Andy Warhol Mixed Taste MCA DenverTYPING LIVE ..EXCUSE ERRORS
TRACING ANDY TRACING…. And how I woven in and out of my life. Andys mother, icons cats and ...inklines and photography
Myths gone Wild
I went for hero worshiping, idolizing, hand-holding friend, to depression, seeing the inside behind the curtain of the celebrity art world. and back again today, seeing the genius … Duchamp all the way.
"idea" of a piece of art is more important than the visual craft or the artist's own hand.
The more you learn about something, the more refined and dry and conceptual you go … Andy is a bottomless pit.
I always say with any artist .. a great work is unique and talks to you and keeps on talking to you ….
Young artists ask me all the time what my suggestions are
to make it … Do what Andy did i say....
Power in numbers form a SALON find your community.
Curate yourself into shows with others.
Make special handmade personal promotions.
Make fashion ..fashion as art.
Make movies with friends.
Make multiples of fine art.
MAKE A MAGAZINE … A ZINE use it for access.
Never put type over a image. ( a pet peve of mine and Andy)
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This is a good time to ask where are we?
Where is Andy now.?
Does Andy hold up in todays art world.?
WOULD ANDY LIKE AI ?
Warhol announced his disengagement from the process of aesthetic creation in 1963:
Andy on of the most researched humans in the world .. and me giving a talk .. what was I thinking ?
I will admit it’s fascinating to explore Andy with Google Gemini these days.
There are over 2,000 Unique books. books on Warhol
I OWN ABOUT HALF OF THEM
150 Major Biographies … Blake Gopnik's is the most recent most complete and insightful.
1,200+ Exhibition Catalogues Catalogue Raisonné (6 Volumes)
80 Books by Warhol (or his estate):
A massive posthumous mountain
BOOKS OF NOTE
Blake Gopniks is the most recent most complete and insightful.
Warhol After Warhol by Richard Dorment Eye opener
The Andy Warhol Diaries are always very telling a who Andy was.
Because i was close to his diarist Pat Hackett and editor Bridget Berlin, I am thrilled to have gotten a half dozen mentions and images in ! Great proof i was there !
DAMs Christoph Henrichs assembled an amazing rare book "Andy Warhol Photography" and he was on the Foundation Authentication board.
The print footprint Andy left behind is massive.
The Warhol Estate gave out ten os thousands of images to University Galleries ..thats how i found many of the images Andy took of me…. for better or for worse …
POPPY CLOSE YOUR EYES
Andy treated the very concept of commercial work promotion, publishing and documentation as an art.
Which is an important concept by itself i want to unpack a little… I talk about a lot. Like of you do a mailing / paper , promotion ..what ever ..why not make it precious object a peice of art someone would want to pin up or frame?
Setting the personal stage .....Andy and Colorado History ….
Setting the scene …
1956 ASPEN
The first record of Warhol in Aspen is in December 1956.
Still working in advertising, and just beginning to land gallery shows in Manhattan,
Andy was enjoying early national exposure like a spread in Life magazine.
An exhibition of early blotted line drawings by his friend Patricia Moore was held at Aspen’s Four Seasons Club that winter before touring across the west.
The Exhibition notes were uncovered by Warhol biographer Blake Gopnik.
Hardly anything sold.
One of the few works that did sell, however, went to Elizabeth Paepcke, wife of Aspen city father Walter Paepcke, founder of the Aspen Skiing Company and the Aspen Institute, and originator of the utopian ‘Aspen Idea.’
BAUHAUS IN ASPEN
Look how fresh and modern/timeless these buildings are from the mid 50s! My modernist father was in heaven.
In 1966, Andy with Aspen Magazine did a issue of a " Magazine in a Box"
FAB
Warhol who designed Aspen’s third Fab issue’,
Included a flip book of Warhol’s film Kiss (1963);
the first commercial public record of The Velvet Underground …coverage of an LSD conference in Berkeley, California;
A report on local off-grid living; a 12-card selection of pop and op art paintings from the collection of Carbondale-based collectors John and Kimiko Powers.
Powers also helped Warhol put together a local land purchase—40 acres in Missouri Heights—acquired in 1972. (Jasper Johns owned plots adjoining Warhol’s, and Robert Rauschenberg.
Warhol told The Aspen Times, in September 1981, that he had come to Aspen ‘many times’ to see his land, but that he had no intention of building on it, as it was ‘too pretty.’
OK
ANDY IN ASPEN 1966 - The making of a Magazine
in a box ..loose art objects in a box a portfolio … I LOVE THIS concept !
THINK MODERN HELVITICA .. Massimo Vignelli Unimark International simplicity through the use of basic geometric forms. BAUHAUAS SWEEPTING THE NATION THE WORLD
Blotted Line was on its out .. swirly curly was on its way out.
Photo Silkscreen conquering the Warhols world Modernism.
This time …Aspen bloomed into a counter coulter hippy hot bed in the 1960s.
Andy and the Factory crew were a good fit. Primarily the Plastic Exploiding Inevitable.
Just over the hill from Aspen, do you know we exploded a nuclear device 3x the size of Hiroshima? Early fracking.
The test went well, but the radioactivity left the gas contaminated and the surrounding water and wilderness.
Protesters assembled in Aspen….. notable activists Edward Abbey and Hunter S Thompson
Hunter, who was gearing up to run for Sheriff on the FREAK POWER TICKET "Rip up all city streets with jackhammers" and "sod the streets and change the name to FAT CITY, …Greedheads, land-rapers and other human jackals from capitalizing on the name 'Aspen'
HUNTER ALLMOST won!
CLASH OF FAR LEFT AND RIGHT … NOTHING NEW in the Aspen Valley
LOCAL community input helped stop the total destruction of Glenwood Canyon ..
President Eisenhower, inspired by the Autobahn, put into motion our Interstate highway system riping though the center of cities and pristine wilderness canyons…. primarily for the military to move nuclear missiles around efficiently.
Edward Abbeys Monkey Wrench-inspired group based in Aspen that turned into Earth First.
Mo Siegel co-founded Celestial Seasonings was know for picking wild herbs on Aspen Mtn ski run meadows .. and selling them out of the back of a car.
My father has memories of woman in white dresses collecting herbs on ski hill meadows and inviting him to try the tea at the base.
My father Friends with Herbert Bayer and Massimo and Pepkie … built a couple of Modernist houses on the side of Aspen Mt Little Neil …. for $10k EA NY Times wrote it up.
Lift tickets were $6.
I was taught how ski by a famous famous Ski Bum Ralph Jackson he was there with Andy
My father was introduced by his Harvard design school (under Gropius ) bud IM PEI to Herbert Bayer—the renowned Bauhaus artist and architect
MY DAD WAS NOT ON THE Plastic Exploding Inevitable … or FREAK POWER Hunter Thompson .
1967
Andy films and a Q&A session with director Paul Morrissey and Warhol superstar Viva and they then headed up to ASPEN
EXPO 67
I was nine years old.
Our family took an August cross-country road trip to Montreal Canda in the family Ford Farlane station wagon .. no air conditioning.. screaming fighting mean older sisters ( My father later said the was the beginning to the end of the marriage ) We stopped in NYC .. almost lost sister Carol in Union SQ .. and out SouthHampton
EXPO 67 … Bucky Fuller dome Habitat Solar panels , THE Apollo Moon Lander ( about to happen) … EVERYTHING SO MODERN
I WAS SO EXCITED to sit in a real Apollo rocket seat !
And there, above me , above it all top of the USA pavilion, key kiosk.... looking down on me ANDY WARHOL.
Bridgehampton where my CRAZY AMAZING Aunt Frances lived in 1930s modernist house on the beach …The Sand Box . She is a super hero … and is a whole book by itself..wild wild forward woman..… she and her father had a studio in NYC in the 1890s …It was the Factory of the Day… All walks of life .. Rich ..Poor Queer .. and color blind…. I have a book coming out on this epic story this fall …. And Aunt Frances married a beatiful black Haitian.. Paper headlines What is NY Society Coming too ? That's one of the reasons my grandpa was kicked out of the family and raised his family in Santa Fe NM starting in the 1920s,
Anyway Frances taught me how to swim through the waves in the ocean.
That first smell of ocean saltwater is a forever memory
FRANCES DESIGNED A CAMO PATTERN USED BY THE US ARMY.
Furious never credited properly. Its a story of a woman not allowed to be recognized in the Army.
GUESS WHO THE WEEKEND BEFORE US WAS AT THE SANDBOX? Andy Warhol and the superstar factory crew filming “ The Loves of Ondine “
They all signed in the guest book with me right below - “ I hope to come back.”
I WAS NOT THERE !!
Later in the 1980s, when hanging out with Andy i found this guest book … Excited to tell Andy … we were on and walk .. I said, ANDY you were at my Aunts house, The Sand Box, making a movie … He quickly said he was not there … I WAS NOT THERE! … I pressed that he was, and he got REALLY mad ..like super pissed … and super unhappy with me for pressing and sent me away.. it fractured us for many months …. I had for decades wondered why he got so upset. I had a theory about a lover of Andy's, a missing factory /lighting technician Danny Williams,… that mysteriously disappeared …A filmmaker and lighting technician, he designed the groundbreaking, psychedelic light shows for the Velvet Underground's Exploding Plastic Inevitable (EPI) tours. 1966.
It was known there was big jealousy within the Factory crew, and they wanted him to go away.
i’related to this because I witnessed vicious hierarchy jealousies within the Factory crew jockeying for position and Andy's attention.
BUT the Danny Williams dates did not lineup..… I later found out from biographer Blake Gopnik who wrote me back instantly … "It's because Andy testified under oath he was not there" … A civil court suit over some stolen money during the filming. Under oath Andy testified he was not there …
Being highly religious going to church several times a week, sometimes daily..…no wonder he was so sensitive so freaked out.
I related to the Factory Worker jealousy's because they would play mean tricks on me, sending me on errands to wrong addresses, and once told me if Andy ever offered me a birthday present to turn it down because he was testing you to see if you were a ladder climber or not.
Well, on my birthday, Andy said I could go to the gift closet and pick a painting.. a closet they kept small outtakes .. So i declined. Later, Christopher Makos said What?? you declined ? you idiot, see that electric chair canvas, see that skull those were birthday presents!
I later asked and Andy said i missed my chance .. He was also relieved that he thought I did not like his work.
I also turned down gifts from Jean Michel silly me.. and we have an open trade due…!
I love that AI does not know why and Andy lied to me.
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Andy in Colorado 1970s and 1980s
Andy loved Colorado visiting from the 1950s up till the end of his life.
The is but a few visits of many....
1977 An exhibition at the Denver Art Museum. I went with my mother, and he signed the poster for her.
The Double Elvis was a new multiple image concept done by Gerard Malanga, suggesting film frames "
Next crossing i had was in Ft Collin Colorado in 1891
When we met - Love at first sight
I was going to TRY to stay very simple with this talk…
HOW many of you know Andy’s mother was a talented artist and collaborated with Andy ?
Andy through the lens of his mother.
Church ICONs
RELIGIOUS PAINTER
And explore the mechanical traced line.
And photography
ANDY WAS A PHOTOGRAPHER .. ALMOST EVERYTHING
HE DID IS PHOTO BASED
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MYTHS AND REALITY
I want to first say i believe Andy was primarily a photographer.
His drawings, tracings, and silk screens are all photography based.
Even his larger hand painted canvases start with from projected tracing from a photograph.
YOU ALL KNEW THAT RIGHT ??
I am going to follow a very thin line through my experience with Andy .
FROM ART SCHOOL IDEALIZATION
MY HORRORS AND DEPRESSION SEEING HOW IN CONNECTED HE WAS FROM PROCESS AND HIS RETURN TO
ANDY
ANDY
CHILDHOOD Sickly
While Confined to bed (with childhood illness in 1937]… his brother Paul showed him how to put wax over the surface of a comic strip, turn it over on a piece of paper, and rub the back in order to transfer the image. \ Andy was always excited by the results.”
So in the slums of Pittsburgh OUTHOUSE BACK YARD we start with bed ridden Andy and his importantly influential mother Julia Warhola, WHO showered art supplies paints, inks, tracing paper and movie magazines.
She also gifted Andy a camera when he was nine years old. Andy was became obsessed with movie stars and tracing them into drawings.
CHURCH CHURCH AND MORE CHURCH
Another extremely and important influence is Julia bringing Andy regally St. John Chrysostom Byzantine Catholic Church stuffed full ornate color saturated iconography ..portraits of saints from the shoulder up several dozen portraits staring at you… KNOW FOR LONG TWO HOUR SERMONS
Blowing ink over ones hand making a tracing is some of mans earliest art.
Camera Obscura Pinhole .. was used in Myan Temple rituals
its in Biblical texts . Covex glass arrives in Rome … and Camera Ludia started in the 1500 with artists
When i worked at the Sebastian Moore Gallery Denver, they offered me a PINK MAO for payment of
working at the gallery one summer when they were traveling in Europe
Once you see a traced line vs a sketched line you cant unseen it
Sketches of Ingris and others …
Going back further
Hockney extensively analyzed the work of the Old Masters and argued that the level of accuracy represented in their work is impossible to create by "eyeballing it" …. it’s a hot debate. My dear friend and local super realist Master painter Legend Daniel Sprick gets very VERY upset on the topic .. for his master works are all freehand…
So some used it, some didn't. Just never ask Daniel is he does.
I discussed this in a show i curated at MCA REAL to SURREAL back in the dark ages when i was in the director's seat.
My horrors and his return to idealization.
TRACED LINES
Once you see a traced line versus a sketched line you cant unsee it …
The mechanically produced line versus a free-hand sketched line becomes clear.
Eyeballing vs. "The Optical Look"
David Hockney “ Rest in Peace “ proposed through a book and film the “secret knowledge”
Proof positive examples: mechanical sketches of Ingres (Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres was a 1700s
My hero polymath Sir John Hershel .. some consider the father of photography and inventor of the cyanotype blueprint
My great great uncle Samuel Finley Breese Morse was a master painter among other things like inventing the telegraph and taking the first photograph in America. In the 1830s note books refer to “ implying the lens to help with architectural details “ ..oh btw FB Morse is considered the father of American photography.
THE POINT IS the CAMERA was used far more than most realize … and my lesson here …
DUCHAMP INDERMINING ORIGNAL
UNDER MINING THE ORGINAL
ANDY
TRACING AND THE BLOTTED LINE and his Mother
Philip Pearlstein: 1947 - 48 “ We made a couple of trips together, by train and bus, carrying our stuff in shopping bags. We were broke.”
1949 Philipp and Andy moved and from the tip of a friend sub rented an apartment for 40 dollars a month.
THE BLOTTED LINE
Now with tracing regularly.Andy started using a technique called the blotted line “
I believe it was to disguise the tracing and remove the mecanical look.
The list of roomates and collaborators are long starting out.
A POWERFULLY important collaborator his mother who practiced calligraphy, was the first to add text to the works.
Her DISTINCTIVE, delicate, sweeping cursive lettering for his drawings. became central to his famous shoe advertisements and his early self-published books even a art directors' awards
Today the computer font name is PePe
i (used for my titles pages here)
1952
In the spring of 1952, Julia learned that Andy was nearly destitute.in squalid apartment on East Seventy-fifth Street.
She moved in and shared sleeping on mattresses on the floor
With Julias support cooking and cleaning and helping on his art projects …
Andy was able to spend long hours making art at the kitchen table, often with Julia
This period they began collaborating on illustrations cats, shoes, flowers and little-known cookbooks, children’s books on and on … Her handwriting is crucial to early successes …
Julia Warhola
“THE TIN FLOWERS she made out of those fruit tins,
that’s the reason why I did my first tin-can paintings. My mother always had lots of cans around, including the soup cans. She was a wonderful woman and a real good and correct artist."
HOW MANY OF YOU KNOW THE COCK ROACH STORY?
1949 Coach Roach Story
His first break a presentation to Carmel Snow, the legendary editor-in-chief of Harper's Bazaar a cockroach ran out of the paper bag holding his portfolio .. Snow Feeling sorry for the struggling young artist, she gave him his first major illustration assignment.
It did happen but to his class mate and later roommate artist Phillip Pearstien ..YES >…Andy stole the narrative and even put it in The Philosophy of Andy Warhol.
Things rapidly changed when Julia moved in…. 1952
THINGS TAKE OFF
Andy drew lots of penises ..loved penises ..this one to me is a blur between is signing and penis.
BECOMES WEALTHY
Wealthy Andy - Long before his Pop Art fame,
Around this time few know Andy was now making ALOT of money Andy purchased a town house 1342 Lexington Avenue for $60,000 …
HERO DEAR friend Fred Hughes bought the house. I made lots of images there.
LOTS OF WORK LOTS OF MONEY
“It was absolutely true that he could draw anything and very, very quickly. And, so, we used him a lot.”
… art director Tina Fredericks, reflecting on Warhol's prolific years as a commercial illustrator in New York during the 1950s.
Andy relied on his exceptional speed and the "blotted-line" technique to crank out highly coveted advertising work for clients such as Glamour magazine and I. Miller Shoes.
“exceptional speed and "blotted-line”
From the beginning Andy was a committed tracer ..
I believe the blotted line developed as way to HIDE the look of photographic traced line.
Vito Giallo (Warhol’s commercial art assistant): …
THE …BLOTTED LINE was extremely simple - he just took a piece of Strathmore paper and folded it in half and on the left he would do the pencil drawing and then take pen and ink - india ink - and then slowly go over the line and blot it over
BEN SHAHN had a retrospective at The Museum of Modern Art in New York 1947
Andy greatly admired Shahn’s work… The influence is obvious.
Andy announced his disengagement from the process of aesthetic creation - 1963
1963
SCREEN TESTS WERE FIRST CONCEIVED AND DONE BY GERARD HE WAS THE FIRST ONE >> HE DID FOR HIMSELF P “FILM PORTRAITS “
Andy Warhol acquired his first Bolex 16mm movie camera in the summer of 1963, shifting his focus from pop art canvases to the moving image. His earliest films are legendary for their minimalism, lack of sound, use of a static camera, and extreme duration. He recorded everyday actions that tested viewers' endurance and explored human
voyeurism.
Trash's shocking cinema reality changed my life when i saw it in school in 1979
I was friends with Grace Jones. We met in Jean-Michels studio. We dated a few times. She invited me to sit with her at the opening of her restaurant in SoHo, Moulin Rouge. Also had a great all day shoot for NY Magazine above .
I worked closely with Glen on several exciting projects, including documenting his art collection.
John and Yoko used a Polaroid Big Shot Andy gave them to make an image for the cover of the
Rorschach Series , 1984 this connects with me with the blotted line that started is road to fame
NOTES
Photography -- I am going talk about camera capture related to his art.
THE CAMERA-BASED SILKSCREEN
GERARD MALANGA started large screens
GIANT SCREEN FLOWERS
GERALD THE DOUBLE Elvis is Gerald's idea
SCREEN TESTS WERE FIRST CONCEIVED AND DONE BY GERARD HE WAS THE FIRST ONE >> HE DID FOR HIMSELF PR “FILM PORTRAITS “
SILKSCREEN MOPPING COLOR AT THE FACTORY
THE POLAROID BIG SHOT
The $20 Polaroid Big Shot portrait camera ( makes factory like consistent same size icons) like a photo booth. It was his go to camera for his silk screens .. I watched and documented many sittings.
Andy gave Yoko and John Lennon a Big Shot and they did the cover of the album "Imagine" in central park.
"communicated with people by photographing them."
Andy Warhol after Andy Warhol book.
DAMs Christoph Henrichs assembled an amazing rare book Andy Warhol Photography and was on the Foundation Authentication board. GREAT GREAT dish about the secretive board has come out with the Andy Warhol after Andy Warhol book
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SCREEN TESTS GERALD DID THE FIRST ONE FOR HIM SELF ANDY LOVED IT - 1963
1964 WAS THE FIRST OFFICAL - 1966 OVER 500 MADE.
TODAY I THINK THESE ARE SOME OF THE MOST AMAZING TIMELESS PORTRAIT STUDIES EVER EVER
THE PHOTOBOOTH WORK - 1963-1966
Initially inspired by a 1962 New York City Police Department booklet entitled The Thirteen Most Wanted, which showed mug shots of wanted criminals. SHOWN AT THE WORLD FAR.
1971
THE BIG SHOT was used for most all the PORTRAITS
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Out with the Minox i related to greatly
"communicated with people by photographing them."
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POSTSCRIPT ANDY AND MARK SINK
GOLD LEAF … WORK and PEOPLE HE WAS HIGHLY EXCITED ABOUT WOULD OFTEN BE GOLD LEAFED
AND WHEN HE WAS IN LOVE .. YOU GOT GOLD AND OXIDATION
1980 Pink MAO from Sebastian Moore Gallery i turned down.
The Lynne Ida gallery receiving portfolios of the Cowboy and Indian series Portfolio were $ 1,500 each and you had to sell one before you could show them
Andy Warhol complete portfolio of 10 images in Cowboy and Indian series (1986),May 9 2025 $838,700)
OLD STORIES
The Soup can silk screen t-shirt was made with the original screen, then thrown out ( Andy told me personally and to buy a box full )
The Philosophy of Andy Warhol
Another misconception that drives me nuts over and over is the analytical essays on some of Andy statements from his writings. pulled from The Philosophy of Andy Warhol. I was close to Bridgid Berlin and Pat Hacket ( His Diaries ) ghostwriters. i learned how they wrote and rewrote and literally thought up many of Andy's passages in the books. In fact, once i witnessed Andy reviewing some things they edited for him. He said " gee thats great you make me sound so smart ". I shocked, i asked BRIGID about this ... Brigid would roll her eyes saying how she wrote "a lot " .
Pat and I and Bob wrote alot, We would all sit together and make up lines for Andy's books like America. "
“I have a Social Disease. I have to go out every night. If I stay home one night I start spreading rumors to my dogs.”
FAMOUS FOR FIFTEEN MINUTES - Its is generally presumed "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes", is Andy ... No it was coined by ( NAT FINKELSTEIN ) Andy said TO NAT this will Make you Famous “
to which NAT Finkelstein replied, "Yeah, for about fifteen minutes, Andy."
With me … Long walks and talks - Photographing a stack of boxes together ... Andy then signed it ! ha
Seeing the Factory for the first timer ..getting super depressed
my hero …WHO CONTRACTED HIS SILK SCREEN PORTRAITS WITH OUTSIDE PRINT HOUSES ... was more interested in modeling and TV appearances on things like the LOVE BOAT AND MODELLING FOR ZOLI AGENY.
INSECURE AND SORTA BOARD WITH THE PRODUCTION DEMANDS.
WE TALKED ABOUT THE DIFFERENCE OF COMMISIONED WORK AND WORK FOR THE ART WORLD
Later i came around 100% saw the genius .. and how ahead of the curve he was … DUCHAMP … FACTORY MADE.. Reality TV Duchamp "idea" of a piece of art is more important than the visual craft or the artist's own hand.
Warhol having his assistants produce his IMPORTANT silkscreens… EVERYONE MOPPED THE CANVASES.
To even the point where Andy had many of his series printed off sight … and would just write phone in color instructions.
Brigid putting calls right through to Andy.
Phone recordings .. painting with JMB
South Hampton filming Loves of Ondean filming story.."the great lie".
ASPEN The snowmobile crash. - Powder Pandas Skiing with Andy at Buttermilk...hurting his wrist.
DATES with Andy …
The Odeon with Mic and Watts..and “crossing swords “ photographing mic penis ..
JMB’s penis pol in Ft Collins.
The walk to Fiorucci flagship store to pictures with the Italian singer / actress .
Buying a sewing machine. Micheal Loud storry
Chatty Kathy … Andy was very smart and VERY talkative after a couple vodka tonics.
My last rediscovered series REFLECTIONS OF ANDY
What would Andy Warhol thought of AI or AI Art
Lynne Ida Gallery - Denver Andy Warhol complete portfolio of 10 images in Cowboy and Indian series (1986), brought top price for the week ending May 9 realizing $838,700.00 at the Freeman’s/Hindman Prints and Multiples auction of May 7, 2025 as reported by Rare Book Hub.
