a lamppost while listening to "Flashdance," once tried to pick me up in Central Park. I'll bet he hated this fey portrait. I do.

Camouflage is as good a metaphor for Andy's prophetic talent as any. It hid in plain sight from the beginning.

A delirious combination: cow wallpaper and floral screen prints.

I want strobe lights to illuminate this room while I twirl.

Like this guy.

Andy's career-defining soup cans were supposed to be sold singly after he debuted them in LA during the early 60s. But when the gallery owner realized they would be worth more together, he negotiated to buy back the ones that had sold. Smart move.

Mom used to make a delicious pot roast with this critical ingredient.

To this day, I arrange commercial products on my shelves so that art faces front.

Andy drew shoes for Bonwit Teller, a long gone department store. He also imagined celebrity footwear.

Christine Jorgensen, the first trans person to enter my consciousness. I think theirs may be the only pair. Witty, no?

Elvis Presley.

Other commercial clients included CBS News. I wonder if Andy had ever seen somebody shoot up before illustrating this advertisement for a show about heroin addiction?

A pencil sketch of James Dean with his overturned Porsche.

Plastic surgeon ad or art?

Things go better the more you drink.

Before Liz became a Joan Rivers punchline.

Has any image contributed more to Marilyn's posthumous fame?

Ethel Scull, that's who! 36 times!

This was one of the first movie stills I ever bought. It adorns a storage footlocker along with Buster Keaton, Marilyn, Judy Garland, the Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion and the Scarecrow.