Volume III: The Andy Warhol Photographic Legacy Program

50 Pages·2007·3.49 MB·English

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The Andy Warhol Foundation
for the Visual Arts
20-Year Report 1987–2007
The Andy Warhol
Photographic Legacy Program
Andy Warhol’s Photographic Legacy 04
Index of Photographs 91
Grantees of The Andy Warhol
Photographic Legacy Program 92
©2007 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
65 Bleecker Street, 7th Floor
New York, NY 10012
telephone [phone]
fax [phone]
www.warholfoundation.org
Works appearing in this publication may not be
reproduced without authorization from
The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.
ISBN 0-9765263-1-X
  Andy Warhol’s Photographic Legacy
Andy Warhol’s Photographic Legacy From 1970 to 1987 Andy Warhol took scores of polaroid and black A wealth of information about Warhol’s process and his interac- and colored by desire, the nudes — which Warhol coyly referred
and white photographs, the vast majority of which were never tions with his sitters is revealed in these images. Strikingly evident to as “landscapes”— display an erotic charge and raw sexual
seen by the public. These images often served as the basis for is the intense, though perhaps brief, emotional engagement intensity absent from much of his other work. The “idea” polaroids
his commissioned portraits, silk-screen paintings, drawings, and Warhol had with these individuals. His attraction to their beauty, provide a view into the numerous subjects and compositions he
prints. In 2007, to commemorate its twentieth anniversary, the fascination with their power, or interest in their personae is considered for translation into other media. Humorous and witty,
Warhol Foundation launched the Andy Warhol Photographic palpable. So too are their reactions to Warhol. While some figures they reveal that Warhol, even at his most playful or experimental,
Legacy Program. Designed to give a broad public greater access display relative ease in front of the camera, others present a stiff always worked with great intention.
to Warhol’s photographs, the program donated over 28,500 of and studied countenance that appears unaffected by Warhol’s
Warhol’s original polaroids and gelatin silver prints to more than instructions to turn this way or that, to look over a shoulder, or to Color makes it more like a photograph….But in black
180 college and university museums and galleries across the pose with the hands. Warhol positioned his sitters in a variety and white it’s just a picture….A picture just means I know
country. The gift of such an extraordinary number of photographs of similar, classical poses, over and over again, striving to obtain where I was every minute. That’s why I take pictures.
not only brought Warhol’s astoundingly prolific photographic the perfect composition that matched their personalities, revealed —Andy Warhol
production to light, it also enabled new insights into his work pro- their best features, and preserved them at their finest.
cess and his use of the photographic medium. In contrast to the formal posing and tight compositions that are
Repetition, a recurring motif in Warhol’s paintings, plays both a the hallmarks of his polaroid photography, Warhol’s black and
After a year spent reviewing and selecting the photographs to conceptual and practical role in his photography. By making white prints are a study in casual spontaneity. Shot with a Minolta
be donated through the Legacy Program, it was determined that several polaroids, he had more material from which to work. By SLR, the automatic 35 mm camera that enabled him to take a
participating institutions would be given a group of images that shooting at length, more about the sitter was exposed. Only after picture without concern for focus or light levels, the images serve
reflected both the sheer quantity and the remarkable range of seeing many photographs from the same sitting can one discern as the visual diary of Warhol’s life. Anyone and everyone was
figures and subject matter that Warhol captured with his camera. that the consistency in poses for a star like Dolly Parton, for subjected to his lens, most delightfully when they were looking
Each institution received a curated selection of over 100 polaroids example, is the result of a celebrity’s attempt to control her own their most unglamorous. “A good picture,” Warhol once wrote,
and 50 black and white prints. An example of such a selection “image”, while the consistency in the poses of other figures is more “is one that’s in focus and of a famous person doing something
is presented on the following pages. While the polaroid portraits likely due to their concentration on Warhol’s instructions or to their unfamous.”
reveal Warhol’s profound and frank engagement with the personal- unease at being in such close proximity to Warhol himself. Seen
ity in front of his lens, the gelatin silver prints point to his extraor- all together, the polaroids also destabilize the iconic status that a As drawn to the pedestrian and commonplace as he was to the
dinary compositional skill, his eye for detail, and his compulsive Warhol image assumes when displayed singly. On its own, a spectacular and glamorous, Warhol considered the settings and
desire to document the world around him. Taken together, these polaroid image is fully identified with the artwork that ultimately stages for his subjects just as important as the subjects them-
photographs survey the scope of Warhol’s aesthetic interests and grew out of it; the face depicted becomes a kind of signifier for selves. The parties he attended, the neighborhoods he walked
demonstrate the reach of his curious, far-roaming eye. larger cultural concepts of beauty, power, and worth. In series through, the discos he frequented, and the countries, hotels,
however, the sitter’s individuality remains intact, resistant to the airports, and homes he visited are all documented from ballroom
I’ve never met a person I couldn’t call a beauty. idealizations that result once the image is transferred from to bathroom. It is interesting to note that even shooting spontane-
—Andy Warhol photograph to silkscreen to painted portrait. ously, he returned time and again to the same compositions and
the same arrangements of detail, in much the same way that he
Warhol’s polaroids have been widely presented in exhibitions and Warhol’s use of repetition and ritual in his portrait sittings was not arranged his sitters in similar poses over and over again. It was
publications as singular images depicting a glittering array of limited to the choice of poses. Many sitters (mostly women, but through this rigorous — though almost unconscious — consistency
celebrities — the models, actors, artists, business tycoons, sports sometimes men) were subjected to a treatment of thick white that the true idiosyncrasies of his subjects were revealed.
heroes, and socialites that populated his world. However, in looking makeup, black eyeliner, and red lipstick—to increase contrast and
through the polaroids selected for the Legacy Program, it becomes obscure any unsightly “imperfections.” One can’t help but notice At times, Warhol shot a person or event with both cameras,
clear that celebrities were not the only figures Warhol photographed that the majority of figures who tolerated such treatment were not cropping one in polaroid color as a “photograph” and snapping
with his Polaroid Big Shot, the distinct plastic camera he used for the most beautiful individuals, nor the youngest. the other in black and white as a “picture.” By presenting both
the majority of his sittings. Over half of those who sat for him were kinds of images side by side, the Photographic Legacy Program
little-known or remain unidentified. And the number of images he The polaroids of nudes and the figures and objects Warhol shot as allows viewers to move back and forth between moments of
took at each session varied as greatly as the figures he shot: of some source material for other paintings, prints, and drawings present Warhol’s “art”, “work”, and “life” — inseparable parts of a
sitters he made only a dozen polaroids; of others he made hundreds. yet another side of his photographic practice. Provocatively explicit fascinating whole.
 
 
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