WEBVTT - Andy Warhol Really Did Like Campbell's Soup 0:00:02.680 --> 0:00:05.800 This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing, 0:00:06.480 --> 0:00:10.119 My chance to talk with artists, policy makers, and performers, 0:00:10.400 --> 0:00:14.560 to hear their stories, what inspires their creations, what decisions 0:00:14.680 --> 0:00:20.680 change their careers, what relationships influenced their work. Andy Warhole's 0:00:20.720 --> 0:00:24.800 images of campbell soup cans and billow boxes upset the 0:00:24.880 --> 0:00:29.120 distinction between advertising and art. His Prince of Maryland and 0:00:29.200 --> 0:00:34.120 Eliza raised questions about the relationship between celebrity, culture, commerce 0:00:34.400 --> 0:00:38.720 and artistic expression. Warhole was an openly gay man before 0:00:38.840 --> 0:00:41.680 stone Wall, and his New York studio was a place 0:00:41.720 --> 0:00:45.880 where artists, drug addicts, and celebrities came to party, crash, 0:00:46.320 --> 0:00:49.480 and play a role. In one of Warhole's experimental, often 0:00:49.560 --> 0:00:54.760 sexually explicit films, in nineteen sixty eight, Warhole was shot 0:00:55.000 --> 0:00:58.720 by Valerie Salonis, who had appeared in two of his films. 0:00:59.280 --> 0:01:02.840 After the Shoe and until his death in nineteen eighty seven, 0:01:02.960 --> 0:01:06.080 Warhole kept to a tight circle of friends and family 0:01:06.440 --> 0:01:10.640 and relied heavily on Vincent Fremont, his exclusive sales agent, 0:01:10.959 --> 0:01:15.200 and Fred Hughes, his business manager. My guest today is 0:01:15.360 --> 0:01:19.760 Eric Scheiner, director of the Andy Warhol Museum, when Shiner 0:01:19.880 --> 0:01:22.760 began his work at the museum twenty years ago, he 0:01:22.880 --> 0:01:26.360 had a much different job interned at the Warhol Museum 0:01:26.480 --> 0:01:29.880 the year that we opened in nine, as an intern 0:01:29.920 --> 0:01:32.560 in the curatorial department twenty years ago. That was you 0:01:32.720 --> 0:01:35.720 had a contact with exactly connection with That's where I started, 0:01:35.760 --> 0:01:38.200 and then I jumped off to Asia and always did 0:01:38.240 --> 0:01:40.479 Asian art through the lens of Warhol and pop art. 0:01:40.959 --> 0:01:43.800 And then after working many years here in New York 0:01:44.240 --> 0:01:46.720 in that field specifically, I got a call out of 0:01:46.720 --> 0:01:49.200 the blue to go be the curator at the Warhol 0:01:49.280 --> 0:01:52.320 Museum back home in Pittsburgh. You would interned when the 0:01:52.400 --> 0:01:54.480 museum first opened, And I want to go to that 0:01:54.520 --> 0:01:58.920 point because I'm interested in Warhol died what year in seven, 0:01:59.080 --> 0:02:02.040 so we died seven years earlier. He had been shot 0:02:02.080 --> 0:02:08.000 in sixty eight, ten years RFK. That's right, what transpires 0:02:08.480 --> 0:02:11.720 after Warhol's death? Was there a planned when Warhol was 0:02:11.760 --> 0:02:14.880 alive to build this institution or did it all come 0:02:14.919 --> 0:02:18.480 to fruition after he was gone. There was no decided plan. 0:02:18.880 --> 0:02:22.400 It had been a conversation point and certainly people had 0:02:22.440 --> 0:02:25.320 talked to Andy about the idea of one day having 0:02:25.320 --> 0:02:27.440 a museum, which he liked that idea, but there was 0:02:27.560 --> 0:02:32.720 nothing definitive about it whatsoever. Andy's will was incredibly basic, 0:02:32.760 --> 0:02:35.480 and it said that he wanted his estate to support 0:02:35.600 --> 0:02:37.720 art and artists, and that was all that had said. 0:02:38.040 --> 0:02:41.560 And so who with a catalyst behind building the museum? 0:02:41.680 --> 0:02:44.079 And it must have Those things cost a lot of dough. 0:02:44.360 --> 0:02:46.520 There are a lot of urban legends that say that 0:02:47.040 --> 0:02:50.520 several New York museums were approached a partner to have 0:02:50.560 --> 0:02:53.480 the Andy Warhol Museum based here in New York City. 0:02:53.520 --> 0:02:55.799 But it's very important to remember that in the late 0:02:55.880 --> 0:02:58.799 nineteen eighties, Warhol's reputation was about as low as it 0:02:58.840 --> 0:03:01.840 could possibly because the result of as the result of 0:03:02.080 --> 0:03:06.160 most of his exhibitions throughout the nineteen eighties receiving horrid 0:03:06.320 --> 0:03:10.040 reviews in the art press. So a lot of institutions 0:03:10.080 --> 0:03:14.880 here really questioned the sustainability of Andy Warhol as an 0:03:14.960 --> 0:03:18.120 artist and really asked if he would even deserve his 0:03:18.200 --> 0:03:20.760 own museum. Do you think that Warhole in that period 0:03:21.000 --> 0:03:23.320 was doing something different than Warhol had done or was 0:03:23.360 --> 0:03:27.440 he just being And he was an innovator in all things, 0:03:27.480 --> 0:03:30.600 and what's constantly trying new ways of making art through 0:03:30.720 --> 0:03:34.120 new mediums, through new subject matter, new color palettes. He 0:03:34.240 --> 0:03:38.160 was always trying to stay ahead of the curve, and 0:03:38.320 --> 0:03:42.600 that often affected him negatively, and that sometimes the work 0:03:42.640 --> 0:03:44.840 that he was doing was too fresh, it was too current. 0:03:44.880 --> 0:03:48.080 It was two of the moment. For example, for example 0:03:48.120 --> 0:03:52.960 the dollar sign paintings and thinking about what that year 0:03:55.120 --> 0:04:00.000 paintings in that two dollar bills was his very first exactly. 0:04:00.120 --> 0:04:03.080 So that's in early nineteen sixties work nineteen sixty two. 0:04:03.160 --> 0:04:08.360 So he was being dismissed for that. He was and um, 0:04:08.400 --> 0:04:09.960 you know a lot of people said that it was 0:04:10.000 --> 0:04:13.720 too tacky to paint money. It was too ghosh. And 0:04:14.600 --> 0:04:18.240 when we look at those paintings today, what's more indicative 0:04:18.279 --> 0:04:20.520 of the early nineteen eighties in New York than the 0:04:20.600 --> 0:04:24.400 almighty dollar? He hit it square on the head. But 0:04:24.480 --> 0:04:26.400 Andy loved money. I mean that was one of his 0:04:26.520 --> 0:04:30.520 driving forces, and he drew and painted money really throughout 0:04:30.560 --> 0:04:32.719 his entire career. We have to say he loved money, 0:04:32.880 --> 0:04:34.599 not just his art, but loved money in terms of 0:04:34.600 --> 0:04:37.200 his own wealth. Oh absolutely, But he became that way. 0:04:37.279 --> 0:04:40.640 He did not monetize well in the sixties, and he 0:04:40.680 --> 0:04:43.400 stopped painting. What year when did he stop painting well 0:04:43.600 --> 0:04:46.200 and he went into his filmmaking period in nineteen sixty 0:04:46.200 --> 0:04:50.080 four is when he really shifts focus to the film making. 0:04:50.240 --> 0:04:53.760 Um he starts experimenting in nineteen sixty three, in sixty 0:04:53.760 --> 0:04:56.320 four declares that he's going to be a filmmaker, and 0:04:56.400 --> 0:05:00.360 yet never stops fully painting or fully making. He was 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:04.960 always making something, but he definitely put the onus of 0:05:05.080 --> 0:05:08.479 his focus on film in nineteen sixty four, and then 0:05:08.960 --> 0:05:10.880 he comes back to painting, and not that he really 0:05:10.880 --> 0:05:14.480 ever left, but he shifts back again, concentrating more on 0:05:14.520 --> 0:05:18.000 painting when early nineteen seventies is when he really goes 0:05:18.080 --> 0:05:19.840 back to it. The shooting has a lot to do 0:05:19.880 --> 0:05:23.240 with that as well, when he starts to rethink his 0:05:23.279 --> 0:05:26.599 life in that he does quite literally die as a 0:05:26.600 --> 0:05:29.599 result of the shooting. He's miraculously brought back to life 0:05:29.640 --> 0:05:32.800 after hours and hours of change after the shooting. Because 0:05:32.800 --> 0:05:35.039 I think to myself, is that when he decided he 0:05:35.080 --> 0:05:37.200 wanted to I don't say this in the vulgar sense. 0:05:37.760 --> 0:05:42.479 Warhole really shifts the whole Warhole incorporated into fifth gear. 0:05:43.200 --> 0:05:46.600 After he's fully recovered from the shooting, he thought we 0:05:46.640 --> 0:05:49.120 only lived so long right. It was a huge wake 0:05:49.200 --> 0:05:51.720 up call, and he really did start to think about 0:05:52.240 --> 0:05:55.719 business in a much more serious way, mortality and mortality. 0:05:55.960 --> 0:06:00.720 He'd certainly been somewhat lackadaisical and business records and feelings 0:06:00.760 --> 0:06:03.240 prior to the shooting, but after that he brings on 0:06:03.320 --> 0:06:06.400 Fred and Vincent to help run the business. Is they 0:06:06.720 --> 0:06:10.520 know what they're doing, and they really pull a lot 0:06:10.560 --> 0:06:13.600 of order into his life. And I think it's also 0:06:13.680 --> 0:06:18.920 important to think that post shooting, he becomes much more 0:06:19.000 --> 0:06:23.160 insular and much more protected. So we all know about 0:06:23.200 --> 0:06:26.480 the parties at the factory that ends at that period, 0:06:26.520 --> 0:06:30.039 it ends, and everybody we shed us, he sheds a skin. 0:06:30.320 --> 0:06:32.400 He does. He still gives him to shed a skin 0:06:32.600 --> 0:06:35.440 social in ways, but he doesn't allow. Many people in 0:06:35.839 --> 0:06:38.280 in security and safety have a lot to do with that. 0:06:39.600 --> 0:06:43.880 When I think of Warhol, he seemed um not on 0:06:43.920 --> 0:06:47.840 the surface, but underneath, very jaded and very cynical, and 0:06:47.960 --> 0:06:51.680 very playful and very boyish and very guileless. At the 0:06:51.720 --> 0:06:54.359 same time. It was tremendous yin and Yang and him. 0:06:54.520 --> 0:06:58.360 Is that an accurate portray? Accurate? You hit it directly 0:06:58.400 --> 0:07:01.080 on the head. And when he trust, his trust was 0:07:01.120 --> 0:07:04.960 probably very difficult to get wheel trust. He trusted his family, 0:07:06.800 --> 0:07:09.680 stayed in regular contact with his brothers back in Pittsburgh 0:07:09.680 --> 0:07:15.240 with weekly telephone calls. They were the rock Ums. Two brothers. 0:07:15.280 --> 0:07:17.720 What did they do? Paul and John. Paul was in 0:07:17.760 --> 0:07:21.200 the scrap metal recycling business, and Paul just died about 0:07:21.280 --> 0:07:22.600 a year and a half ago at the age of 0:07:22.680 --> 0:07:25.680 ninety one. Um the first to come in, the first 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:28.800 to go worve. Now, how old would he be? Um? 0:07:28.880 --> 0:07:35.080 Andy would be, Let's see eighty seven this August. Wouldn't 0:07:35.080 --> 0:07:36.640 it be great to have an eighty seven year old 0:07:36.640 --> 0:07:42.760 Warhol around? It would be Could you imagine seven year 0:07:42.800 --> 0:07:48.640 old Warhol? Oh? He loved so Um and the other 0:07:48.680 --> 0:07:51.240 brother And the other brother was John, and John was 0:07:51.280 --> 0:07:57.440 a businessman and a salesman and was very much Andy's confident. 0:07:57.600 --> 0:08:03.080 In so many ways, was name itself changing? Because he's 0:08:03.560 --> 0:08:09.600 photographing fame? Did fame have to become different? It's such 0:08:09.640 --> 0:08:12.520 an interesting thing to think about because in so many 0:08:12.520 --> 0:08:15.559 ways Warhol becomes famous because of his depiction of fame. 0:08:16.080 --> 0:08:20.640 So he is really linking himself to the very concept 0:08:20.680 --> 0:08:24.560 of fame and to the celebrities that drive the fame machine. 0:08:25.200 --> 0:08:28.600 Certainly when you think about what fame meant across America 0:08:28.680 --> 0:08:32.320 in the late nineteen fifties early nineteen sixties, it's a 0:08:32.400 --> 0:08:36.079 very different universe. It's a much more private world. Celebrities 0:08:36.679 --> 0:08:42.000 are certainly famous for their acting, for their persons. They're singing, 0:08:42.000 --> 0:08:47.120 but a talent, and that the world of press that 0:08:47.240 --> 0:08:50.439 puts that out as a completely different media universe, the 0:08:50.600 --> 0:08:55.760 media completely but changing them and certainly changing. But when 0:08:55.760 --> 0:08:59.240 you think about it, it relies so much on press 0:08:59.320 --> 0:09:03.000 and print, visual in visual images in the newspaper or 0:09:04.000 --> 0:09:07.640 are huge, huge Life Magazine. Is the internet be all? 0:09:07.679 --> 0:09:11.920 No Internet? And Warhol realizes that not only do people 0:09:11.960 --> 0:09:15.439 like Maryland and Liz become famous through that media angle, 0:09:15.679 --> 0:09:19.079 but so do artists. And he's looking very carefully, and 0:09:19.320 --> 0:09:22.440 where is the art in fame? Well, he asked himself, 0:09:22.520 --> 0:09:24.800 I think, because where is the art here? And he 0:09:24.840 --> 0:09:28.000 knows that Jackson Pollock and a few other abstract expressionist 0:09:28.000 --> 0:09:31.200 painters who have been um featured in Life Magazine and 0:09:31.240 --> 0:09:36.520 other mainstream media sources our household names and famous, and 0:09:36.559 --> 0:09:39.040 that's what he wants more than anything, not only to 0:09:39.080 --> 0:09:42.720 be respected as an artist, to be known as an artist, 0:09:43.120 --> 0:09:46.600 which is really one of the major driving forces in 0:09:46.679 --> 0:09:51.640 his life. I think that, um, you know, television obviously 0:09:51.760 --> 0:09:55.480 is coming into its own in the early sixties, TV 0:09:55.960 --> 0:10:00.400 engaging with someone's imagery. It's not just a void coming 0:10:00.400 --> 0:10:04.199 out of the radio. And to me, Warhol represents someone 0:10:04.240 --> 0:10:08.360 who starts that process in modern life of taking famous 0:10:08.400 --> 0:10:12.080 people and saying they're here to be consumed by you 0:10:12.240 --> 0:10:15.880 like a product exactly. And that's why he does what 0:10:15.920 --> 0:10:19.120 he does, because he realizes that celebrities are a consumer 0:10:19.240 --> 0:10:23.320 product product just like buying the Campbell soup can just 0:10:23.559 --> 0:10:27.960 like buying brill like air and water that we need 0:10:28.000 --> 0:10:32.360 to survive in ways and yet um, we can certainly 0:10:32.400 --> 0:10:34.840 live without them, but we need to have them in 0:10:34.840 --> 0:10:37.480 our lives, and we buy them because you do buy 0:10:37.840 --> 0:10:42.199 those gossip braggs, you buy into something. Well, well, obviously 0:10:42.200 --> 0:10:46.120 we've we've evolved to that. We take the television and 0:10:46.240 --> 0:10:49.440 pair it with what Warhol is doing. Certain people who 0:10:49.480 --> 0:10:51.600 shall remain name less, they have a debt of gratitude 0:10:51.760 --> 0:10:55.080 they owe to Warhole, absolutely, And when you think about 0:10:55.760 --> 0:11:00.400 his front and center depiction of fame and consumer products, 0:11:00.400 --> 0:11:02.400 there's also another side of the coin that has to 0:11:02.440 --> 0:11:05.400 be factored in, which also plays directly into this. And 0:11:05.440 --> 0:11:09.520 it's about death and disaster. It's about his car crashes, 0:11:09.640 --> 0:11:13.800 it's about his suicides, it's about mortality. And Andy was 0:11:13.960 --> 0:11:16.880 very keen and very aware of the fact that when 0:11:16.880 --> 0:11:20.199 we buy gossip Braggs, when we watch television, the two 0:11:20.240 --> 0:11:24.240 poles tend to be glamor, wealth and fame on one side, 0:11:24.800 --> 0:11:27.640 death disaster on the other. And we can't where none 0:11:27.640 --> 0:11:29.640 of us can go and where all of us will go. 0:11:29.800 --> 0:11:33.440 That's exactly right characterized from me in terms of his 0:11:33.520 --> 0:11:38.960 friendships and how he behaved. UM. More specifically, if you can, 0:11:39.040 --> 0:11:41.840 if you're willing to, how is life changed after the shooting? 0:11:42.480 --> 0:11:47.880 He immediately the leaves. First off, the Valerie Salonis is 0:11:47.880 --> 0:11:50.080 going to come back and finish the job. And why 0:11:50.120 --> 0:11:53.040 was she only given three years in prison? Why it's incredible. 0:11:53.040 --> 0:11:55.839 I just read a book about her biography and it's 0:11:55.840 --> 0:12:01.559 really really insightful. Um. Valerie gave Andy's script and it 0:12:01.600 --> 0:12:04.840 was a play slash potential film that she had written 0:12:05.240 --> 0:12:08.000 called Up Your Ass, and she gave it to Andy 0:12:08.080 --> 0:12:10.200 hoping that he would produce it either as a stage 0:12:10.200 --> 0:12:12.160 play or as a film. Now for people that don't 0:12:12.200 --> 0:12:13.880 know that she they knew each other, They didn't know 0:12:13.920 --> 0:12:18.400 each other. Um not she. Yes, she was one of 0:12:18.400 --> 0:12:22.320 the factory changing out chicks. She appeared in one of 0:12:22.320 --> 0:12:25.760 Andy's films in a very She was around background role, Yes, 0:12:25.840 --> 0:12:30.880 she was around, but a player b maybe player. And 0:12:31.559 --> 0:12:35.440 Valerie had a lot of really deep, dark, horrible things 0:12:35.440 --> 0:12:37.840 that had happened to in her life and it created 0:12:37.880 --> 0:12:41.320 a lot of psychosis, and she was not stable, had 0:12:41.360 --> 0:12:45.839 any sense, and yet she was incredibly smart. And it 0:12:46.000 --> 0:12:50.360 was a feminist who wanted to eradicate men from the world. 0:12:50.400 --> 0:12:53.280 That's what the play was about. She started a one 0:12:53.320 --> 0:12:57.720 woman um group called um Scum, the Society for Cutting 0:12:57.720 --> 0:13:00.960 Out Men, and wanted to eratic men from the earth. 0:13:01.080 --> 0:13:03.400 I think that Andy, being a man, probably didn't like 0:13:03.480 --> 0:13:07.280 that idea so much, and when he read the script 0:13:07.320 --> 0:13:11.360 he just thought it was not worth a conversation. Can 0:13:11.400 --> 0:13:15.160 you think of anything that Warhole exhibited towards women? What 0:13:15.200 --> 0:13:18.520 did Warhole do do you think that might have provoked her? 0:13:18.600 --> 0:13:22.320 If anything? Well, entirely very simply said Valerie, I'm not 0:13:22.360 --> 0:13:24.120 doing this. I don't like it. It's not any good. 0:13:24.280 --> 0:13:27.640 And then he lost the script and didn't return it 0:13:27.679 --> 0:13:30.360 to her. She thought he was going to steal it 0:13:30.440 --> 0:13:33.360 from her take the credit, and she went to get 0:13:33.360 --> 0:13:37.080 it that day and when he couldn't produce it, boom. 0:13:37.240 --> 0:13:41.920 Did she always go on her rounds collecting her scripts 0:13:41.920 --> 0:13:44.440 with a gun on her No, absolutely not. She purchased 0:13:44.440 --> 0:13:46.640 the gun just either the day or two told me, 0:13:46.760 --> 0:13:48.319 in case somebody comes to pick up any scripts for 0:13:48.360 --> 0:13:49.960 me at my apartment building, I want to be should 0:13:49.960 --> 0:13:54.320 watch out a metal detector? Yeah, but no, she had 0:13:54.360 --> 0:13:56.439 it out for him. And she really thought that Warhol 0:13:56.520 --> 0:14:01.360 was controlling her life. She was psychotic enough that she um. No. 0:14:01.679 --> 0:14:06.440 Valerie died um in the late nineteen eighties and she 0:14:06.520 --> 0:14:09.440 only got three years. Did anybody, to anyone's satisfaction, find 0:14:09.480 --> 0:14:13.679 out why? Um? It was, you know, a case of 0:14:13.679 --> 0:14:18.840 her psychiatric status because she was deemed um insane and 0:14:18.880 --> 0:14:22.680 went to a mental mental facility. She didn't go to prison, 0:14:22.720 --> 0:14:26.160 She went to a mental facility and somehow and the 0:14:26.200 --> 0:14:29.080 standards are a little more lax, that much more lax. 0:14:29.360 --> 0:14:32.480 And because he didn't die, um, she didn't have a 0:14:32.560 --> 0:14:36.200 murder up and was there ever ever even the most 0:14:36.240 --> 0:14:41.680 remote intersection of them. Again, well, she did reach out, Um, 0:14:41.760 --> 0:14:45.320 she would call the factory occasionally after she was instructed 0:14:45.360 --> 0:14:48.960 not to do exactly, and Fred and Bridgid and anyone 0:14:49.000 --> 0:14:50.840 who would answer the phone would just have to say, 0:14:51.040 --> 0:14:54.880 never call here again, Valerie, but periodically she would. She 0:14:55.040 --> 0:14:59.080 eventually made her way to San Francisco and died there, 0:14:59.200 --> 0:15:03.400 penniless and addicted. So it's a very sad life that 0:15:03.520 --> 0:15:15.320 she led. This is the I Shot Andy Warhole suite 0:15:15.680 --> 0:15:19.200 written by John Klee. For the movie I Shot Andy Warhol, 0:15:19.880 --> 0:15:23.680 Valerie Selonis was played by Lily Taylor. Take a listen 0:15:23.720 --> 0:15:26.600 to the Here's the Thing Archives, where I spoke with 0:15:26.720 --> 0:15:31.000 artists Eric Fischel about his own dreams regarding art and commerce. 0:15:31.360 --> 0:15:35.480 I used to have this fantasy that when my muse 0:15:35.560 --> 0:15:39.840 left me, I would still be able to make product 0:15:40.520 --> 0:15:44.200 right that I that that I wouldn't be making art anymore, 0:15:44.240 --> 0:15:47.120 but I'd be making things that look like art, and 0:15:47.160 --> 0:15:50.760 that that was okay. Take a listen and Here's the 0:15:50.840 --> 0:15:57.080 Thing dot Org. My guest today is Eric Shiner, director 0:15:57.160 --> 0:16:01.280 of the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. Warhol's work has 0:16:01.320 --> 0:16:06.560 inspired countless artists and filmmakers. One of Warhol's own influences 0:16:06.600 --> 0:16:10.120 was Marcel du Champs, best known for his porcelain urinal 0:16:10.240 --> 0:16:13.160 titled Fountain. Du Champ was by far and away his 0:16:13.240 --> 0:16:20.000 favorite artists, favorite Warhol. Oh, absolutely yeah, they met, they 0:16:20.040 --> 0:16:23.080 became friends in the nineteen sixties. Du Schamp is in 0:16:23.200 --> 0:16:26.800 several Warhol screen tests, for example, and they had a 0:16:26.920 --> 0:16:30.880 very interesting back and forth about the ready made, about 0:16:31.360 --> 0:16:34.800 taking something literally off the grocery store shelf and turning 0:16:34.800 --> 0:16:40.320 it into art. And most concepts of Warhol's find their 0:16:40.880 --> 0:16:46.040 foundation in Adu Shampi, an aesthetic. People mentioned either that 0:16:46.200 --> 0:16:50.800 Warhol painted the soup cans and the different flavors was 0:16:50.840 --> 0:16:52.880 one side of the corner of the other, either because 0:16:53.200 --> 0:16:54.760 his mother made in the soup all the time and 0:16:54.760 --> 0:16:56.400 he liked the soup, or his mother made him sup 0:16:56.400 --> 0:16:57.840 all the time and he hated the soup, which was 0:16:58.160 --> 0:17:00.960 he loved the soupe absolutely and she really didn't serve 0:17:01.000 --> 0:17:03.760 it to him every day. And we have at the 0:17:03.840 --> 0:17:07.800 museum in our collection what if one wanted it to be, 0:17:07.880 --> 0:17:11.639 could be the Rosetta stone of Warhol. And that is 0:17:11.640 --> 0:17:15.119 a drawing that Julia, his mother made in ninety three 0:17:15.160 --> 0:17:18.879 of two Campbell's soup cans and two cats, and in 0:17:18.920 --> 0:17:24.280 her amazing cyrillic script. It says Campbell's soup very good gut. 0:17:25.200 --> 0:17:27.520 So she beats him to the punch by nine years 0:17:27.760 --> 0:17:30.959 in this drawing and depicting Campbell's soup. And we know 0:17:31.000 --> 0:17:33.239 that Andy knew about this drawing because he kept it. 0:17:33.400 --> 0:17:36.000 So Andy's paintings are not just of campbell soup, They're 0:17:36.000 --> 0:17:38.679 paintings of his mother's rendering of He goes even more 0:17:39.040 --> 0:17:41.440 than everything goes back to Andy's mother. She was an artist. 0:17:42.160 --> 0:17:44.399 They were incredibly close. She was an artist. She was 0:17:44.440 --> 0:17:48.840 an artist drawings of cats and angels. We have many 0:17:48.920 --> 0:17:52.560 up on display at the museum. She was incredibly talented. 0:17:52.880 --> 0:17:57.359 And she also, and this is really formative, Frandy makes 0:17:57.400 --> 0:18:02.000 sculptures um in the form of little pots of flowers, 0:18:02.080 --> 0:18:04.480 and she makes them out of tin cans and they 0:18:04.520 --> 0:18:07.280 just happen to be Campbell soup cans. So she literally 0:18:07.320 --> 0:18:11.200 cuts the cans to make metal flowers and makes these arrangements, 0:18:11.240 --> 0:18:13.800 and then she goes door to door and the rich 0:18:13.840 --> 0:18:17.880 neighborhoods of Pittsburgh, Squirrel Hill, Shady Side, and sells these 0:18:17.920 --> 0:18:20.040 things door to door with the boys hiding in the 0:18:20.080 --> 0:18:23.160 bushes watching her, so that she can make a little 0:18:23.200 --> 0:18:25.240 bit of extra money to make ends meet, to help 0:18:25.280 --> 0:18:29.040 the family. So not only does Warhol have this artistic 0:18:29.720 --> 0:18:33.040 um training from his mother, he also has a very 0:18:33.080 --> 0:18:37.480 important economic training in that he sees that one can 0:18:37.520 --> 0:18:41.399 make money from art. And certainly when he arrives here 0:18:41.400 --> 0:18:44.800 in New York and starts making cold calls immediately, it's 0:18:44.880 --> 0:18:47.040 exactly what he saw his mother doing when he was 0:18:47.080 --> 0:18:52.320 a kid. So incredibly important relationship. And Julia was so 0:18:52.400 --> 0:18:54.760 convinced that her little baby boy could not take care 0:18:54.800 --> 0:18:57.720 of himself here in the big city. About eighteen months 0:18:57.720 --> 0:19:01.520 after Andy moves here, Um he arrives nineteen nine. In 0:19:01.680 --> 0:19:05.560 early nineteen fifty one, Julia makes the move and moves 0:19:05.600 --> 0:19:07.280 here to New York and moves in with Andy on 0:19:07.359 --> 0:19:10.440 his apartment to his apartment on Lexington and lived there 0:19:10.320 --> 0:19:12.760 for how long until the end of her life, And 0:19:12.840 --> 0:19:16.240 it was early nineteen seventies, so she was ill. She 0:19:16.280 --> 0:19:19.919 went back to shear through his shooting. She did. She 0:19:20.200 --> 0:19:22.640 rushed to the hospital to be with him and take 0:19:22.680 --> 0:19:26.119 care of him, and sadly, she fell ill when she 0:19:26.200 --> 0:19:29.800 was visiting relatives back in Pittsburgh and Um died about 0:19:29.800 --> 0:19:34.720 six months after that. But they were incredibly close and collaborators. 0:19:34.760 --> 0:19:38.040 So throughout the entire nineteen fifties. If you see any 0:19:38.119 --> 0:19:42.280 script on any Warhol drawing, any commercial work, whether it 0:19:42.400 --> 0:19:47.919 be a title or um, some sort of um nomenclature 0:19:48.160 --> 0:19:52.200 referring to the subject or Warhol signature, it's all Julia's hand. 0:19:52.840 --> 0:19:55.800 Warhol was the most prolific and produced the most of 0:19:55.880 --> 0:19:59.159 his paintings and Prince and so forth at during what 0:19:59.240 --> 0:20:03.720 period nineteen sixty to nineteen eight seven is the true 0:20:03.760 --> 0:20:07.560 period of his painting, But he does experiment in the 0:20:07.640 --> 0:20:09.919 nineteen fifties, and of course it does have fits and 0:20:10.040 --> 0:20:12.960 starts in between. Would you say that that after the 0:20:12.960 --> 0:20:16.080 shooting he was even more prolific. Absolutely, So that's that's 0:20:16.080 --> 0:20:20.480 the most prolific periods period the mid seventies through the 0:20:20.600 --> 0:20:23.040 end of his life. When you have a museum that 0:20:23.200 --> 0:20:27.320 is dedicated to one person's work, I'm assuming people are 0:20:27.359 --> 0:20:30.320 giving you things to exhibit all the time. And and 0:20:30.600 --> 0:20:32.119 how much of it do you own? How much of 0:20:32.160 --> 0:20:36.840 war whole stuff do you guys have? We have the 0:20:36.840 --> 0:20:40.119 biggest collection of Warhol in the world. First off, and 0:20:40.600 --> 0:20:45.520 as everything for the most part came directly from Andy's studios, 0:20:45.800 --> 0:20:49.480 he had been holding things back from every period, every series. 0:20:50.040 --> 0:20:52.399 Why he was doing that, we have to question whether 0:20:52.440 --> 0:20:54.200 it was to hold it back so that one day 0:20:54.200 --> 0:20:56.120 it would be more valuable so that he could sell 0:20:56.160 --> 0:20:58.280 it for a lot more than when he made it 0:20:58.320 --> 0:21:01.239 in the nineteen sixties, for example, or if he was 0:21:01.320 --> 0:21:04.359 thinking about their one day being a museum. And there 0:21:04.359 --> 0:21:08.440 are arguments on both sides of that equation, but UM 0:21:08.480 --> 0:21:11.800 I would say that we're in the percent range in 0:21:11.920 --> 0:21:15.040 terms of what we have. We're really only missing about 0:21:15.040 --> 0:21:20.440 ten prime examples of specific paintings from specific series and 0:21:20.480 --> 0:21:23.920 those vactms that we have access to and can borrow 0:21:24.480 --> 0:21:28.439 from UM the owners. But people are normally accommodating for 0:21:28.480 --> 0:21:31.680 the most part. Yes, support the mission absolutely, and those 0:21:31.720 --> 0:21:34.440 are the things that one day we hope those collectors 0:21:34.480 --> 0:21:36.840 will think about donating one day to the museum so 0:21:36.880 --> 0:21:40.639 that we have a full survey of his work. How 0:21:40.640 --> 0:21:45.919 would Warhole describe to people his filmmaking career, which to 0:21:46.119 --> 0:21:50.240 me is Warholes films. I still have a trouble getting 0:21:50.240 --> 0:21:52.080 my hands around that in my head around that that 0:21:52.080 --> 0:21:54.520 it's not kitch and that and that and to use 0:21:54.520 --> 0:21:57.000 that word. Do you have an archive of his films 0:21:57.000 --> 0:21:59.439 obviously screens tis that we have all of them, We 0:21:59.600 --> 0:22:03.360 actually own you all of the films are Oh, there 0:22:03.400 --> 0:22:06.800 are literally a million feet of film, if not more. 0:22:07.160 --> 0:22:09.840 And how many were actually cut into actually actually titled, 0:22:10.160 --> 0:22:14.160 probably about twelve dozen if you look at a film 0:22:14.600 --> 0:22:18.239 in as much as there's some sort of an arc 0:22:18.359 --> 0:22:21.520 or a storyline, but not always. And then the screen tests, 0:22:22.400 --> 0:22:25.080 of which they are well north of five hundred of 0:22:25.160 --> 0:22:29.800 his filmmaking portraits of people that he knew, beautiful people, 0:22:29.840 --> 0:22:35.360 in complete strangers, and everything in between. So Warhol's film 0:22:35.600 --> 0:22:39.720 is a complete treasure trove that is very untapped. Uh. 0:22:40.160 --> 0:22:43.000 I mean many people in the art world have, um, 0:22:43.119 --> 0:22:45.040 I don't want to say reluctantly, but they've they've come 0:22:45.080 --> 0:22:48.959 to an appreciation of warholes places in a contemporary art. 0:22:49.560 --> 0:22:51.240 Are there people in the film world who have done 0:22:51.240 --> 0:22:53.639 the same thing? Absolutely? And Andy is viewed as one 0:22:53.680 --> 0:22:56.639 of the earliest and most important avant guard filmmakers here 0:22:56.640 --> 0:22:59.200 in New York, along with Jonas and with Jack Smith. 0:22:59.320 --> 0:23:04.199 So Jonas Mekas, Jack Smith, Andy Warhol always viewed as 0:23:04.240 --> 0:23:07.159 the top three. They're at the very beginning. What's the 0:23:07.200 --> 0:23:10.000 film you think that is that represents his work as 0:23:10.000 --> 0:23:13.320 a filmmaker best. That's the one. What what do people 0:23:13.400 --> 0:23:15.280 who come to the museum, what how do they respond? 0:23:15.320 --> 0:23:17.879 What film do they respond to most? I think that 0:23:18.359 --> 0:23:21.760 Empire is the one that really gets people because it's 0:23:21.760 --> 0:23:24.440 a static shot of the Empire State Building for over 0:23:24.480 --> 0:23:28.439 eight hours, and Andy sets about making the most boring 0:23:28.520 --> 0:23:32.080 film ever made, and it was all about deconstructing the 0:23:32.080 --> 0:23:35.960 notion of cinematic narrative, of taking a storyline out entirely 0:23:35.960 --> 0:23:38.760 and focusing on one object. The only thing that happens 0:23:39.320 --> 0:23:42.959 is as it becomes dusk, the lights turn on. We 0:23:43.240 --> 0:23:45.960 recently realized that the lights on the Empire State Building 0:23:45.960 --> 0:23:48.359 were a very new thing in nineteen six four to 0:23:48.359 --> 0:23:51.160 celebrate the World's Fair, the year that it was filmed, 0:23:51.880 --> 0:23:56.520 and people think of it as a durational um experience. 0:23:56.960 --> 0:23:59.439 When it came out, people challenge themselves to try to 0:23:59.440 --> 0:24:01.920 stay awake to watch the entire thing, and I don't 0:24:01.920 --> 0:24:05.640 know if anyone has ever done that. Actually, Blake Blake Gopnick, 0:24:05.760 --> 0:24:08.520