Read I'll Be Your Mirror: The Selected Andy Warhol Interviews Online
Authors: Kenneth Goldsmith
I'll Be Your Mirror: The Selected Andy Warhol Interviews (25 page)
HANGING ON THE TELEPHONE
.
The Factory, 860 Broadway, New York City, August 11, 1981. Photographed by Barry Blin-derman during the time of his interview about Andy's prints. Credit: Barry Blinderman
WE CAN BE HEROES
:
Andy in front of his diamond-dusted portrait of Joseph Beuys.Factory, 860 Broadway, New York City, August 11, 1981. Credit: Barry Blinderman
I THINK EVERYONE SHOULD BE A MACHINE
: Andy works on a self-portrait during the AmigaWorld, 32nd Street Factory, 1985. Credit: © 2004 by Edward Judice
COVER GIRL
: Andy takes a break from his digital study of Dolly Parton during the AmigaWorld interview, 32nd Street Factory, 1985. Credit: © 2004 byEdward Judice.
HALL OF MIRRORS
: The finished self-portrait done on the early Commodore computer, assisted by Glenn Suokko. Self Por-trait by Andy Warhol, digital proof, 1985. Col-lection Glenn Suokko. Credit: © 2004 by Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts / ARS, New York
1
South African Rand.
BESS WINAKOR
1975
Chicago Sun-Times, Sunday, September 28, 1975
In September of 1975, Andy Warhol embarked on an eight-city cross-country tour to promote his new book THE Philosophy of Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again (New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1975). Bob Colacello, who was part of Warhols entourage, describes the mob scene at a typical book signing:
The majority were clean-cut and preppy, with a good number of smart suburban housewives, loaded down with Warhol posters and catalogues, knowing these items would be more valuable once signed by Andy. . .. They wanted him to sign their hands, their arms, their foreheads, their clothes, and their money. They brought cases of real Campbell’s soup cans for him to autograph, old Velvet Underground records, paperback copies of a, early issues of Interview, Liz and Marilyn posters from the sixties. (Holy Terror, 310)
In each city, Andy gave at least a half-dozen interviews to local journalists. Below is a typical interview given to a
Chicago Sun-Times
staff writer. According to Bob Colacello, “Andy considered these interviews torture, especially when he was asked the question he hated most, ‘Are you rich?’ As ‘business art’ was one of the prime credos of his
Philosophy,
variations of that question came up in almost every city. Andy always answered ‘No,’ or pointed to the paint spots on his shoes and made a funny face”
(Holy Terror, 3
10
).
–KG
[ . . . ]
The other day Warhol, who is 47 and has been painting for 25 years was in town promoting his new book THE
Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again
). He autographed books in store windows, signed real Campbell soup cans and Brillo boxes and praised the city’s esthetics and Mayor Daley.
He is thin but not frail-looking in his blue jeans. His hair, white-blond in front is almost black at the nape of his neck. He appears to be interested in everything, especially work. A talk with Andy Warhol sounds like something out of his
Interview
magazine, with a few more ambiguities.
Q. Are you really Andy Warhol or are you a figment of my imagination?
A. I guess I am.
Q. You make yourself to be something of a vacuum in your book. Is that an honest appraisal or is it a gimmick or put-on to sell the book?
A. No. I guess I’ve always been that way. When I was shot it made me feel that way more.
Q. What does life mean to you?
A. I don’t know. I wish I knew.
Q. Did getting shot change you in any way?
A. Yeah. I don’t see imaginative people any more.
Q. Doesn’t that eliminate a lot of people?
A. Yeah, a lot of freaks.
Q. What do you think of the women’s liberation movement?
A. I think it’s great.
Q. Why?
A. I think men and women are the same.
Q. In what way?
A. They do the same things.
Q. If you could do anything, what would it be?
A. Nothing special. (
He laughs a sniffing, almost inaudible laugh.
) There’s nothing I really want to do. Just keep our outfits running, and turn our magazine into a glossy.
Q. Do you consider yourself the bellwether of America, as one critic recently called you?
A. No. That was the first time I heard that word. What does it mean? Q.I think of it as a sign of what’s happening. A. Oh, no. I think I’m always ten years behind.
Q. Did you ever imagine when you painted your first soup can, that it would become art?
A. No. It’s like anything. You just work. If it happens, it happens. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t.
Q. Does your success surprise you, or did you expect it?
A. Oh, no, it surprised me.
Q. How does it feel for wave-making Andy Warhol to also be part of the establishment? Your
Mao
is at the Art Institute in Chicago.
A. You mean, the term “underground” and all that stuff? Somebody just said that. I always worked. You know, it’s a business. Gee, we missed seeing the Picasso sculpture. Have you seen that? Chicago is so rich. How did they get so rich? It’s more rich than any other city I’ve been to. It’s just unbelievable, the buildings are so beautiful. They look so great, I guess maybe because there are just a few around or something.
Q. Have you ever been here before?
A. No, just at the airport about 10 times.
Q. Do you do a portrait of anyone who asks you to or do you prefer celebrities?
A. Usually anyone who asks.
Q. How long does it take?
A. A month or so.
Q. You must be a millionaire by now. How do you spend your money?
A. Just keeping our office going. The magazine doesn’t make any money.
Q. Do you have any luxuries?
A. Two dachshunds. Archie Bunker and Amos.
Q. How do you live? How big is your home?
A. About eight rooms, six rooms. Very small. Six or seven rooms.
Q. How are they decorated?
A. Just with junk. Paper and boxes. Things I bring home and leave around and never pick up. Old interviews, magazines.
Q. Do you live alone or live with somebody?
A. I live alone.
Q. Is your furniture modern or is it old?
A. I like old American furniture. It’s sort of big and ugly furniture, from 1830.
Q. How much of your own art do you have on hand?
A. None. Just some rejected portraits.
Q. Who rejected them?
A. Oh, I don’t know. People who just haven’t picked them up, or people that didn’t like the way they looked, or something.
Q. Who didn’t like the way they looked?
A. Nobody that’s really well-known. I’m surprised that people don’t reject them because I never paint the colors their eyes are and stuff. I just make them up. Maybe that’s why they reject some of them.
Q. Who is your favorite celebrity?
A. Jack Ford.
Q. Why?
A. He was just very nice to us. He invited us to the White House.
Q. Whom do you admire?
A. Mostly everybody.
Q. How did you get into making movies?
A. It sounds dumb, but I was taking a trip cross-country in 1964, having exhibitions in California. So I brought a 16-millimeter camera and we took one of the underground stars, Taylor Mead. We shot cross-country. In California, we were staying at John Houseman’s place. And they thought it was funny. We thought it was funny.
Q. Why, after your asexual paintings or commercial objects, did you go into films that some people say are pornographic?
A. They weren’t actually pornographic. They’re comedies. Sex wasn’t the most important thing in the movies. People made up their own lines. My favorite is
Chelsea Girls
, I guess, because there were two things happening at the same time, two stories going on in different rooms of the hotel.
Q. Did you try to make boredom chic with some of your early movies like
Empire?
A. No. What I was trying to do is make comedy in the audience. People always have a better time, have more fun together than watching what is on the screen.
Q. What is your next movie?
A. It’s called
Bad
. Carroll Baker is interested. WeVe been working on it for a whole year. We were supposed to start shooting in August with Peggy Cass. We still like her. There are two roles in it for Peggy and Carroll.
Q. What’s the plot?
A. It’s just a normal family in Brooklyn. (
Sniffling laughter.
)
Q. Oh, what’s normal?
A. That’s the plot.
Q. By whose definition?
A. Pat Hackett, one of the girls who has worked in our office for about six or seven years, wrote the script.
Q. Do you consider the people and the plots in your movies normal?
A. Oh, no! The last two movies–
Dracula
and
Frankenstein–were
horror movies. This is a horror movie, too, I guess.
Q. Did you do the films with sex and drugs and so on to shock people?
A. No, they were what the kids were doing in New York, I guess.
Q. What do you mean by “the kids"?
A. Oh, you know, the actors we used.
Q. Do you find sex boring–and why or why not?
A. I think it’s too much work.
Q. What are your sexual inclinations these days? Do you prefer men or women?
A. I don’t think about it.
Q. What is love?
A. I don’t really believe in love. I sort of believe in liking.
Q. And what is that?
A. Just thinking about things.
Q. Were you ever in love–with anything or anybody?
A. No.
Q. Do you like yourself?
A. I don’t have time to think about it.
Q. Now that’s contradictory. You say liking is thinking about things.
A. Yeah, I like myself. I’m just too busy all the time, just working. I like work and work is what I do–a lot.
Q. You say sex is too much work?
A. It is for me. I guess the people who work at sex like it. They do it well.
Q. What do you do best?
A. I guess I paint best. I’ve done it longer than the other things, like making movies.
Q. What are you doing this tour?
A. It was a chance to get out to California. I think California is great. It’s just great the way people live.
Q. So why don’t you move? Why do you stay in New York?
A. I was going to, and then they had the earthquake and I sort of changed my mind. (
Sniffling laughter.
)
Q. Do you like conceptual art?
A. Yeah, I do. You know, they’re digging holes in the ground or something like that. You have to see it from an airplane.
Q. Do you like to be interviewed?
A. No.
Q. Why?
A. I just think people should be doing two things at one time, you know. They either should be watching television and getting interviewed, or eating. Like on talk shows, I think the people who do news should also be having breakfast or getting their nails done or something.
Q. Why?
A. Just doing two things at one time, you can get two things done.