I know it’s not fashionable to admit to being an Andy Warhol fan. But I often find myself at odds with current trends. I am excited about the news that Andy’s Amiga artwork is on sale and will eventually be published. I’m sure some of it will end up at The Warhol where I’ll be able to see it in person. I’ve always loved his work, his early shoes in particular. Most of which I can’t download due to copyright including one of my favorite of his pieces.
Love him or hate him you can’t deny that he is one of the most important and influential artists of our time.
Talk about art, Andy, or anything Andy adjacent.
I am tempting fate here but I think this comment will appeal to you.
I used to work near the Hearst Tower. It’s pretty new and the lobby level has huge windows. Normally they would slap up giant covers of their current magazines, as advertising. But at one point, and I don’t know why, they blew up high-quality Warhol shoe ads that had appeared in their magazines and displayed those instead.
I was mesmerized. I would linger my entire lunch hour in front of them. Each of them took up an entire window. That only lasted for a month, possibly less than that, but eventually my workday would be over and I’d return to my apartment, where we a have a copy of an Andy Warhol self-portrait and a dual-panel “Poppies” on a wall in our bedroom.
We just missed his birthday. It was August 6th.
I would have loved to have seen that. I have seen many of his shoes in person but not displayed like that. Which is how they were originally used, as advertisements. I think a lot of people don’t realize he did more than soup cans and Marilyn Monroe. And he was an innovator of print making. I unashamedly love Andy.
Well, to be fair, he missed it, too. . . .
i chuckled to this for long enough to add it to my morning ritual of berating myself because my morning self can fuck all the way off.
LOL
Well, here’s a great interview with Mr. Cale.
Thanks, I’ll watch the whole thing over lunch. Cale is such an interesting and talented man.
Fun fact: I had a Great Uncle who was an artist. His primary media were casein paintings and paper collages. Once upon a time, he made a couple of collages in tribute to Warhol’s shoes and sent him one. Warhol was so taken by it that he sent Jerome one of his shoe paintings. This is Jerome, and another artist friend named Joanna Poehlmann, at a joint art show with one of his shoe collages in the background.
OMG, that’s incredible! It’s amazing enough to own a Warhol but to have been gifted one in appreciation? I can’t even imagine how your uncle felt.
A friend of mine had a show at the Ron Feldman Gallery in Soho. Feldman exhibited a lot of Warhol’s mid to later works, and I got to meet Feldman. He was the opposite of the stereotype of the Soho art world, very down to earth and unassuming. My friend didn’t sell anything but Feldman was completely unconcerned, he just liked showing art he liked. That may have been part of why he got along with Warhol, who was deeply uncomfortable with a lot of people.
His gallery had been an old warehouse with amazing cast iron columns, and we spent some time chatting about the space. In the 1880s, it had been one of the storage places for sections of the Statue of Liberty after they had been shipped over from France. He seemed to take a lot of pride in the place, but showed no sign of needing to promote it.
Art has always been big business but I think most people in that world agree that it has gotten even more money oriented. As illustrated by the recent counterfeit scandals. And maybe Andy is partially to blame for that. He certainly was obsessed with making money. But some critics have argued that it was part of his schtick as a pop artist. It was never easy to tell what was real about him and what was performance.
Feldman sounds like an old school gallery owner who loves art for its own sake and not only as a way to get rich. Your friend was lucky to have had a show there. And obviously very talented.
Andy’s influence is unmistakable. I appreciate his work and ideas even as I have a lot of problems with him as a person.
If Lou Reed and John Cale have these feelings about him, Warhol must have had his points as a human being.
He was a complicated guy. Often selfish and cruel. But he must have had his moments. I don’t think I would have wanted to be his friend. But I admire him greatly as an artist.
Warhol is a really good example of an artist who was a jerk but doesn’t seem to be a complete asshole or douche out to actively hurt people. I’m looking at you, Picasso.
I agree with this. He was inconsiderate and often insensitive. But not sadistic.
Right – I would put him in the same category as the random assholes we all work with, not some sadistic fuck.
And he had understandable trust issues after Valerie Solanis. I’ve definitely worked with people who behaved with more malice. Hell, I’ve dated worse people.
i like the dandy warhols…..that count?
I don’t know but I like them too 🙂
A bit more than 25 years ago, I was doing “research” for a “story” in one of my J-school classes, about an upcoming Pop Art exhibition at the museum on campus (where the Classical statues of naked men were plaster copies and every single one of them had had their dicks broken off). I was basically trying to ape Pop Art in textual form, so it’s probably a blessing that the thing was never published. But it led me to the website for the Andy Warhol Foundation, which was selling this design on a T-shirt at the time:
https://chairish-prod.freetls.fastly.net/image/product/sized/417ce9ab-e688-4214-b525-61d08a20eac6/andy-warhol-foundation-vintage-1993-pop-art-lithograph-print-are-you-different-1985-3023?aspect=fit&width=1600&height=1600
(I still can’t get the hang of this whole deal with posting images on here.)
I remember that 30 bucks seemed slightly steep at the time, but I bought just the same, took it with me to Spain and even wore it on 9/12. The Foundation doesn’t seem to sell it anymore, but I found someone on Etsy who was now. I may buy another one now.
That’s a great shirt. I may have to look on Etsy myself.
Oh, we better not be the same size — or else we’re gonna have to fight over it.
Did you know that there is a 24/7 live camera feed of Andy Warhol’s memorial? i check it out from time to time because i like the unique aesthetics updates.
I did. I think Andy would like that.
they can criticise all they want…that’s a feature i admire.