Product Description

Unique, bizarre, and often controversial, Andy Warhol in life and in death bridged the gap between high art and the ordinary, creating works that explored almost every artistic genre. From screenprinting and 'supermarket' art to oil paintings and photography, Warhol rocked the established art world, perhaps more so than any of his contemporaries. During the 1960s inside a studio in New York known as The Factory the birth of Pop Art took place at the hands of Andy Warhol, 'the Pied Piper' of New York's underground. His representations of Campbell's Soup cans, dollar bills, Brillo boxes, Marilyn Monroe and car crashes, epitomized the American popular culture of his age and constituted one of the most significant revolutions in the art world.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #589582 in Books
• Published on: 2001-11-08
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 160 pages

Review
Not content with the volume of words already written on the subject of one of the undisputed icons of the 1960s, Wayne Koestenbaum here takes up the cause of Warhol as serious artist, someone whose significance stretches way beyond the decade he made his own. The author - an accomplished poet, writer and professor of English - delves deep to analyze the near-albino fairy godmother and wig-wearing voyeur, for whom sex permeated everything. Taking existing theories, he fleshes them out, agreeing with some and rebuffing others as he chronicles the life of the enigmatic Warhol in a world of relentless hedonism, demonstrating how his subject's grim fascination with torture and need to be constantly in the thick of things sit strangely with his claim to be the quietest voice at the table. Passing from the 1950s, and Warhols status as one of the most successful commercial artists in New York, Koestenbaum concentrates on his work in the '60s, in particular his films. That many of these have rarely been seen, and are often disparaged even by his staunchest fans, leaves Koestenbaum somewhat out on a limb as he tries to convince us that the artists tolerance for boredom was a spiritual virtue. At times like this the casual observer must wonder what all the fuss was about, and some of Koestenbaum's judgements seem distinctly odd, notably his cursory dismissal of the Velvet Underground. However, this is a highly detailed look at Warhols life, encompassing everything from early traumas to his most decadent Factory years, when he continued to live with his mother and regularly attended church. Its a compelling story, and Koestenbaum documents it exceptionally well. (Kirkus UK)

About the Author
Wayne Koestenbaum is a cultural critic and academic based in New York.

Customer Reviews

A well written,factual biography of a 20th century enigma
I found this biography to be well written and well researched.One gripe I did have with the book,was that it concentrated to a large extent on his creative life,perhaps not unreasonably considering the artist's inarticulate nature and secrecy.
He kept his own life and emotions away from his public,and his associates(His "superstars")and this mystique still persists.
However,saying that,it is apparent from reading this book that Andy was not the passive automaton he often presented himself as.There is still a fair amount of material in the book,that shows a man in many ways ill at ease with himself.But it also reveals his intelligence and wit,and fundamental humanity,under that prematurely grey wig.
Good analyses of his films,art work and books are also presented,though once or twice in reading,I found myself skipping certain over- intricate parts.
Also relatively well recorded are the portraits of his "employees"and hangers on at the factory,and this book is not full of the usual claims that he was responsible for many of his superstars extreme behaviour patterns,and untimely deaths.At the same time it is not an unconfessed apology for his immersion in the bizarre world he found some identity in,and does not make him out to have discouraged such behaviours.In fact,considering the time and location,they do not seem so strange.
In summary,this book gives a fine portrait of one of the 20th centuries most influential movers and shakers;as artist,director,writer and over all,his often hidden human nature.

"Wayne Koestenbaum's interpretation of Warhol's Art"
I had bought this book on the understanding that it was a biography, rather than the subjective critique of an arbitrary selection of Warhol's art. Koestenbaum's account of "Andy Warhol" (the title of the book), is less about Andy Warhol, than seemingly the author's own personal interpretation of his art.

Someone once compared the futility of talking about music to "dancing about art". And so seems the futility of a Professor of English in discussing Warhol's art. The text is overly embellished, requiring this to be read in conjunction with dictionary on lap. The content is an erratic, almost stream-of-thought discussion of some of Warhol's art, completely ignoring other aspects.

Despite all this, if one is able to tolerate the flowery subjectivity, there are some interesting insights into Warhol's personality and how this was reflected in his society and his art.

A less misleading title for this book would have been "Wayne Koestenbaum's interpretation of Warhol's Art". Even with such an understanding, for a non-initiate into modern art this book is a rather tiresome opportunity for self-indulgent verbosity, on the author's part.

Good on Warhol's films, but written in a self-consciously smart style
Reviewers on the US site have already commented on Koestenbaum's portentous prose and it really is grating how he puffs it up with pseudo-intellectual expressions ("I want to proselytize" (!), "I reserve the right on prose's death row to suggest an axiom"; a naked bottom is even referred to as a "cleft moon"). It is possible that the critic was camping up his prose, considering it fitting for discussion of Warhol's queer art, but unfortunately it just comes across as quite narcissistic and affected.

This volume - commissioned as part of the Penguin Lives series - is billed as an art-sensitive biography of Warhol. However, Koestenbaum wilfully and openly ignores major parts of Warhol's life and art - take, for example, the Velvet Underground: "Their music has many admirers, but it may be the aspect of Warhol's world with which I have least sympathy, and so I will beg off any attempt at analysis". What follows, then, is a rather eclectic look at Warhol's output; few paintings are analysed, instead Koestenbaum rather solipsistically discusses what interests him most: Warhol's filmmaking. This, of course, can be a good thing: the films are underdiscussed in Warhol criticism. And Koestenbaum does provide enlightening analysis: writing of the short film Vinyl (1965), he argues that it reflects Warhol's belief that torture is inherent in human relationships, concluding that "his work is not a theory of fame but a theory of relationships". The critic is also good on how the artist sought to expose and overturn the "macho" society of such Abstract Expressionists as Jackson Pollock: "Warhol often depicted braggard masculinity as emptiness".

It is a very sympathetic account (Warhol's films are more often than not ridiculed as naive and artless rather than being subjected to serious analysis). Koestenbaum draws parallels to other important figures of the 20th century, e.g. "Freud might have recognized in Warhol a colleague, a systematic explorer of wish and drive". He also notes that Bobby Kennedy was shot dead a day after Andy was severely wounded, which "cemented Warhol's position as a representative 1960s figure". Koestenbaum, however, comes dangerously close to sanctifying the artist by comparing him to Christ (he argues that both experienced a "miraculous resurrection from the dead" and, like Christ, Andy became more iconic as his flesh became more ravaged with wounds and scars). But Koestenbaum rescues his commentary from sliding permanently into the sycophantic: we should remember, he counsels, that Warhol "didn't entirely write [his books], and that he was a liar", that he sought to belittle boyfriend Jed Johnson by "withholding compliments to lower the younger man's self-esteem" and that he introduced Ingrid Superstar into the Factory "to taunt" the emotionally vulnerable Edie Sedgwick, which he hoped would make for more exciting films.

There are some interesting biographical titbits, too: his mother Julia, in a foreshadowing of Warhol's confluence of commerce and art, used to scissor tin cans into floral shapes and sell them door to door for 25 cents to make money. Her colon cancer (after which she had to wear a colostomy bag) is credited with inspiring Warhol to become a Pop artist: "Like Julia, Andy wore his inside on the outside...Her surgery gave him the idea for Pop". She is also regarded, however, as the root cause of the shame Warhol felt about his own appearance, hidden behind silver wigs, dark glasses and collagen treatments (an old friend of Warhol's recalls that "she made him feel that he was the ugliest creature that God put on this earth").

A quick, interesting read if you can overlook the overblown prose!