In 1928, Andy Warhola was born of immigrant Slovakian parents in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. He later graduated from the Carnegie Institute of Technology in pictorial art. As he made his way in commercial art acquiring notable acclaim, he dropped the "a" on his last name and became known as Andy Warhol. The successful New York illustrator and graphic designer of advertising and magazine art expanded his art form to the canvas and reproduced everyday objects like Campbell soup cans and Brillo soap pads into Pop Art paintings. He became the "pope" of the emerging American Pop Culture, and led 20th Century Art into a new dimension along with Pop artists Robert Rauschenberg and Roy Lichtenstein.
Andy Warhol became the artist of the celebrities and, in so doing, became a celebrity himself. His photographs of Debbie Harry, Aretha Franklin, Mick Jagger, Michael Jackson, and especially multiple paintings of Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe sealed the artist's fame in posterity. At a young age, stricken with illness and confined to his bed, Warhol began reading and fantasizing about movie stars and their glamorous lifestyles. In his studio, the Factory, he screen-printed colorized photographs of Hollywood idols onto mammoth canvases, many times in multiple images. Andy believed that a celebrity was someone who had achieved the hierarchy of fame, but that their every thought, word and action was a performance art of its own.
Warhol's "Factory" became legendary, and would become the hangout for rock and movie stars, models, artists, musicians, and writers. Personalities including Truman Capote, Bob Dylan, and Salvador Dali would be seen there. Warhol knew well the art of making money, and brought home enough "bacon" to feed his bohemian and intellectual entourage. He once boasted that he had just finished 50 photograph paintings of German industrialists and businessmen at a price of $50,000 each (unless they had wives or children, and then the fee was $75,000 each). Even though his demeanor seemed quiet and retrospective when it came to art, he was always on top. Not only did he bring commercial art into art galleries with his iconic images, but was prolific as an artist, author, photographer, music producer (The Velvet Underground), sculptor, publisher, film maker and television star.
His underground films brought into fame "Poor Little Rich Girl" Edie Sedgwick (relative of Kyra Sedgwick). She starred in many of his films and the socialite was his constant companion. Also Ultra Violet, Viva, and Brigid Berlin would star in his movies until 1968 when he was shot by a previous Factory actress, Valerie Solanas, who founded the organization S.C.U.M. (Society for Cutting Up Men). The attack caused Warhol to change his lifestyle and companions to keep irrational, crazy women out of the Factory and his surroundings. From that time forth, he used homosexuals to play female roles such as the beautiful Candy Darling.
In 1969, Warhol and John Wilcock published the first "collector's issue" of "Interview" Magazine which is still popular today and also wrote many books as well, including "The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again."
Following a routine gall bladder surgery, Pop Artist Andy Warhol died in a New York hospital on February 27, 1987, as a result of cardiac arrhythmia. At Warhol's last exhibition in London at the Anthony d'Offay Gallery in May 1986, Robert Rosenblum said that the show had a melancholy introspection like the great late self-portraits of Rembrandt and Van Gogh. Actress Brigid Berlin said that Andy told her that death was so abstract that it was like when people died ... they just went to Bloomingdale's. Warhol wanted us to "see our lives as movies, and to star and direct them, i.e. take control of your life."
Andy Warhol has contributions by Ivan Karp, Emile DeAntonio, Victor Bockris, James Warhola (nephew), George Klauber, Gerard Malanga, Brigid Berlin, John Giorno, Billy Name (aka Linnich), Paul Morrissey, Warhol's Superstars Ondine and Viva, Bob Colacello, Ronnie Cutrone, Vincent Fremont, Ken Leland and Robert Rosenblum. Bonus features include a Trailer consisting of mini-documentaries of artists Magritte, Lichtenstein, and Johns and a Picture Gallery consisting of 34 stills of Warhol's works, family and Factory photographs including an Interview Magazine cover with Nancy Reagan. Packaging includes "Impressum," a text by Steffi Schultzke, with English translation by Kennedy and Unglaub, giving further insight into the life and work of Andy Warhol.
Andy Warhol is a fascinating peak into the life and celebrity of Pop Artist Andy Warhol with his signature wigs, pasty white complexion, and flamboyant entourage. It reveals how the artist was able to transgress the lines of fine art by using his commercial style to introduce his everyday consumer products into a desirable art form. Brilliant in business and avant-garde in character, Warhol's business sense kept him financially secure, leaving a legacy not only to the art world, but to upcoming students as well through the Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Arts.
As a note on the documentary, the artistic inheritance of the Warhol legacy lives on in the works of nephew James Warhola who is an accomplished book illustrator.
I do caution parents that the content of this documentary contains nudity, language, drugs, and violence. The audio clarity in the documentary was a little difficult to understand in a few of Warhol's film clips and in two of the Warhol interviews. Subtitles were provided in German, French, Spanish and Italian, through only in certain portions of the documentary. I would suggest that complete subtitles be used for all languages, including English, which would have helped understand the portions that were difficult to make out what they said.
