Read I'll Be Your Mirror: The Selected Andy Warhol Interviews Online
Authors: Kenneth Goldsmith
AW: Well,
I
did. I always said that back then.
BB: Was that tongue-in-cheek, or did you really think that you had stopped painting?
AW: I was serious. We wanted to go into the movie business, but every time we went out to Hollywood nothing much ever really happened. Then I was shot. It took me a long time to get well, and at that point it was easier to paint than to try the movies.
BB: How often do you paint now?
AW: I paint every day. I’m painting backgrounds out there right now.
Interview’s
getting so much bigger that they’re moving me out of the back. So I’m painting out front, and also come in Saturdays and Sundays a lot.
BB: In
Painters Painting
, the movie by Emile de Antonio, you pointed to Bridget Polk and said that she was doing all of your paintings. And then she said “Yeah, but he’s not painting now.” Did people call you up after that and try to return their paintings?
AW: Yes, but I really do all the paintings. We were just being funny. If there are any fakes around I can tell. Actually there’s a woman who does fakes that really aren’t fakes. She’s doing everybody, even Jasper Johns.
BB: So many people insist that other people do your paintings.
AW: The modern way would be to do it like that, but I do them all myself.
BB: The accessibility of your art has always been important. I can walk around the Village and see a
Jcigger
or a
Mao
, or I can see a portrait retrospective at the Whitney, or see a
Kafka
or a
Buber
at a synagogue. You have such a large and diverse audience.
AW: We sell more of the Mick Jagger prints in the Village than anywhere else, which is very surprising. Nobody ever did anything about the prints. These little galleries downtown were doing more by just coming up here and getting some and putting them in the window. They look funny down there but they really sell. The tourists walk about and buy them. Castelli is going to do a retrospective of the prints sometime soon.
BB: It’s good that your art can be bought by all kinds of people, at least the prints.
AW: People think that my art is so expensive, and they’re amazed when they find out that they can just walk in and buy one.
BB: In the last issue of
Interview
you mentioned that you were working on a Madonna and Child series, or actually mothers with babies at their breasts.
AW: Yes, we’ve been renting models from an agency called “Famous Faces.” You just rent a baby and a mother. I’ve photographed about 10 of them already.
BB: The theme makes me think back to Raphael’s fat cherubs. Yours must be so different.
AW: Well, not really. They’re beautiful babies because they’re models and the mothers are sort of beautiful, too.
BB: I see you’re doing some landscapes out there in the studio. That’s an unusual subject for you, isn’t it?
AW: Yes. I was commissioned to do the Trump Tower. I also did a series of ten German landmarks: houses, churches, and other buildings.
BB: It’s a good idea, considering that most of your recent paintings are portraits.
AW: Well, these are portraits of buildings.
BB: You’re also painting shoes now. I remember seeing an illustrated book of shoes you did before you were known as a painter.
AW: That was so long ago. Recently, someone commissioned me to do a painting of shoes. I liked it so I started doing more of them.
BB: Any other new painting themes?
AW: I’m doing knives and guns. Just making abstract shapes out of them.
BB: Like the
Hammer and Sickle
series?
AW: Yeah.
BB: What else is in the works?
AW: I’m a Zoli model now. Also, I’m doing a Barney’s ad for the
Times
. I’m actually trying to get the Polaroid commercial, but that’s so hard to get. And we’re doing that TV fashion show once a week.
BB: Do you think you’ll ever do the show you used to talk about that you’d call “Nothing Special"?
AW: The mayor’s the only one who can give you a cable station. I still want to do that show, though. We’d just put a camera on a street corner. People watch anything nowadays.
BB: What American artists do you admire?
AW: I always say Walt Disney. That gets me off the hook.
BB: Didn’t you once mention that you liked Grant Wood?
AW: I used to love his work. But my favorite artist now is Paul Cadmus.
3
I also like George Tooker.
4
BB: Tell me the story of how you photographed Howdy Doody.
AW: Well, since then Fve found out that there are three Howdy Doodys. The guy who owned the original brought him in here. Actually, I found somebody recently who looks like Howdy Doody and it would have been better to do him, just like the way we used Margaret Hamilton as
The Witch
, or the Santa and Uncle Sam that they always use in the ads. Everyone likes the Howdy print. But do you think people would really like to have one in their living room?
1
September 17, 1980 to January 4, 1981.
2
"The Times Square Show" (1979) was considered a watershed exhibition, featuring hundreds of artists (including very early appearances by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Jenny Holzer, Kiki Smith, and others) and nightly performances. It inspired many other exhibitions in disused buildings and unconventional sites during the 1980s.
3
Paul Cadmus. Artist, 1904–1999.
4
George Tooker. Artist, b. 1920.
Andy Warhol was a world-class shopper. In 1973, when asked if he thought his art belonged in museums, Warhol responded: “Well, I thought department stores were the new museums
. . .
then they could sell the paintings off the walls
”
He had several regular shopping routes on his way downtown to the Factory from his home on East 66th Street. On these daily trips, he would purchase anything that would increase in value, from original Walt Disney acetates to Elsa Peretti jewelry at Tiffany’s; it was another part of his job. He would often stop in the 47th Street diamond district, where he became an expert at assessing the gems
.
At the time of his death, every room except the bedroom and kitchen in Warhols town house was packed to the gills with purchases made on his daily shopping expeditions; the dining room was impossible to enter due to the volume of boxes of unopened goods. In the spring of 1988, a year after Warhol died, Sotheby’s auctioned off his possessions. It took more than two dozen people several months to catalogue nearly 10,000 items, ranging from valuable works of art to flea-market finds. The Warhol haul was the largest single collection sold at Sotheby’s to date since its founding in 1744. It also proved to be a great popular draw: some 60,000 people visited to view the collection over a ten-day period beginning on April 23, 1988. The total sale amounted to $25,313,238
.
This interview gives us a rare glimpse of Andy Warhol doing what he loved most
.
–KG
NEW YORK–Andy Warhol, artist, ultimate consumer and purveyor of pop culture, describes Bloomingdale’s as “the new Kind of Museum for the ‘80s.” To find out why, we asked him to spend an hour with us in Bloom-ingdale’s flagship Manhattan store. Andy thought it was a great idea.
ANDY WARHOL: So should we just go shopping?
TRACY BROBSTON: That’s fine. However you want to do it.
AW: My favorite thing here is the parties they give in the different sections. The last party was in the rug room. That was for Martha Graham and Hal-ston. I was a model in that show. It was my longest modeling assignment, eight hours. The other great party was at the hardware room.
TB: Who was that for?
AW: Uh . . . (to
Jill Glover, Bloomingdale’s fashion coordinator
) uh . . . who was the party in hardware for?
JILL GLOVER: You mean on the Main Course?
AW: No, uh, it was about six months ago. Well, they give different parties in different sections all the time.
JG: They’re incredible. Well, where you have to go now is the new bakery.
AW: Oh yeah. Well, we’re going there first.
JG: You’re gonna
die
.
AW: Is it on the first floor?
JG: Yeah. But you now have to go outside the store to get there.
AW: Oh really?
JG: Yeah, like by Au
Chocolat
(the chocolate department).
AW: But you didn’t have to go outside for the bread shop before.
JG: I know, but now you do, since they built the bakery.
AW: Now you do, oh really?
JG: Well, you’ll find it. Bye.
AW: (
To a salesgirl
) Has the bakery been moved?
SALESGIRL: Yeah.
AW: Well, how do we get there?
SALESGIRL: Through Delicacies and the Candy Shop.
AW: Oh you can walk right through it over there? Oh thanks. So can I buy some jelly for my bread first?
TB: That’s fine.
AW: Is
The Dallas Morning News
going to pay for it?
TB: No, no, you have to do all the shopping yourself.
AW: So, uh, what can I get? I’ll just take these two.
TB: Which ones did you get?
AW: Let’s see. Uh, black currant and apricot preserve. So, here we are passing through the delicacy department, passing up the
foie gras
. . . and caviar . . . and tea . . . and pretzels. And now they have a
new
department called bread. (
Heading through the chocolate department
) I guess you can get to it this way. Is it?
TB: I don’t know. Look, they have Bill Blass chocolates.
AW: (
excited
) Oh they do? They’re the
best
.
TB: Are they really good?
AW: Yeah, they’re really, really,
really
good. Oh this looks terrific, this looks so great. But we’ve got to pass this ‘cause we don’t eat candy any more. We’re into health-food breads. Oh look at the chocolate chip
cookiesl
They look just like. . . .
TB: I think they’re Famous Amos.
AW: Are they? Oh they
are
. We did a really great thing, that’s what you should do, is go out to New Jersey, which is about five minutes from New York, and you can go to the Famous Amos factory and you can meet Famous Amos. There really is one.
TB: He came to Dallas once.
AW: Oh he did? Did you meet him?
TB: Just for a minute. He signed my cookie.
(In the bread department, a kilted man is holding bagpipes. Apparently, he is part of Bloomingdales current Irish promotion.)
TB: Are you Irish? You don’t look Irish.
AW: Were you in the Halston show that day?
BAGPIPE MAN: No. I’m wearing an Irish kilt though.
TB: I thought kilts were Scottish.
MAN: Well, they are, actually, but the kilt
pin
is Irish. It’s Connemara marble, from my Irish ancestors.
TB: Oh. That’s neat.
AW: Well, we’re doing a story for
The Dallas Morning News
. So what’s your name?
MAN: Darrel McClair. This is a fabulous store.
AW: Oh isn’t it a great store? Are they letting you eat some Famous Amos cookies?
MAN: Yeah. I remember this store when it was a junk shop. Remember that?
AW: Really?
No
. When was that?
MAN: Oh, 30 years ago, you probably weren’t in New York then. Well, “junk shop” is a little much but it wasn’t anywhere near the pre-eminence it is now. They’ve done a fantastic job with this store in every way. Fantastic. Fantastic job.
TB: Well, are you working here now or just shopping?
MAN: I’m supposed to be demonstrating, but the man who’s selling the shortbread isn’t here and they said there’s no use playing ‘til he gets here.
AW: Well, I’m here to buy some Irish bread.
MAN: Really, what bread?
AW: Just, uh, that up there. Can you pull a few strings and get us the bread fast?
MAN: No, sorry, but nice to talk to you.
AW: OK, thanks. (
To salesgirl
) I wanted to get a loaf of bread like that. Do you have a big one?
SALESGIRL: This moss bread?
AW: Yeah, a big one. Oh, and a big dark bread, too.
SALESGIRL: Anything else?
AW: No, that’s all. This cash?
BREAD SALESGIRL: Is this cash?
AW: Yes. It’s harder to pay cash here than anywhere else in the world.
TB: In New York or Bloomingdale’s?
AW: In Bloomingdale’s. As soon you give them cash they don’t know what to do with it. You have to have a card. I don’t believe in credit cards. (
To salesgirl
) Do you have anything good to say about Altman’s, I mean, Bloomingdale’s?
SALESGIRL: It’s a beautiful place to work.
AW: Oh really? Oh. Well, that’s good. Thanks a lot. ‘Bye. Now we’re going to the perfume department.