Nico with Andy Warhol Circa 1968
On This Date, July 18th, in 1988: Nico, (born Christa Päffgen) the German-born actress, fashion model, Andy Warhol Cohort and a former singer with The Velvet Underground died of a cerebral hemorrhage after hitting her head when falling off of her bike in Ibiza, where she was on holiday with her son. She was 49 years old.
Andy Warhol is widely regarded as the most important artist of the second half of the 20th century, and he brought the vision of a successful artist to his film-making activities. Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests are beautiful and revealing portraits of different individuals, shot between 1963 and 1966. The subjects – both famous and anonymous – were visitors to his studio, The Factory. They were asked to pose, lit with a strong keylight, and filmed by Warhol with his stationary 16mm Bolex camera on silent, black and white, 100-foot rolls of film. Each screen test lasted only as long as the roll of film. The resulting 2 ¾ minute films were projected in slow motion so that each lasted four minutes.
13 Most Beautiful…Songs for Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests is a project jointly commissioned by the Andy Warhol Museum and Pittsburgh Cultural Trust. Indie rock luminaries Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips have composed music for thirteen of Warhol’s four-minute, silent film portraits, the Screen Tests, which takes the form of a multimedia performance featuring large scale video projection of the Screen Tests above the musicians performing live on stage.
If you are a fan of Andy Warhol, surely this event is not to be missed.
13 Most Beautiful comes to New York City’s West Village at NYU’s Skirball Center for the Performing Arts on Friday, October 22, 2010.
From Plastic and Plush:
Artist Ron English and Fully Visual Dot Com have collaborated on the new Figment sculpture – featuring the likeness of the late Andy Warhol – available in Bronze and White Bronze. Each bronze figure measures in at 7.5” tall. They’ll be limited to runs of 15 pieces each. You can pick one up for $1,000 on Wednesday, July 7th, 2010 beginning at 11:00 AM PDT by visiting This Link.
It is no secret that I am a huge lover of art. Specifically, I tend to favor modern and contemporary art over marble statues and oil paintings of zaftig nudes and bowls of fruit. All due props to Michelangelo and Matisse, that stuff doesn’t really ‘yank my chain,’ as they say; but put me in a museum full of Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans and Jeff Koons’ gigantic, painted steel Balloon Dog sculptures and I’m in heaven. Being blessed with someone like Geoffrey as a BFF, it only stands to reason that I would have become a bit fond of the Street Art — because if Geoffrey is any kind of gay, he is completely and totally GAY FOR THE STREET ART. Just being serious.
As part of its Brooklyn Ball Fundraising Event (April 22nd), the lobby of The Brooklyn Museum is currently displaying a twenty-foot-tall piñata in the shape of Andy Warhol’s head! This year’s Brooklyn Ball will celebrate the landmark partnership between the Brooklyn Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in creating the largest and most comprehensive costume collection in the world. This sounds so awesome; I wish I had a spare $500 lying around to blow on a ticket. As far as what Andy Warhol’s head made into a piñata has to do with anything, well, supposedly it will be filled with some kid of edible thing as it hangs amid “a series of food installations that also includes drinking paintings and suspended melting cheese heads.” Art!
Thanks to Sue Simone Via Flavor Wire for the Tip!