Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing,
Speaker 1: My chance to talk with artists, policy makers, and performers,
Speaker 1: to hear their stories, what inspires their creations, what decisions
Speaker 1: change their careers, what relationships influenced their work. Andy Warhole's
Speaker 1: images of campbell soup cans and billow boxes upset the
Speaker 1: distinction between advertising and art. His Prince of Maryland and
Speaker 1: Eliza raised questions about the relationship between celebrity, culture, commerce
Speaker 1: and artistic expression. Warhole was an openly gay man before
Speaker 1: stone Wall, and his New York studio was a place
Speaker 1: where artists, drug addicts, and celebrities came to party, crash,
Speaker 1: and play a role. In one of Warhole's experimental, often
Speaker 1: sexually explicit films, in nineteen sixty eight, Warhole was shot
Speaker 1: by Valerie Salonis, who had appeared in two of his films.
Speaker 1: After the Shoe and until his death in nineteen eighty seven,
Speaker 1: Warhole kept to a tight circle of friends and family
Speaker 1: and relied heavily on Vincent Fremont, his exclusive sales agent,
Speaker 1: and Fred Hughes, his business manager. My guest today is
Speaker 1: Eric Scheiner, director of the Andy Warhol Museum, when Shiner
Speaker 1: began his work at the museum twenty years ago, he
Speaker 1: had a much different job interned at the Warhol Museum
Speaker 1: the year that we opened in nine, as an intern
Speaker 1: in the curatorial department twenty years ago. That was you
Speaker 1: had a contact with exactly connection with That's where I started,
Speaker 1: and then I jumped off to Asia and always did
Speaker 1: Asian art through the lens of Warhol and pop art.
Speaker 1: And then after working many years here in New York
Speaker 1: in that field specifically, I got a call out of
Speaker 1: the blue to go be the curator at the Warhol
Speaker 1: Museum back home in Pittsburgh. You would interned when the
Speaker 1: museum first opened, And I want to go to that
Speaker 1: point because I'm interested in Warhol died what year in seven,
Speaker 1: so we died seven years earlier. He had been shot
Speaker 1: in sixty eight, ten years RFK. That's right, what transpires
Speaker 1: after Warhol's death? Was there a planned when Warhol was
Speaker 1: alive to build this institution or did it all come
Speaker 1: to fruition after he was gone. There was no decided plan.
Speaker 1: It had been a conversation point and certainly people had
Speaker 1: talked to Andy about the idea of one day having
Speaker 1: a museum, which he liked that idea, but there was
Speaker 1: nothing definitive about it whatsoever. Andy's will was incredibly basic,
Speaker 1: and it said that he wanted his estate to support
Speaker 1: art and artists, and that was all that had said.
Speaker 1: And so who with a catalyst behind building the museum?
Speaker 1: And it must have Those things cost a lot of dough.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of urban legends that say that
Speaker 1: several New York museums were approached a partner to have
Speaker 1: the Andy Warhol Museum based here in New York City.
Speaker 1: But it's very important to remember that in the late
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties, Warhol's reputation was about as low as it
Speaker 1: could possibly because the result of as the result of
Speaker 1: most of his exhibitions throughout the nineteen eighties receiving horrid
Speaker 1: reviews in the art press. So a lot of institutions
Speaker 1: here really questioned the sustainability of Andy Warhol as an
Speaker 1: artist and really asked if he would even deserve his
Speaker 1: own museum. Do you think that Warhole in that period
Speaker 1: was doing something different than Warhol had done or was
Speaker 1: he just being And he was an innovator in all things,
Speaker 1: and what's constantly trying new ways of making art through
Speaker 1: new mediums, through new subject matter, new color palettes. He
Speaker 1: was always trying to stay ahead of the curve, and
Speaker 1: that often affected him negatively, and that sometimes the work
Speaker 1: that he was doing was too fresh, it was too current.
Speaker 1: It was two of the moment. For example, for example
Speaker 1: the dollar sign paintings and thinking about what that year
Speaker 1: paintings in that two dollar bills was his very first exactly.
Speaker 1: So that's in early nineteen sixties work nineteen sixty two.
Speaker 1: So he was being dismissed for that. He was and um,
Speaker 1: you know a lot of people said that it was
Speaker 1: too tacky to paint money. It was too ghosh. And
Speaker 1: when we look at those paintings today, what's more indicative
Speaker 1: of the early nineteen eighties in New York than the
Speaker 1: almighty dollar? He hit it square on the head. But
Speaker 1: Andy loved money. I mean that was one of his
Speaker 1: driving forces, and he drew and painted money really throughout
Speaker 1: his entire career. We have to say he loved money,
Speaker 1: not just his art, but loved money in terms of
Speaker 1: his own wealth. Oh absolutely, But he became that way.
Speaker 1: He did not monetize well in the sixties, and he
Speaker 1: stopped painting. What year when did he stop painting well
Speaker 1: and he went into his filmmaking period in nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: four is when he really shifts focus to the film making.
Speaker 1: Um he starts experimenting in nineteen sixty three, in sixty
Speaker 1: four declares that he's going to be a filmmaker, and
Speaker 1: yet never stops fully painting or fully making. He was
Speaker 1: always making something, but he definitely put the onus of
Speaker 1: his focus on film in nineteen sixty four, and then
Speaker 1: he comes back to painting, and not that he really
Speaker 1: ever left, but he shifts back again, concentrating more on
Speaker 1: painting when early nineteen seventies is when he really goes
Speaker 1: back to it. The shooting has a lot to do
Speaker 1: with that as well, when he starts to rethink his
Speaker 1: life in that he does quite literally die as a
Speaker 1: result of the shooting. He's miraculously brought back to life
Speaker 1: after hours and hours of change after the shooting. Because
Speaker 1: I think to myself, is that when he decided he
Speaker 1: wanted to I don't say this in the vulgar sense.
Speaker 1: Warhole really shifts the whole Warhole incorporated into fifth gear.
Speaker 1: After he's fully recovered from the shooting, he thought we
Speaker 1: only lived so long right. It was a huge wake
Speaker 1: up call, and he really did start to think about
Speaker 1: business in a much more serious way, mortality and mortality.
Speaker 1: He'd certainly been somewhat lackadaisical and business records and feelings
Speaker 1: prior to the shooting, but after that he brings on
Speaker 1: Fred and Vincent to help run the business. Is they
Speaker 1: know what they're doing, and they really pull a lot
Speaker 1: of order into his life. And I think it's also
Speaker 1: important to think that post shooting, he becomes much more
Speaker 1: insular and much more protected. So we all know about
Speaker 1: the parties at the factory that ends at that period,
Speaker 1: it ends, and everybody we shed us, he sheds a skin.
Speaker 1: He does. He still gives him to shed a skin
Speaker 1: social in ways, but he doesn't allow. Many people in
Speaker 1: in security and safety have a lot to do with that.
Speaker 1: When I think of Warhol, he seemed um not on
Speaker 1: the surface, but underneath, very jaded and very cynical, and
Speaker 1: very playful and very boyish and very guileless. At the
Speaker 1: same time. It was tremendous yin and Yang and him.
Speaker 1: Is that an accurate portray? Accurate? You hit it directly
Speaker 1: on the head. And when he trust, his trust was
Speaker 1: probably very difficult to get wheel trust. He trusted his family,
Speaker 1: stayed in regular contact with his brothers back in Pittsburgh
Speaker 1: with weekly telephone calls. They were the rock Ums. Two brothers.
Speaker 1: What did they do? Paul and John. Paul was in
Speaker 1: the scrap metal recycling business, and Paul just died about
Speaker 1: a year and a half ago at the age of
Speaker 1: ninety one. Um the first to come in, the first
Speaker 1: to go worve. Now, how old would he be? Um?
Speaker 1: Andy would be, Let's see eighty seven this August. Wouldn't
Speaker 1: it be great to have an eighty seven year old
Speaker 1: Warhol around? It would be Could you imagine seven year
Speaker 1: old Warhol? Oh? He loved so Um and the other
Speaker 1: brother And the other brother was John, and John was
Speaker 1: a businessman and a salesman and was very much Andy's confident.
Speaker 1: In so many ways, was name itself changing? Because he's
Speaker 1: photographing fame? Did fame have to become different? It's such
Speaker 1: an interesting thing to think about because in so many
Speaker 1: ways Warhol becomes famous because of his depiction of fame.
Speaker 1: So he is really linking himself to the very concept
Speaker 1: of fame and to the celebrities that drive the fame machine.
Speaker 1: Certainly when you think about what fame meant across America
Speaker 1: in the late nineteen fifties early nineteen sixties, it's a
Speaker 1: very different universe. It's a much more private world. Celebrities
Speaker 1: are certainly famous for their acting, for their persons. They're singing,
Speaker 1: but a talent, and that the world of press that
Speaker 1: puts that out as a completely different media universe, the
Speaker 1: media completely but changing them and certainly changing. But when
Speaker 1: you think about it, it relies so much on press
Speaker 1: and print, visual in visual images in the newspaper or
Speaker 1: are huge, huge Life Magazine. Is the internet be all?
Speaker 1: No Internet? And Warhol realizes that not only do people
Speaker 1: like Maryland and Liz become famous through that media angle,
Speaker 1: but so do artists. And he's looking very carefully, and
Speaker 1: where is the art in fame? Well, he asked himself,
Speaker 1: I think, because where is the art here? And he
Speaker 1: knows that Jackson Pollock and a few other abstract expressionist
Speaker 1: painters who have been um featured in Life Magazine and
Speaker 1: other mainstream media sources our household names and famous, and
Speaker 1: that's what he wants more than anything, not only to
Speaker 1: be respected as an artist, to be known as an artist,
Speaker 1: which is really one of the major driving forces in
Speaker 1: his life. I think that, um, you know, television obviously
Speaker 1: is coming into its own in the early sixties, TV
Speaker 1: engaging with someone's imagery. It's not just a void coming
Speaker 1: out of the radio. And to me, Warhol represents someone
Speaker 1: who starts that process in modern life of taking famous
Speaker 1: people and saying they're here to be consumed by you
Speaker 1: like a product exactly. And that's why he does what
Speaker 1: he does, because he realizes that celebrities are a consumer
Speaker 1: product product just like buying the Campbell soup can just
Speaker 1: like buying brill like air and water that we need
Speaker 1: to survive in ways and yet um, we can certainly
Speaker 1: live without them, but we need to have them in
Speaker 1: our lives, and we buy them because you do buy
Speaker 1: those gossip braggs, you buy into something. Well, well, obviously
Speaker 1: we've we've evolved to that. We take the television and
Speaker 1: pair it with what Warhol is doing. Certain people who
Speaker 1: shall remain name less, they have a debt of gratitude
Speaker 1: they owe to Warhole, absolutely, And when you think about
Speaker 1: his front and center depiction of fame and consumer products,
Speaker 1: there's also another side of the coin that has to
Speaker 1: be factored in, which also plays directly into this. And
Speaker 1: it's about death and disaster. It's about his car crashes,
Speaker 1: it's about his suicides, it's about mortality. And Andy was
Speaker 1: very keen and very aware of the fact that when
Speaker 1: we buy gossip Braggs, when we watch television, the two
Speaker 1: poles tend to be glamor, wealth and fame on one side,
Speaker 1: death disaster on the other. And we can't where none
Speaker 1: of us can go and where all of us will go.
Speaker 1: That's exactly right characterized from me in terms of his
Speaker 1: friendships and how he behaved. UM. More specifically, if you can,
Speaker 1: if you're willing to, how is life changed after the shooting?
Speaker 1: He immediately the leaves. First off, the Valerie Salonis is
Speaker 1: going to come back and finish the job. And why
Speaker 1: was she only given three years in prison? Why it's incredible.
Speaker 1: I just read a book about her biography and it's
Speaker 1: really really insightful. Um. Valerie gave Andy's script and it
Speaker 1: was a play slash potential film that she had written
Speaker 1: called Up Your Ass, and she gave it to Andy
Speaker 1: hoping that he would produce it either as a stage
Speaker 1: play or as a film. Now for people that don't
Speaker 1: know that she they knew each other, They didn't know
Speaker 1: each other. Um not she. Yes, she was one of
Speaker 1: the factory changing out chicks. She appeared in one of
Speaker 1: Andy's films in a very She was around background role, Yes,
Speaker 1: she was around, but a player b maybe player. And
Speaker 1: Valerie had a lot of really deep, dark, horrible things
Speaker 1: that had happened to in her life and it created
Speaker 1: a lot of psychosis, and she was not stable, had
Speaker 1: any sense, and yet she was incredibly smart. And it
Speaker 1: was a feminist who wanted to eradicate men from the world.
Speaker 1: That's what the play was about. She started a one
Speaker 1: woman um group called um Scum, the Society for Cutting
Speaker 1: Out Men, and wanted to eratic men from the earth.
Speaker 1: I think that Andy, being a man, probably didn't like
Speaker 1: that idea so much, and when he read the script
Speaker 1: he just thought it was not worth a conversation. Can
Speaker 1: you think of anything that Warhole exhibited towards women? What
Speaker 1: did Warhole do do you think that might have provoked her?
Speaker 1: If anything? Well, entirely very simply said Valerie, I'm not
Speaker 1: doing this. I don't like it. It's not any good.
Speaker 1: And then he lost the script and didn't return it
Speaker 1: to her. She thought he was going to steal it
Speaker 1: from her take the credit, and she went to get
Speaker 1: it that day and when he couldn't produce it, boom.
Speaker 1: Did she always go on her rounds collecting her scripts
Speaker 1: with a gun on her No, absolutely not. She purchased
Speaker 1: the gun just either the day or two told me,
Speaker 1: in case somebody comes to pick up any scripts for
Speaker 1: me at my apartment building, I want to be should
Speaker 1: watch out a metal detector? Yeah, but no, she had
Speaker 1: it out for him. And she really thought that Warhol
Speaker 1: was controlling her life. She was psychotic enough that she um. No.
Speaker 1: Valerie died um in the late nineteen eighties and she
Speaker 1: only got three years. Did anybody, to anyone's satisfaction, find
Speaker 1: out why? Um? It was, you know, a case of
Speaker 1: her psychiatric status because she was deemed um insane and
Speaker 1: went to a mental mental facility. She didn't go to prison,
Speaker 1: She went to a mental facility and somehow and the
Speaker 1: standards are a little more lax, that much more lax.
Speaker 1: And because he didn't die, um, she didn't have a
Speaker 1: murder up and was there ever ever even the most
Speaker 1: remote intersection of them. Again, well, she did reach out, Um,
Speaker 1: she would call the factory occasionally after she was instructed
Speaker 1: not to do exactly, and Fred and Bridgid and anyone
Speaker 1: who would answer the phone would just have to say,
Speaker 1: never call here again, Valerie, but periodically she would. She
Speaker 1: eventually made her way to San Francisco and died there,
Speaker 1: penniless and addicted. So it's a very sad life that
Speaker 1: she led. This is the I Shot Andy Warhole suite
Speaker 1: written by John Klee. For the movie I Shot Andy Warhol,
Speaker 1: Valerie Selonis was played by Lily Taylor. Take a listen
Speaker 1: to the Here's the Thing Archives, where I spoke with
Speaker 1: artists Eric Fischel about his own dreams regarding art and commerce.
Speaker 1: I used to have this fantasy that when my muse
Speaker 1: left me, I would still be able to make product
Speaker 1: right that I that that I wouldn't be making art anymore,
Speaker 1: but I'd be making things that look like art, and
Speaker 1: that that was okay. Take a listen and Here's the
Speaker 1: Thing dot Org. My guest today is Eric Shiner, director
Speaker 1: of the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. Warhol's work has
Speaker 1: inspired countless artists and filmmakers. One of Warhol's own influences
Speaker 1: was Marcel du Champs, best known for his porcelain urinal
Speaker 1: titled Fountain. Du Champ was by far and away his
Speaker 1: favorite artists, favorite Warhol. Oh, absolutely yeah, they met, they
Speaker 1: became friends in the nineteen sixties. Du Schamp is in
Speaker 1: several Warhol screen tests, for example, and they had a
Speaker 1: very interesting back and forth about the ready made, about
Speaker 1: taking something literally off the grocery store shelf and turning
Speaker 1: it into art. And most concepts of Warhol's find their
Speaker 1: foundation in Adu Shampi, an aesthetic. People mentioned either that
Speaker 1: Warhol painted the soup cans and the different flavors was
Speaker 1: one side of the corner of the other, either because
Speaker 1: his mother made in the soup all the time and
Speaker 1: he liked the soup, or his mother made him sup
Speaker 1: all the time and he hated the soup, which was
Speaker 1: he loved the soupe absolutely and she really didn't serve
Speaker 1: it to him every day. And we have at the
Speaker 1: museum in our collection what if one wanted it to be,
Speaker 1: could be the Rosetta stone of Warhol. And that is
Speaker 1: a drawing that Julia, his mother made in ninety three
Speaker 1: of two Campbell's soup cans and two cats, and in
Speaker 1: her amazing cyrillic script. It says Campbell's soup very good gut.
Speaker 1: So she beats him to the punch by nine years
Speaker 1: in this drawing and depicting Campbell's soup. And we know
Speaker 1: that Andy knew about this drawing because he kept it.
Speaker 1: So Andy's paintings are not just of campbell soup, They're
Speaker 1: paintings of his mother's rendering of He goes even more
Speaker 1: than everything goes back to Andy's mother. She was an artist.
Speaker 1: They were incredibly close. She was an artist. She was
Speaker 1: an artist drawings of cats and angels. We have many
Speaker 1: up on display at the museum. She was incredibly talented.
Speaker 1: And she also, and this is really formative, Frandy makes
Speaker 1: sculptures um in the form of little pots of flowers,
Speaker 1: and she makes them out of tin cans and they
Speaker 1: just happen to be Campbell soup cans. So she literally
Speaker 1: cuts the cans to make metal flowers and makes these arrangements,
Speaker 1: and then she goes door to door and the rich
Speaker 1: neighborhoods of Pittsburgh, Squirrel Hill, Shady Side, and sells these
Speaker 1: things door to door with the boys hiding in the
Speaker 1: bushes watching her, so that she can make a little
Speaker 1: bit of extra money to make ends meet, to help
Speaker 1: the family. So not only does Warhol have this artistic
Speaker 1: um training from his mother, he also has a very
Speaker 1: important economic training in that he sees that one can
Speaker 1: make money from art. And certainly when he arrives here
Speaker 1: in New York and starts making cold calls immediately, it's
Speaker 1: exactly what he saw his mother doing when he was
Speaker 1: a kid. So incredibly important relationship. And Julia was so
Speaker 1: convinced that her little baby boy could not take care
Speaker 1: of himself here in the big city. About eighteen months
Speaker 1: after Andy moves here, Um he arrives nineteen nine. In
Speaker 1: early nineteen fifty one, Julia makes the move and moves
Speaker 1: here to New York and moves in with Andy on
Speaker 1: his apartment to his apartment on Lexington and lived there
Speaker 1: for how long until the end of her life, And
Speaker 1: it was early nineteen seventies, so she was ill. She
Speaker 1: went back to shear through his shooting. She did. She
Speaker 1: rushed to the hospital to be with him and take
Speaker 1: care of him, and sadly, she fell ill when she
Speaker 1: was visiting relatives back in Pittsburgh and Um died about
Speaker 1: six months after that. But they were incredibly close and collaborators.
Speaker 1: So throughout the entire nineteen fifties. If you see any
Speaker 1: script on any Warhol drawing, any commercial work, whether it
Speaker 1: be a title or um, some sort of um nomenclature
Speaker 1: referring to the subject or Warhol signature, it's all Julia's hand.
Speaker 1: Warhol was the most prolific and produced the most of
Speaker 1: his paintings and Prince and so forth at during what
Speaker 1: period nineteen sixty to nineteen eight seven is the true
Speaker 1: period of his painting, But he does experiment in the
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties, and of course it does have fits and
Speaker 1: starts in between. Would you say that that after the
Speaker 1: shooting he was even more prolific. Absolutely, So that's that's
Speaker 1: the most prolific periods period the mid seventies through the
Speaker 1: end of his life. When you have a museum that
Speaker 1: is dedicated to one person's work, I'm assuming people are
Speaker 1: giving you things to exhibit all the time. And and
Speaker 1: how much of it do you own? How much of
Speaker 1: war whole stuff do you guys have? We have the
Speaker 1: biggest collection of Warhol in the world. First off, and
Speaker 1: as everything for the most part came directly from Andy's studios,
Speaker 1: he had been holding things back from every period, every series.
Speaker 1: Why he was doing that, we have to question whether
Speaker 1: it was to hold it back so that one day
Speaker 1: it would be more valuable so that he could sell
Speaker 1: it for a lot more than when he made it
Speaker 1: in the nineteen sixties, for example, or if he was
Speaker 1: thinking about their one day being a museum. And there
Speaker 1: are arguments on both sides of that equation, but UM
Speaker 1: I would say that we're in the percent range in
Speaker 1: terms of what we have. We're really only missing about
Speaker 1: ten prime examples of specific paintings from specific series and
Speaker 1: those vactms that we have access to and can borrow
Speaker 1: from UM the owners. But people are normally accommodating for
Speaker 1: the most part. Yes, support the mission absolutely, and those
Speaker 1: are the things that one day we hope those collectors
Speaker 1: will think about donating one day to the museum so
Speaker 1: that we have a full survey of his work. How
Speaker 1: would Warhole describe to people his filmmaking career, which to
Speaker 1: me is Warholes films. I still have a trouble getting
Speaker 1: my hands around that in my head around that that
Speaker 1: it's not kitch and that and that and to use
Speaker 1: that word. Do you have an archive of his films
Speaker 1: obviously screens tis that we have all of them, We
Speaker 1: actually own you all of the films are Oh, there
Speaker 1: are literally a million feet of film, if not more.
Speaker 1: And how many were actually cut into actually actually titled,
Speaker 1: probably about twelve dozen if you look at a film
Speaker 1: in as much as there's some sort of an arc
Speaker 1: or a storyline, but not always. And then the screen tests,
Speaker 1: of which they are well north of five hundred of
Speaker 1: his filmmaking portraits of people that he knew, beautiful people,
Speaker 1: in complete strangers, and everything in between. So Warhol's film
Speaker 1: is a complete treasure trove that is very untapped. Uh.
Speaker 1: I mean many people in the art world have, um,
Speaker 1: I don't want to say reluctantly, but they've they've come
Speaker 1: to an appreciation of warholes places in a contemporary art.
Speaker 1: Are there people in the film world who have done
Speaker 1: the same thing? Absolutely? And Andy is viewed as one
Speaker 1: of the earliest and most important avant guard filmmakers here
Speaker 1: in New York, along with Jonas and with Jack Smith.
Speaker 1: So Jonas Mekas, Jack Smith, Andy Warhol always viewed as
Speaker 1: the top three. They're at the very beginning. What's the
Speaker 1: film you think that is that represents his work as
Speaker 1: a filmmaker best. That's the one. What what do people
Speaker 1: who come to the museum, what how do they respond?
Speaker 1: What film do they respond to most? I think that
Speaker 1: Empire is the one that really gets people because it's
Speaker 1: a static shot of the Empire State Building for over
Speaker 1: eight hours, and Andy sets about making the most boring
Speaker 1: film ever made, and it was all about deconstructing the
Speaker 1: notion of cinematic narrative, of taking a storyline out entirely
Speaker 1: and focusing on one object. The only thing that happens
Speaker 1: is as it becomes dusk, the lights turn on. We
Speaker 1: recently realized that the lights on the Empire State Building
Speaker 1: were a very new thing in nineteen six four to
Speaker 1: celebrate the World's Fair, the year that it was filmed,
Speaker 1: and people think of it as a durational um experience.
Speaker 1: When it came out, people challenge themselves to try to
Speaker 1: stay awake to watch the entire thing, and I don't
Speaker 1: know if anyone has ever done that. Actually, Blake Blake Gopnick,
Speaker 1: the art critic who's working on a Warhol book right now,
Speaker 1: has actually stayed awake for the entire thing, and he
Speaker 1: should be alatted for that. But it was just this
Speaker 1: idea of completely redefining what film was and could be.
Speaker 1: And I think because of that Um Empire or Sleep,
Speaker 1: his two earliest films UM are important, But Chelsea Girls
Speaker 1: is also a critical um film for Andy Warhol and
Speaker 1: that it's this idea of voyeurism. It's the idea of
Speaker 1: being a fly on the wall at the Chelsea Hotel
Speaker 1: and seeing all of the strange denizens of that very um,
Speaker 1: odd and quirky environment and seeing the drama that unfolds
Speaker 1: their room to room. And there's a script it's not
Speaker 1: really adhered to very closely, and it in many ways
Speaker 1: becomes the emblematic symbol of New York in that very
Speaker 1: specific moment of time. And I also think is the
Speaker 1: first iteration of what we know today is reality television,
Speaker 1: of being that voyeur, that spy who has insight into
Speaker 1: a world that you otherwise wouldn't. And I think we
Speaker 1: can safely blame Andy warholf for I never did you
Speaker 1: never met him? From what you gather from people who
Speaker 1: knew him, what was he like on the most elemental level,
Speaker 1: like when did he wake up in the morning and
Speaker 1: what did he have for breakfast? And not his sexuality,
Speaker 1: meaning was he ever in love? Yeah? Absolutely? Who was?
Speaker 1: Describe him described typical guy who would tend to wake
Speaker 1: up a little bit late ten ten thirty, have breakfast
Speaker 1: the crack of ten. Oh yeah, absolutely. He would call
Speaker 1: Pat Hackett, his assistant, or he would call Bridget first
Speaker 1: thing to gossip about what happened the night before. He
Speaker 1: would often call them the night before as well to
Speaker 1: gossip about what had just happened, and then would remember
Speaker 1: the rest of the next morning. But then he would
Speaker 1: go to work. And he was an incredibly hard worker.
Speaker 1: He was working constantly and he would tell his staff,
Speaker 1: his family, and he mentees that he had you have
Speaker 1: to work hard to be successful. This is not something
Speaker 1: that comes just because of your talent or your skill.
Speaker 1: You really have to work. And he was a workaholic.
Speaker 1: So I would assume that he was working eight to
Speaker 1: ten hours a day every day on Sundays. For example.
Speaker 1: Where he did his painting was where back then, well
Speaker 1: it depends which his house was on sixty six Streets
Speaker 1: between Park and Madison. The first house was at eighty
Speaker 1: nine in Lexington and right across from Gristi's. He lived
Speaker 1: there until the early nineteen seventies. UM. And then he
Speaker 1: bought a mansion on sixty six Street between Park and Madison.
Speaker 1: There's a plaque on the house, so anyone walking on
Speaker 1: the north side of the street there. Um, I'm not
Speaker 1: at liberty to say, but it is someone that has
Speaker 1: seven Warhoulian connections. Okay, yeah, and it's he's kept the
Speaker 1: house exactly as anti Um had it, except for a
Speaker 1: new kitchen and things like that, but otherwise it's just
Speaker 1: like walking into the house. It's amazing. But um Andy
Speaker 1: of course was a social being, so he would throw
Speaker 1: lunch parties at the factory, especially down at eight sixty
Speaker 1: Broadway on the northwest corner of Union Square. And when
Speaker 1: you say the factory, the factory was where the first
Speaker 1: factory was on forty seven Street between Second and third Um.
Speaker 1: Sadly that building was torn down seventies right over by
Speaker 1: the un in Japan Society and it's now a parking garage. Um.
Speaker 1: And where did it move to? Then it moved to
Speaker 1: the west side of Union Square. Um. Well, the first
Speaker 1: move happened in let's see late UM sixty nine. I'm
Speaker 1: thinking to the temporary space on the west side of
Speaker 1: Union Square. And then they moved to six a D Broadway, Um,
Speaker 1: which um served its purpose just into it's the north
Speaker 1: very northwest owner of Union Square. There's a petico on
Speaker 1: the ground floor Broadway. The switch the northwest corner of Broadway.
Speaker 1: And what well it's Union Square, northwest corner of Union Square.
Speaker 1: So Broadway and what fifteenth or sixteen near coffee shop, Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: And um there was the till when until he died, No, no, no,
Speaker 1: until UM three and into eighty four. Then and he
Speaker 1: buys an old con ed building in the fifties and
Speaker 1: he moves everything there. It's a massive building and it
Speaker 1: only served its purpose for what four years or so
Speaker 1: until he dies. And that building has gone now as well,
Speaker 1: it was torn down. So the two middle factories still survive.
Speaker 1: The first and the last are gone. What was love
Speaker 1: is in his life? Love for him was his family
Speaker 1: and also his partners, and he did have three long
Speaker 1: term partners public and who were there John Jorneau, the American.
Speaker 1: It was his first really true boyfriend and they dated
Speaker 1: for a while. Um, but they got along incredibly well.
Speaker 1: And John was a huge positive influence on Andy and
Speaker 1: appears in many of his early films and John is
Speaker 1: still with us. He's today still doing his poetry and
Speaker 1: is an amazing, lovely human being. Um. Then later on
Speaker 1: in the nineteen seventies, Andy has a long term relationship
Speaker 1: with Jed Johnson, the interior designer. Jed and j Johnson
Speaker 1: were twins who moved to New York and UM got
Speaker 1: jobs as messengers, and UM happened to make a delivery
Speaker 1: to the factory one day, and as soon as Andy
Speaker 1: saw them, UM realized that he was dealing with talent
Speaker 1: because they were incredibly good looking. Um. He took them
Speaker 1: both under his wing and ended up starting to date
Speaker 1: Jed not too horribly long after that, and that relationship
Speaker 1: lasted well into the late nineteen seventies. Um they broke up. Um,
Speaker 1: they had their doc sins together, and there was a
Speaker 1: bit of a scuffle over who was getting the dogs.
Speaker 1: But they had a very loving long term relationship. You
Speaker 1: made a literal scuffle a little m not that way,
Speaker 1: but yeah. And then his last long term boyfriend was
Speaker 1: John Gould, who was a Hollywood executive at Paramount, and
Speaker 1: they had a long distance relationship between New York and
Speaker 1: l A and would often meet in Aspen to spend
Speaker 1: time together and that was Andy's last boyfriend and it
Speaker 1: was in a time, uh well before there was any
Speaker 1: discussion about gay marriage and so forth. But somebody tells
Speaker 1: me that even if there were gay marriage, he wasn't
Speaker 1: the marrying kind. No, he was a solo act, wasn't he.
Speaker 1: He really was in so many ways. And you know,
Speaker 1: Andy Toad the line right down the middle of those
Speaker 1: two poles. He wasn't radical and out with an agenda,
Speaker 1: nor was he closeted and hidden either, but he somehow
Speaker 1: was right in the middle of that. Interesting he just
Speaker 1: didn't talk about it and was incredibly queer in his
Speaker 1: outward presentation to the world, and yet he didn't define
Speaker 1: his life by his sexuality. That was a you know,
Speaker 1: certainly a major part of him, but it wasn't what
Speaker 1: he led with. If he were alive today, what would
Speaker 1: you ask him or would you want to say to him?
Speaker 1: It's interesting to think about if you had access to
Speaker 1: this person. And I will say that, Um, there are
Speaker 1: occasional um seances and um people who try to talk
Speaker 1: to Andy in the afterlife and send messages to me
Speaker 1: through an artist and it's a very creepy thing. And
Speaker 1: I never asked any questions because I don't really quite
Speaker 1: buy into that. How your job it does, We'll trust me.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of weirdness that comes along with my
Speaker 1: job in the Warhol world, which is fantastic, which is
Speaker 1: why I love it. But I think at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, I wouldn't be much more interested in
Speaker 1: the psychology of Andy Warhol and how he everything had
Speaker 1: played out. Was he happy with the way his life unfolded.
Speaker 1: I can pretty much guarantee you that he would say yes,
Speaker 1: but one never knows, so I would want to get
Speaker 1: into his career in his mind and how he viewed
Speaker 1: everything is had played out. Did he feel as though
Speaker 1: he mattered? We know today that he did in so
Speaker 1: many ways, and that's what our daily work at the museum.
Speaker 1: And then of course i'd want to ask if he
Speaker 1: was happy with the museum. If Andy Warhol were to
Speaker 1: visit the museum that Eric Scheiner directs, he'd be one
Speaker 1: of over one hundred thousand people each year who tour
Speaker 1: the seven floors full of his work, which includes over
Speaker 1: nine hundred paintings, four thousand photographs, one hundred sculptures, and
Speaker 1: sixty feature films. I'm Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to
Speaker 1: Here's the Thing