I'll Be Your Mirror: The Selected Andy Warhol Interviews (21 page)
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Authors: Kenneth Goldsmith
JEANNE SIEGEL
ArtNews, October 1971
In 1971, art critic Jeanne Siegel asked eleven artists about their relationship to the Abstract Expressionist painter Barnett Newman. These interviews coincided with a retrospective of Newmans work held the same year at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. As Reva Wolf states in her introduction to the present book, “Each artist dutifully spoke about what he perceived to be the significance of Newmans work. Warhol spoke about the art, too, making light of Newmans reductive abstract compositions of vertical lines. However, what seemed to really grip him was Newmans social life.”
When Warhol arrived on the art scene, the Abstract Expressionist painters had a firm grip on the New York art world. In POPism, Warhol made clear his dislike of the macho scene centered around the Cedar Bar: “. . . even Barnett Newman, who was so elegant, always in a suit and monocle, was tough enough to get into politics when he made a kind of symbolic run for mayor of New York in the thirties. The toughness was part of a tradition, it went with their agonized, anguished art!” (TOPism, 13)
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hike Warhol, Newman was a latecomer to the art scene. He made what he considered to be his first painting at age 43. His exhibitions throughout the fifties were failures, and it wasnt until 1963 that he began to receive attention–at which point, of course, he was overshadowed by the Pop artists grabbing the spotlight
Wolf continues: “In this passage, to the extent that there is discussion about art, it is covered over by what appears to be banal chitchat about parties. Still, under this cloak of banality, Warhol loosely concealed a surprising poignancy, which is exposed once we realize that Newman had died in 1970, not long before this interview occurred. At this point, it becomes clear that being ‘at another party” was Warhols idea of Newmans afterlife, and that there was a pathos in his words.,”
ANDY WARHOL: The only way I knew Barney was, I think, Barney went to more parties than I did. I just don’t know how he got around–I mean he’d go off to the next party. And it’s just so unbelievable; why, I just think he’s at another party. Don’t you think he’s just at another party? Maybe he didn’t have to work a lot if he just painted one line, so he had time for parties.
And then I heard about all these studios he used to have, like fifteen studios; one for every painting. Every time I’d go by a building they’d say, well, Barney has a studio there. He had one in Carnegie Hall and about three or four downtown. He did a painting in the studio and then he’d leave one painting up forever. Isn’t that true, Fred? Didn’t Barney have a studio for every painting he ever painted? That was the most mysterious thing about him–that’s what I thought was so great.
JEANNE SIEGEL: Was Barnett Newman a success when you first became aware of him?
ANDY WARHOL: I thought he was famous ever since the first time I met him. But then somebody said he wasn’t famous until just recently. I liked the thing that’s down in Houston next to the Rothko Chapel. I think that’s so beautiful. We used to go down to Houston so I saw it. The whole idea was so great. It was so simple near the church. I liked it in the setting.
JEANNE SIEGEL: Did you like his other, simpler sculptures, such as “Here III”?
ANDY WARHOL: Frankly, I never understood how he got away with it.
JEANNE SIEGEL: Did Newman ever come to your studio, to see your work?
ANDY WARHOL: No, I don’t think so. The last time I saw Barney it was at the Eugene Schwartzes
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. Do you know them? They had a Barney Newman and then they had another Barney Newman, and I thought it was a copy done by that girl who copies paintings. I was going to ask him and then I didn’t ask him and then he was standing right next to it so it must be real. They wouldn’t have hung a copy if Barney was there.
JEANNE SIEGEL: Did you talk to him?
ANDY WARHOL: Oh, yes. He was always so sweet. He always asked me how I was. He was really kind.
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In 1933, Newman had offered himself as a last-minute candidate for election as New York City mayor against Fiorello LaGuardia, on a program advocating better arts education and more cultural resources in New York.
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Eugene M. Schwartz. Art collector, 1927–1995.
GEORGE GRUSKIN
SCOPE, March 16, 1973
Most people approaching Andy Warhol for an interview were, at the very least, curious; most were intrigued; and nearly all were fans. But George Gruskin and the editorial staff of the South African publication SCOPE set out to prove Andy Warhol to be the fraud that they assumed him to be. However, Warhol magnificently deflects Gruskin s hostility in this interview to the point where, near the end of the interview, Gruskin remarks: “I am very impressed by your modesty. So many people who achieved fame or wealth tend to be a little stuffy”; Warhol had won him over.
The early 70s were transitional times for Andy Warhol as he moved from ‘60s Pop artist to 70s jet-set entrepreneur. Victor Bockris says: “Andy was crossing over from the art world into the world of fashion. The change was reflected by a new look. Gone were his black leather jackets, replaced by velvet jackets, chic European-designed suits, ties and expensive high-heeled boots, though always worn with blue jeans. ‘Everyone’s back to beautiful clothes,’ he told Truman Capote. ‘The hippie look is really gone.” (Bockris, 347)
Other events shaped the era: his mother, who had long lived with Warhol in New York, died in 1972; his ‘60s painting prices soared at auction; his portrait commissions business took off (costing $25,000, with additional canvases of the same image in different colors costing $5,000 each); he made a well-publicized return to painting with his Mao paintings; and his filmmaking continued at a furious pace with Trash, Women in Revolt, Heat, and UAmour–to name a few–made between 1970 and 1972.
This interview was conducted at the Factory at 33 Union Square West
–KG
He is, without doubt, one of the strangest men who ever lived. He is also one of the most successful.
His name is Andy Warhol–pop artist, mad moviemaker, and genuine, Grade-A triple distilled 20th century freak; the weirdest wonder-child of all in an age noted for its glorification of presumptuous parvenus.
Warhol first hit the big time with his new “art” form–full-colour portraits of Campbells soup cans, perfect copies down to the last details. From there he moved on to even greater things: life-size replicas of Brillo soap pad cartons for which he asked–and got R200
1
apiece.
In anywhere else but America Warhol would have been dismissed as the insignificant upstart he was. But in a nation dedicated to the perpetuation of the transient he could only come out tops. Which, of course, he did.
The “beautiful people” clasped him to their collective bosom and he became a major cult figure. Little matter that he behaved like a spaced-out speed freak: he was different, he was “in.”
Then, in the mid-sixties, Andy Warhol turned his tin-pan talents to film making and the trendy bores of the arty film world fell over themselves in their indecent haste to see what Andy baby had to offer the modern cinema.
Not much. Most of his movie work is amateurish and vulgar. Ultimately, a Warhol film is a stupefying bore.
One of his major “epics”–
Empire State Building–
lasts for eight hours. To film this masterpiece Warhol trained his camera on the skyscraper in question and let the machine run by itself. The camera angle was not changed. Another of his films,
Sleep
, also lasts eight hours. It shows a man sleeping. Nothing else.
In
Harlot
, Warhol places two men and two women on a couch. One of the women ate bananas, one after the other, while the other three players sat and watched him do so. There was no dialogue and the film lasted for 70 minutes.
For
13 Beautiful Women
, Warhol used the services of 13 females. Each of the women was required not to say anything. Each was simply asked to stare into the camera lens. The film runs for an hour.
Such is the soaring genius of Andy Warhol, the anemic little [
word missing
] who operates from the top floor of a disused New York warehouse he calls the “Superstar Factory.”
Little is known of his private life. He lives in a six-roomed apartment on 90th Street. His mother, a Czech, lives with him. So does his current playmate, a person of indeterminate sex who answers to the exotic title of Silva Thins.
Warhol has always preferred to keep himself out of the limelight. Recently, however, he allowed David Bailey, the internationally famous London photographer, to film a documentary on his work. Bailey’s documentary, which contains some rather remarkable sequences, was due to be shown on Britain’s ITV network late in January. But Mr. Ross McWhirter, author of the
Guinness Book of Records
, took advance exception to what had been touted as “the most dismissive shocker to be shown on British TV screens” and obtained a court injunction banning the film. The ban has since been lifted.
The four-hour show reveals, among other things:
— A fat woman stripping to the waist, daubing her breasts with ink, and then sloshing them against a canvas.
— A naked man sitting in a bath while a woman tries to persuade him to accompany her (and her rock band) to bed.
— A girl and a Hell’s Angel discussing sex on a motor-cycle traveling at 90km/h.
The immediate outcome of all this inevitable fanfare was, of course, an upsurge of public interest in Andy Warhol and his work. Less than a week after the show, Warhol had raised more than R20,000 to finance three new films he has on the cards, and his most recent work,
Trash
, is currently playing to packed houses on the West End.
South Africans are unlikely to ever see a Warhol movie in this country, and in lieu of this sad gap in your cultural upbringing, we offer instead this interview between George Gruskin and the great man himself. It must surely rank as one of the strangest ever recorded. . . .
GRUSKIN: You are one of the most famous Americans of modern times and I would like to find out a number of things about you. I don’t want to produce a story similar to the one Clifford [
word missing
] wrote about another famous American, so I have to ask you a number of questions.
WARHOL: OK.
G: Apart from your artistic and movie-making activities I am interested in your private life, your hobbies and avocations. In other words: your life and life-style.
W: Well, we’re finishing two films. One is called
Dont Worry
’, the other one
Heat
. One is going to the Dallas Film Festival, the other to Cannes, I guess. We are also writing a musical for couturier Yves St. Laurent, called
Vicious
.
G: Are you writing the music?
W: No. I’m working on the story. We are trying to get Lerner and Loewe to do the music, but if they’re not willing, we’ll settle for the “Velvet Underground.”
G: What else is doing?
W: We are also trying something with situation comedies for TV.
G: Are you writing, directing or producing?
W: No. We are just getting people together. We’re trying to do something with Silva Thins. Come on, Silva Thins.
Enter Silva Thins. He/she sits beside Warhol
.
W: Silva Thins will play in
Vicious
, which is a movie about a girl who is in love with a boy who is turning into a girl. And so she is now getting ready for the part.
G (
To Silva Thins
): So for all intents and purposes you are a girl.
SILVA THINS: No.
W: She is a mosaic.
G: A mosaic?
W: A collage of the sexes. He is not sure yet what he is.
G: AC–DC (bisexual), in other words?
W: No, not AC–DC. He doesn’t wear girl’s clothes, but he wears lipstick.
G: If we can leave show business for a moment, I would like to ask you a few personal questions. What sort of private life do you lead?
W: I live with a drag-queen. I think that is enough. You know what a drag-queen is?
G: Of course. (A transvestite man who looks like a beautiful woman.) But you used to live with your mother, didn’t you?
W: Oh yes, she is around somewhere. G: You live in a town-house? W: No, I live in a house in town.
G: If I may pry into very personal matters: how do you live? How does your day start? What time do you get up in the morning? Are you a night owl or a day bird? Or perhaps your routine is irregular?
W: That is the right word.
G: In other words, you live an irregular life. After all, if you did not want this life-style you would be in a nine to five job.
W: I believe in the nine to five jobs.
G: But you just said that you do not have a regular schedule.
W: I try to.
G: Oh, I see. So at what time do you get up in the morning?
W: At 8 a.m.
G: What do you do next? Exercise? Jog?
W: No.
G: So you find it a bit difficult to get going, right?
W: Yes.
G: What do you have for breakfast?
W: Just a cup of tea.
G: Nothing but tea?
W: And some vitamin pills.
G: How do you drink your tea, with lemon or with milk?
W: I like it with milk.
G: You drink only one cup?
W: One cup.
G: What comes then?
W: I talk on the telephone.
G: Business calls?
W: No. I tape them.
G: Why?
W: Just. . . just. . . (
he shrugs
).
SILVA THINS: Let’s order some ice-cream! . . . (
he/she disappears
).
G: Are you fond of ice-cream?
W: I was until I saw how they made it. They put a lot of sugar in it.
G: And you object to sugar?
W: Well, there was one restaurant where I ate most of my ice-cream, and yesterday it was mentioned in the paper among 400 restaurants in which inspectors found rat droppings in the kitchen. Can you imagine eating icecream at a place like that?
SILVA THINS: Why don’t we tell him about my idea for a play?
W: Oh yes. Silva Thins has a good idea. We would organise a party on a Broadway stage. It would be like a play but actually it would be just a party to which we would invite different people every day.
G: Are you considering doing it?
W: Oh yeah!
G: Getting back to the phone calls: how long do you usually talk on the telephone in the morning?
W: Till the phone stops ringing. Then I try to get down to the studio. At about 2pm.
G: How do you come to the studio? Do you drive?
W: I take a taxi.
G: You don’t keep a car?
W: We have a Volkswagen Kombi. That is our limousine.
G: Getting back to the telephone conversations: are they business, personal or perhaps a mixture of both?
W: They are with the same people and about the same things every day.
G: Can we assume then, that there is no clear dividing line between your business and your private life?
W: Right! But isn’t this true for everybody? I cannot really understand how anyone can say he has a private life! After all, a man is always working.
G: What I meant is that people have friends with whom they play golf or tennis.
W: But that is also a part of work, isn’t it?
G: Can you tell me about your friends?
W: I always think that everybody is my friend.
G: Yes, but still, who do you get together with: artists, writers, actors . . . what kind of crowd?
W: Just anybody who has my number.
G: By the time you arrive here at the Factory, you have probably got through a lot of telephone conversations.
W: Yes, and then I have to hurry back home to give my mother a pill.
G: What kind of pill? Why do you have to administer it personally?
W: It is some old-age pill. . . a stroke pill. If I don’t give it to her, she would probably just throw it under the bed.
G: Doesn’t she believe in medicine?
W: No. And I think she is right!
G: How old is your mother?
W: She is over 65.
G: In other words, she is a “senior citizen.”
W: That’s right. She can go to the movies free in those theatres for senior citizens.
G: How about the Warhol films? Does she go to see them?
W: She doesn’t even know I make movies.
G: Well, if she knew and if she saw one of your films, do you think she would be shocked or embarrassed?
W: She likes to take to the bottle once in a while.
G: I heard she was a devout Catholic and. . . .
W: You can be a devout Catholic and still take to the bottle.
G: Oh yes, of course, but what I meant was that if she went to see some of your more shaky films, would she be shocked?
W: She doesn’t go out.
G: I see. Does she read English?
W: She watches TV.