An unexpected treat awaited me at the Whitney when I went to see the Biennial.
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| Jed & Jay Johnson |
Hundreds of photos that Andy Warhol took in the early 1970s with his ever-present Polaroid camera are exhibited in "Family Album."
I'll begin with the gay twins at the top: Jed and Jay Johnson. Andy put the California boys to work doing odd jobs at the Factory shortly after their arrival in New York City. Jed eventually moved in with Andy, first to nurse him back to health after Valerie Solanas shot him, eventually becoming his both his boyfriend and a successful interior designer. Archie liked him, too.
You may have seen his crotch on the cover of Sticky Fingers. The zipper still works on my LP, whose scandalous cover Andy conceived.
But Jay was the stunner, at least in these photos.
He took over Jed's design firm after his brother went down with TWA Flight 800 in 1996. Two of my housemates in the Pines encountered debris from the crash--never explained--during a beach walk.
Jay also exposed the Johnson family jewels in this oversize photo of the Factory crowd, shot in several panels by Richard Avedon. "I think the first time I saw the final photograph was when it was at the Whitney for Avedon’s retrospective in 1994. I was a little surprised when I walked into the room and there I was, (second from the left) about 20 feet tall," he told Interview in 2012. Can you imagine?
Jane became a make-up artist instead, favoring the classic Hollywood glamor look. She may have inspired Klaus Nomi in the decade to come.
Fashion illustrator Antonio Lopez
. . . and a twenty-something Diane von Fürstenberg were among Jane's fans. When the latter sat for Andy, her separation from Prince Egon was imminent. Not to worry--her wrap dress was just about to make her iconic in the fashion world and the Princess title helped.
Von Fürstenberg's German in-laws hadn't been thrilled by her heritage (they refused to attend to the couple's wedding reception) but Jonathan Horowitz included the Jewish-now-American-former Princess in his “Ten Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century” plus ninety-two more" (2020), although I believe he used a later portrait. She liked the early ones best. By then, HIV complications had ended her ex-husband's life and she had married another gay man.
Andy loved him a royal. Princess Caroline of Monaco (who's not looking at her phone, BTW!) was still single when he took this candid.
It would be another decade before Andy's portrait of her appeared on the cover of French Vogue, shortly after he silk screened an image of Princess Diana from her official engagement portrait by Lord Snowdon.
Clearly, taking Polaroids first enhanced the quality of the Warhol's silk screen portraits. Diana looks positively stuffy.
While gazing at Andy's Polaroids with as much concentration as a Russian drone spotter, I realized blank stares likely were a more common reaction, but many of the subjects were the bold-face names of my youth. I pooh pooh parasocial relationships now, but the exhibition reminded me that I had one then, however infrequently maintained.
My part-time job at Bloomingdale's came with an employee discount to purchase designer clothing, including a wool, window-pane suit in smokey taupe with wide lapels and flared trousers (unlined, it itched terribly!) by Pierre Cardin
. . . and a three-piece Yves Saint Laurent suit in green corduroy, with matching glasses (yikes!). Saint Laurent is pictured with both Bianca Jagger
. . . and Jacques de Bascher, the boy toy he briefly stole from Karl Lagerfeld who has been depicted no less than three times in movies and on television (Yves Saint Laurent, Saint Laurent, and Becoming Karl Lagerfeld). Meh.
My fantasy boy toys leaned more in the direction of Joe Dallesandro (sadly not pictured although Trash opens with a tight close-up of his bare buttocks) and Helmut Berger who looks a little like David in this shot.
After seeing him in The Damned (where his buttocks are exposed) and The Romantic Englishwoman, I fell hard. Looks like Andy may have, too.
Here he is with Bianca, barely visible behind her hat. Said Andy in Exposures, his 1979 book:
Bianca Jagger is one of the most Socially Diseased people I know. She's almost as bad as me—and I'm terminal. She loves to go out every night to the hottest spot in town and make a big dramatic entrance in a big dramatic dress.
Bianca appears regularly in his family album although Studio 54 didn't open for another four years. She lived in cottage on his Montauk property. Looks like it came with a meal plan.
Although it's hard to tell from this photo of Truman Capote (the best of several in the show), Andy idolized the author of Other Voices, Other Rooms.
The precocious young author's photo on the book jacket may have been a factor. Fame is a harsh master.
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| Photo by Harold Halma (1948) |
I couldn't imagine that Patricia Neal--an actress who had won an Oscar before a debilitating stroke--and Andy ran in the same circles but she had recovered enough by the early 1970s to make a comeback. He probably found it appealing. Having seen Giant earlier this summer, his blurry photo had an added resonance. Neal's TV ads for Maxim instant coffee, which leveraged her prestige and plummy voice, were a major part of the comeback--her second--but they also contributed to the end of her marriage. While on set, Roald Dahl, her husband, met the woman with whom he would have a lengthy affair before finally leaving Neal, the mother of his five children.
Here's to you, Andy--ninety-eight years after your birth, you're still finding ways to give me vicarious pleasure! And thanks to the Whitney Museum for providing access to his analog Instagram account.
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