kottke.org posts about 'andywarhol' (kottke.org)

Short film: Blow Job by Andy Warhol. Mostly SFW...it's just the face of the recipient. Here's some info on the film.

When Andy Warhol decided to shoot Blow Job, he rang Charles Rydell and asked him to star in it, telling him that "all he'd have to do was lie back and then about five different boys would come in and keep on blowing him until he came," but that the film would only show his face.
Charles agreed, but when he didn't show up for the following Sunday afternoon shoot, Andy reached him at Jerome Hill's suite at the Algonquin and screamed into the phone "Charles! Where are you?" Charles responded: "What do you mean, where am I? You know where I am - you called me," and Andy the said "We've got the camera ready and the five boys are all here, everything's set up!" Charles's shocked reply was: "Are you crazy? I thought you were kidding. I'd never do that!"

Sep 7, 2008 • tags: andywarhol art video movies blowjob sex

Christoph Niemann has used some unusual image sources to tile his bathrooms. For the shower, an appropriation of Warhol's Brillo box. For the kids bathroom, a NYC subway map.

Aug 25, 2008 • tags: art design christophniemann maps nyc subway andywarhol

The most beautiful suicide

On May 1, 1947, Evelyn McHale leapt to her death from the observation deck of the Empire State Building. Photographer Robert Wiles took a photo of McHale a few minutes after her death.

Evelyn Mchale by Robert Wiles

The photo ran a couple of weeks later in Life magazine accompanied by the following caption:

On May Day, just after leaving her fiancé, 23-year-old Evelyn McHale wrote a note. 'He is much better off without me ... I wouldn't make a good wife for anybody,' ... Then she crossed it out. She went to the observation platform of the Empire State Building. Through the mist she gazed at the street, 86 floors below. Then she jumped. In her desperate determination she leaped clear of the setbacks and hit a United Nations limousine parked at the curb. Across the street photography student Robert Wiles heard an explosive crash. Just four minutes after Evelyn McHale's death Wiles got this picture of death's violence and its composure.

From McHale's NY Times obituary, Empire State Ends Life of Girl, 20:

At 10:40 A. M., Patrolman John Morrissey of Traffic C, directing traffic at Thirty-fourth Street and Fifth Avenue, noticed a swirling white scarf floating down from the upper floors of the Empire State. A moment later he heard a crash that sounded like an explosion. He saw a crowd converge in Thirty-third Street.
Two hundred feet west of Fifth Avenue, Miss McHale's body landed atop the car. The impact stove in the metal roof and shattered the car's windows. The driver was in a near-by drug store, thereby escaping death or serious injury.
On the observation deck, Detective Frank Murray of the West Thirtieth Street station, found Miss McHale's gray cloth coat, her pocketbook with several dollars and the note, and a make-up kit filled with family pictures.

The serenity of McHale's body amidst the crumpled wreckage it caused is astounding. Years later, Andy Warhol appropriated Wiles' photography for a print called Suicide (Fallen Body), but I can't find a copy of it anywhere online. Anyone?

Update: A not-so-great representation of Warhol's version of this photograph is available at Google Books. (thx, ruben)

Update: Here's a better photo of Warhol's print. (thx, lots of people)

Jul 16, 2008 • tags: evelynmchale robertwiles photography empirestatebuilding suicide andywarhol

"Where's Andy Warhol?"

In 1984, Maureen Dowd, now an op-ed columnist, was a reporter on the "Metropolitan staff" of the New York Times. This excerpt (from a 5112-word piece) ran in the Times magazine on November 4, 1984, with the headline "9PM TO 5AM." (It's behind the paywall here.)

On Monday nights, Area offers ''obsession'' nights—with fixations such as sex, pets and body oddities. At a recent ''sex evening,'' nude jugglers and whip dancers moved in and out of the crowd while an ex-nun heard sexual confessions in the ladies' room and an old man played with inflatable dolls in a pool.
This evening, the theme is ''confinement,'' and the club is decorated with dolls in pajamas chained under water, a caged rabbit and go-go dancers armed with guns and dressed in Army fatigues.
''Where's Andy Warhol?'' asks a young punk, dragging on a joint and scanning the crowd. ''I want to get a good look at him.''
''I think he went to Limelight,'' says his friend. At Limelight, a church- turned-club on the Avenue of the Americas at 20th Street, halolike arcs of light stream from stained-glass windows.
''We should go there,'' says someone else.
''We should go there immediately,'' says another.
They scurry off to Limelight, unaware that their quarry, wearing corduroys and a backpack, is standing unobtrusively at the bar.
''This is the best bar in town,'' Andy Warhol says. ''You could take everything out and put it in a gallery.''
Matt Dillon, Vincent Spano and Mickey Rourke, each confident in his role as a teen idol, make their separate ways through the crowd, as young girls reach out to touch their arms, backs, anything. Director Francis Ford Coppola is talking to the actress Diane Lane.
Nearby, Don Marino, an up-and-coming actor, is talking to Brian Jones, an up-and-coming director. ''L.A. is a whole different world,'' the actor says. ''You go to the A party, the B party and you are home in bed by 11 for your 5 o' clock call the next morning. In New York, you've got to be seen at night, you've got to get around.''
The young director scans the room. ''I know people Coppola knows,'' he says. ''I wonder if I could go say hi.''

Jan 14, 2008 • tags: newyorkcity maureendowd newyorktimes history andywarhol nightlife socialclimbers

The Warhol Economy

by Elizabeth Currid

More info about this book »

Two quick reviews of Elizabeth Currid's book, The Warhol Economy, which argues that New York's "vibrant creative social scene" is what makes the city go. First, James Surowiecki in the New Yorker:

Of course, everyone knows that art and culture help make New York a great place to live. But Currid goes much further, showing that the culture industry creates tremendous economic value in its own right. It is the city's fourth-largest employer, and generates billions of dollars a year in revenue. More important, New York has no real global rival for dominance in the culture industry. Using an economic-analysis tool called a "location quotient," Currid calculates that New York matters far more to fashion, art, and culture than to finance. To exaggerate a bit, if New York suddenly disappeared, stock markets could keep functioning, but we would not be able to dress ourselves or find art to put on the wall. Currid suggests that, in the fight among cities for business, being the center of fashion and art constitutes New York's true "competitive advantage."

And from The Economist:

New York's cultural economy has reached a critical juncture, argues Ms Currid, threatened by, of all things, prosperity. The bleak economic conditions of the 1970s allowed artists to flock into dirt-cheap apartments and ushered in the East Village scene of the early 1980s. The boom of the past decade, by contrast, has priced budding Basquiats out of Manhattan, pushing them across the water to Brooklyn and New Jersey. Studio flats meant for artists-in-residence get snapped up by bankers. The closure last year of CBGB, a bar that became a punk and art-rock laboratory in the 1970s (and whose founder, Hilly Kristal, died last month) came to symbolise this squeeze.
Ms Currid sees this expulsion of talent as a serious problem. The solution, she argues, lies in a series of well-aimed public-policy measures: tax incentives, zoning that helps nightlife districts, more subsidised housing and studio space for up-and-coming artists, and more.

The first chapter of the book is available on the Princeton University Press site.

Oct 29, 2007 • tags: thewarholeconomy elizabethcurrid nyc cities jamessurowiecki economics andywarhol

Jessica Lagunas' Return to Puberty, an artwork consisting of a "video close-up of my pubis in a static single shot, in which I depilate most of my pubic hair with a pair of tweezers continuously for one hour". It's like the female version of Empire. NSFW.

Sep 14, 2007 • tags: jessicalagunas empire movies video andywarhol art nsfw

Andy Warhol would have loved this round-the-clock webcam view of the Empire State Building...it's like a sequel to Empire that never ends. (via cyn-c)

Jan 29, 2007 • tags: empirestatebuilding nyc andywarhol movies

Upscale retailer Barney's is selling cans of Campbell's Tomato Soup with Andy Warhol labels. 4 cans for $48.

Dec 8, 2006 • tags: barneys food campbellssoup andywarhol art

A collection of snapshots by Andy Warhol of his friends from a recently published book, Warhol's World.

Sep 26, 2006 • tags: photography andywarhol

A bunch of Andy Warhol videos on YouTube.

Sep 22, 2006 • tags: youtube video andywarhol art

On TV tonight: Ric Burns documentary on Andy Warhol. Part 2 tomorrow night.

Update: NY Times piece on the Warhol documentary.

Update: The Nation has some thoughts on the doc as well.

Sep 20, 2006 • tags: ricburns andywarhol tv art

Do rich artists make bad art? "When you become as rich as [Warhol or Dali], being as rich as this becomes your story. If you don't make art about being a multimillionaire, you are being dishonest. If you do, you can hardly claim the universality of great art." (via rw)

Apr 27, 2006 • tags: damienhirst andywarhol salvadordali art money

Allan Tannenbaum's photos of NYC nightlife in the 1970s. Discos, Studio 54, Andy Warhol, porn stars, etc. NSFW.

Jun 20, 2005 • tags: nsfw photography allantannenbaum nyc disco studio54 andywarhol porn