Nat Finkelstein was best known for his memorable chronicling of Andy Warhol’s Factory (primarily the first and Second factories).“I stayed at the Factory from 1964 till 1967,” Finkelstein told an interviewer in 2001. Then later, “I watched pop die and punk being born.”
His photographs of Warhol, the Velvet Underground and all of the superstars of the factory are primarily the visual record that we have of “The Warhol Sixties”.
Leave a CommentI was in New York this weekend for a number of events, this week will be focused on this event, current offerings in the galleries (Chelsea and the Bowery), notes on MoMA’s current hangings and the art blogger meeting at Pocket Utopia in Brooklyn.
Saturday night Lincoln Center’s American Songbook presented 13 Most Beautiful … Songs for Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests, Composed and Performed by Dean and Britta. (Dean Wareham formerly of Galaxie 500 and Luna, Britta Phillips formerly of Belltower, Ben Lee and Luna) Of interest is the fact that this is the first official musical background played live to any of the Screen Tests since the Velvet Underground performed as part of the Exploding Plastic Inevitable.
The set is composed of thirteen songs – with each track at approximately 4 minutes – the length of the filmed screen tests. The format of the screen tests and in particular the two presentations 13 Most Beautiful Women & 13 Most Beautiful Boys both comprised of 13 shorts is similar to the tracking of a record album, four minute movies are about the length of a “standard” pop song – so the approach that the Warhol Foundation (I am assuming) has found is a great way to extend the reach, presence and relevancy of these most interesting movies. It doesn’t hurt that the music is great either. I believe that there are few musical acts that could really only be effective in this performance the Velvet Underground is the obvious choice (good luck with that), Steve Wynn of the Dream Syndicate, and Dean Wareham (with any of his past bands or with Britta) are the natural choices. Anyway, I approve of the choice.
Of the 13 songs, 4 were covers all well chosen, for Nico, Bob Dylan’s I’ll Keep It With Mine, a song Dylan gave Nico for her first album, Chelsea Girls. For Edie Sedgwick, It Don’t Rain In Beverly Hills made “famous” by The Tadpoles (I think), Cristopher Popora’s I Found It Not So for Mary Wornorov (my current Warhol era crush, also known as Miss. Togar in Rock and Roll High School). Finally a lesser known velvet’s track for Lou Reed called Not a Young Man Anymore. The originals all have that amazing blend of “dreampop” and Dean and Britta’s take on the duet in the manner of Lee Hazelwood and Nancy Sinatra or Glen Campbell and Bobbie Gentry.
The stage at the Allen Room s unusual in that the rear of the stage is a wall of windows allowing the viewer to literally look down Central Park South and gaze at the New York skyline. while the screen tests played on a large screen covering maybe a fifth of the window and the band played underneath. It was great watching the band, watching the movie, and watching the city of New York all interact with each other. I really thought how great that was – these movies and people, which could only have been made in NYC in the 60’s could sit inside the current skyline and become more interesting as a unspoken dialog between the three opened up in front of me.
One final note, during the song for Freddy Herko (a dancer who legend has it literally danced out of his window and feel to his death) an ambulance with sirens flashing raced down the street. Found poetry indeed.
Leave a Comment
The above quote is from Marc Jacobs from this months Interview. I know I spoke about Glenn O’Brien’s return to the magazine that Warhol founded just recently. In fact it becomes even harder (or easier) to talk about because this issue is all about Warhol – some of you may know that I’m currently going through a bit of a “Factory Phase” (for lack of anything else to say).
I’m drawn to this quote because in my mind it perfectly illustrates Warhols entire artistic oeuvre. When you really start to think about this its really obvious (to me anyway) – his desire to be among the wealthy (and unwillingness to rock the social structure thereof), his straight-forward (some would say deadpan) approach to the subjects he created, and his easy, almost ridiculously simple answers to questions about his work, in effect he was (still is?) respectful and disrespectful.
And I think that is the main thing that drive people crazy about him.
And I think that is the main thing that people love about him.
Andy Warhol, Self-Portrait, 1986
Leave a Comment
Recently Glen O’Brien has become the co-editor of Interview magazine. I think that is a great choice by the publisher – a kind of prodigal son returns home kind of thing. One of the great things about a son returning home is that all his friends are going to start dropping in, this month it’s Richard Prince, Christopher Wool, and Richard Hell.
Interview has RP photographing the actresses from the new Battlestar Galactica show. He has shot them in a way that directly points at some of his work – notably “Girlfriends”. You might remember the “Girlfriends” as the biker girl photographs. I call theses images “The New Girlfriends” – Hollywood starlets wearing all the right clothing labels and attitudes – but not the same sense of freedom or even sexiness. It makes perfect sense now why the “Girlfriends” are stronger (and sexier) when re-photographed. Maybe RP should have had some bikers take the photos, and then photographed those. Offhanded joke aside, I’m not sure RP needs to be re-engineering his past work – it just seems like there is so much still to do.
I bought Interview at a news stand, I hope you live near a place that sells magazines.
Photo by: Richard Prince
Leave a Comment
I stumbled over these really interesting images from a 1967 copy of Esquire. (thanks to areaoftheunwell) Evidently, Warhol at one time made a movie called Batman Dracula which I’m sure DC Comics made sure never saw the light of day. Either way, I think these photos are too much fun.
I also think that its perfect that Warhol is dressed as the boy wonder…
