I "finally" finished the book today.
The book continues chronicling Andy's life, talking about his consistency with making films, paintings, and generally creating more fame for himself. Towards the end of his life, Andy started a magazine (that is still in publication) called Interview. At first, its angle was geared toward art and poetry, but circulation was very poor. When Warhol decided to change it to a more fashion-oriented magazine, circulation more than doubled. Today, the magazine is still known for its cutting-edge interview of celebrites (including Kate Moss!) and its fashion editorials. Some say that Interview was one of the contributing factors to keeping Andy Warhol more than just a passing sixties fad.
Around the same time Interview started, Andy started an actual company out of his famous name called Andy Warhol Enterprises. Receptionists no longer answered the phone with "the Factory"; instead they answered with "the Office". Warhol cashed in on his name by painting portraits of people at expensive prices. In interviews, he continued to be detached and gave short, vague answers.
By the mid 70s, his routine was pretty consistent. He'd work, go to parties, and every once a month he'd travel to a distant country or city as a sort of "vacation". The same thing that had been happening his whole life continued to happen - he'd come out with new art and the reviews would be mixed. The only major difference is that Andy moved to a five-story mansion in New York during this period of his life.
During the winter of 1987, Warhol flew to Milan, Italy for a gallery showing. Towards the end of his stay in Milan, Warhol began experiencing excruciating pain in his abdomen. The problem was found to be dangerously enlarged gallstones in his bladder. Andy went into surgery on February 21. He seemed to be recovering fine, but heart complications killed him on February 22, 1987. His grave is next to his parents in Pittsburgh, and he was buried wearing sunglasses. His will stated that his entire estate go to funding an arts foundation.
The book closes with this quote: "If you want to know about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface of my paintings and films and me, and there i am. There's nothing behind it."
page I left off on: I finished. (page 99)
Ford, Carin. Andy Warhol: Pioneer of Pop Art. New Jersey: Enslow Publishers, Inc., 2001.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Monday, March 9, 2009
entry two.
When I left off, Andy was heading to New York City to be a commercial artist. By 1955, he was the most sought after commercial artist in New York City, with his illustrations in Vogue, Glamour, and the display windows of Bergdorf Goodman. Andy was still not satisfied. Success in the commercial art world only made him strive for success in the fine arts world even more. Andy found his calling in the new art movement that had started in England - Pop Art. At first, he started painting pictures of his childhood cartoons - Dick Tracy, Popeye, and Little Nancy. Although Roy Lichtenstein had already been doing that, Andy's paintings still sold. However, he still did not have a solid standing in the world of Pop Art - people still remembered Andy as a commercial artist. Later on, Andy tries to get a gallery with Leo Castelli. Leo refuses to show Andy's paintings. A disheartened Andy asks his friend, interior designer Muriel Latow for ideas which do not come cheap - she charges him $50 for her ideas. The wannabe artist nochalantly pays the cost (his commercial art had made him kind of affluent) , and Muriel suggests painting pictures of money and soupcans. Andy took this advice very well, and went on to paint his most famous work - the Campbell's Soupcan. He used a special technique which detached him from the art - silkscreening, which gave his art an almost mechanized feeling. By 1964, his paintings had become internationally famous.
After a while, Andy grew tired of just paintings. He moved to sculpting. This spawned two things: firstly, his famous Brillo and Heinz ketchup box reproductions and secondly, his first move from doing work in his own apartment to a warehouse - which later became the infamous Factory. Andy continued his foray into different mediums of art. Moving from sculpting to moviemaking, his first films were usually just 3 hours of unscripted, unedited, raw material. Most critics hated it, but some thought he was creating a new vision for film. While all of this filming was going on, the Factory soon filled with famous actors, models, millionaires, and socialites. This grouping of people were known as Andy Warhol's Superstars.
By 1965, Andy Warhol and his Superstars had become, almost ironically, real superstars. Andy and one of his Superstars, Edie Sedgwick, travelled to Paris for a gallery opening. Most people were more interested in seeing Andy and Edie than the actual art. He had acheived celebrity status. Bolstering his fame even more, Andy opened a sort of multimedia dance club in 1965. He set up film projectors that projected on to all the walls of the club, with strobe lights blairing and the Velvet Underground playing while a very diverse range of people took to the dance floor. He called it "the Exploding Plastic Inevitable Show" , and it was extremely successful since it had something for virtually everyone.
Up until 1968, everything seemed to be going swell for Warhol. That is, until the morning of June 3, 1968. Andy had just finished meeting with his lawyer and taken a cab to the Factory. As Andy sat down at his desk, Valerie Solanas - who had appeared in one of his films - took a pistol out of a brown paper bag and shot Andy. It hit several of his internal organs, and he was rushed to the hospital. Warhol had his ruptured spleen removed, and had bedrest in the hospital until July 28. Solanas, who had shot Warhol because she thought "he had too much control of my life", was put into a mental asylum when she was found unsuitable for testimony.
After being released from the hospital, Andy was never quite the same. He was more shaky and afraid. The shooting had done more than affect Andy's paranoia, though. The price for his paintings had gone from $200 to $15,000. He worked on movies until 1969, when he started writing a novel. It was called a, and there was no beginning or end. It was just segments of someone's life. Andy wanted every typographical mistake and grammatical error included in the book. Andy claimed to have wanted a "bad" book, just like he made "bad" art and "bad" movies. It sold for $10 and was panned by critics.
page I left off on: 68
Ford, Carin. Andy Warhol: Pioneer of Pop Art. New Jersey: Enslow Publishers, Inc., 2001.
After a while, Andy grew tired of just paintings. He moved to sculpting. This spawned two things: firstly, his famous Brillo and Heinz ketchup box reproductions and secondly, his first move from doing work in his own apartment to a warehouse - which later became the infamous Factory. Andy continued his foray into different mediums of art. Moving from sculpting to moviemaking, his first films were usually just 3 hours of unscripted, unedited, raw material. Most critics hated it, but some thought he was creating a new vision for film. While all of this filming was going on, the Factory soon filled with famous actors, models, millionaires, and socialites. This grouping of people were known as Andy Warhol's Superstars.
By 1965, Andy Warhol and his Superstars had become, almost ironically, real superstars. Andy and one of his Superstars, Edie Sedgwick, travelled to Paris for a gallery opening. Most people were more interested in seeing Andy and Edie than the actual art. He had acheived celebrity status. Bolstering his fame even more, Andy opened a sort of multimedia dance club in 1965. He set up film projectors that projected on to all the walls of the club, with strobe lights blairing and the Velvet Underground playing while a very diverse range of people took to the dance floor. He called it "the Exploding Plastic Inevitable Show" , and it was extremely successful since it had something for virtually everyone.
Up until 1968, everything seemed to be going swell for Warhol. That is, until the morning of June 3, 1968. Andy had just finished meeting with his lawyer and taken a cab to the Factory. As Andy sat down at his desk, Valerie Solanas - who had appeared in one of his films - took a pistol out of a brown paper bag and shot Andy. It hit several of his internal organs, and he was rushed to the hospital. Warhol had his ruptured spleen removed, and had bedrest in the hospital until July 28. Solanas, who had shot Warhol because she thought "he had too much control of my life", was put into a mental asylum when she was found unsuitable for testimony.
After being released from the hospital, Andy was never quite the same. He was more shaky and afraid. The shooting had done more than affect Andy's paranoia, though. The price for his paintings had gone from $200 to $15,000. He worked on movies until 1969, when he started writing a novel. It was called a, and there was no beginning or end. It was just segments of someone's life. Andy wanted every typographical mistake and grammatical error included in the book. Andy claimed to have wanted a "bad" book, just like he made "bad" art and "bad" movies. It sold for $10 and was panned by critics.
page I left off on: 68
Ford, Carin. Andy Warhol: Pioneer of Pop Art. New Jersey: Enslow Publishers, Inc., 2001.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
entry one.
The first chapter is an introduction to Andy's life: an overview of his fame. It concisely details the important parts of his career - from the point when he first reaches New York, to his success in commercial art, to his first art gallery. After this brief description, chapter two moves on to talk about his beginnings with more depth. It starts off talking about how his family immigrated from Slovakia to America to start a new life. His father's name was Andrei Warhola, and his mother's name was Julia Warhola. He had two older brothers. Andy was born on August 6, 1928 in Pittsburgh. The book then chronicles how Andy stayed in bed throughout elementary school due to an illness, and how his fascination with drawing began at a very young age. I got up to the point about Andy graduating Carnegie Institute and moving to New York as a commercial artist.
page I left on: 33
Ford, Carin. Andy Warhol: Pioneer of Pop Art. New Jersey: Enslow Publishers, Inc., 2001.
page I left on: 33
Ford, Carin. Andy Warhol: Pioneer of Pop Art. New Jersey: Enslow Publishers, Inc., 2001.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
