Andy Warhol (Andrew Warhola)

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Andy Warhol (Andrew Warhola) : biography

06 August 1928 – 22 February 1987

Since significant 1962 Andy became to use serigraphy techniques, which gave him an opportunity to repeat similar images endlessly. This monotonous repetition was distinctive for his art – endless bottles of Coca-Cola were changed with portraits of Elizabeth Tailor, Marylin Monroe, Elvis Presley. Only subjects and colour ranged changed, but the principle remained. Warhol said, that he wanted to be a machine and try to obtain people’s similar thoughts. For the sake of this idea he reproduces depersonalized photos from newspapers and magazines on his paintings – they represented catastrophes, street disturbance, mass poisoning. When seeing these scenes many times, they loose its power and cause nothing besides indifference and boredom. This attitude of cynical observer was characteristic for Warhol himself.

He organized “production” of such art on his “Factory”, and for a couple of years he made nearly two thousand pictures. In 1965 Warhol announced that he “retired” as an artist. He didn’t give up painting, but started to make experimental movies. He also became famous in this field and became nearly the only director of underground films, which was known to wide public. In his first films the principle of repetition had almost a hypnotic effect. A film “a Dream” of 1963 showed the only scene – a sleeping person, without changes and sounds. Later films had plots, mainly erotic, but the director remained this position of impartial observer forever.

In 1968 Andy Warhol became a real master of pop-art. His exhibitions gathered many people in the whole world, and one of his pictures was bought for sixty thousand dollars on the auction, it was a record among Warhol’s contemporaries. Nevertheless, besides films and pictures, Andy became famous for his extremely scandalous interview. He didn’t conceal his indifference to his own art and firm belief in general human stupidity. Though he was always interested in somebody else’s art – for example, when he became a producer of “Velvet Underground”, an alternative rock group, and made a cover for their first album.

Before opening his first exhibition in Los Angeles Warhol read a script of a feminist Valerie Solanis, who had played in his movies. He didn’t like the script and threw it somewhere, and when Valerie asked him to return it, he ignored her. On the 3d of June in 1968 Warhol returned from Los Angeles to his “Factory”, where offended Valerie met him with a pistol. She released three bullets in the artist, and then injured an owner of one of New York galleries with the next bullet, after that the pistol got stuck. Valerie calmly left the studio and reported a street policeman that she had shot Warhol. There was absolute madness on “Factory” – people ran, screamed and cried. The owner of a gallery forgot about his wound and tried to help Warhol, and Andy, watching other people, suddenly started to laugh.

There was no doubt that the artist would die, but he managed to survive – though, he had to wear a corset for a long time because of a poor stitch, and he considered himself dead after that incident. He claimed in an interview, that he didn’t change because of a clinical death , but it wasn’t right. The artist had a persecution mania, he suspected every strangers and considered them to be burglars, and all his childish fears returned. One phobia really came true: once representatives of Columbia mafia visited him and took all cash in hand – nearly million dollars.

Valerie Solanis’ shots made Warhol’s star status stronger, and he became more popular than his art. Warhol turned his name into a brand with pleasure, but he never forgot about art. A year after the attempt on his life he made the first game film “Flesh”, in 1970 – “Garbage”. These films noticeably parodied commercial cinema. Ten years later Warhol opened a new television channel and became a director of “his own television” – “Andy Warhol’s ЕМЭю he also occupied himself with literature, publishing a magazine “Interview” (since 1969) and his own books. The fisr Warhol’s novel, published in 1968, was named ‘a” and consisted from telephone conversations, recorded on his “Factory”. In 1975 his book “Andy Warhol’s philosophy: from A to B and back to front”. Famous “Diaries” were published after his death – in 1989.

For years Warhol was known as “angel of death”, but he didn’t like to think about his own death and protected himself from such thoughts, as he could: for example. He didn’t attend funerals even of the closest friends and his mother. Practically nobody knew that the artist was ill with a disease of a gall bladder. He was afraid of doctors and postponed the operation to the last. Nevertheless, it was successful, but on the next morning – on the 22nd of February in 1987 – Andy Warhol died of heart arrest while sleeping. His brothers buried the artist in his native city, Pittsburg.

Friends and lawyers were very astonished, when they opened his apartment after the death. The king of pop-art turned out to be a big lover of bourgeois luxury and made a huge collection of very different things – from African wooden figures to art masterpieces. But there were no Warhol’s paintings among them. The most truthful words about life and art of this strange person were said in an obituary notice, which was published by “New York Times”: “The best Warhol’s masterpiece was him”.