Read I'll Be Your Mirror: The Selected Andy Warhol Interviews Online
Authors: Kenneth Goldsmith
JC: No. Why do you ask?
AW: Seems like good knitting weather.
POSTSCRIPT
AW: Did you get the pictures yet?
JC: Yes! They re great.
AW: Is my hair too flat?
JC: No, it’s sticking up wonderfully.
AW: Are you going to do them really big or small?
JC: Big.
AW: Oh, great. You should put yourself on the cover.
JC: I want you on the cover.
AW: We can both be on the cover.
Andy Warhol was a devout Catholic all his life, attending a church near his Upper East Side town house most Sundays when he was not traveling. In April of
1980,
he met Pope John Paul II at the Vatican; on Christmas Day in 198S and again on Easter Sunday in
1986,
he served dinner to homeless people at Church of Heavenly Rest on the Upper East Side. Over the years, religious subject matter appeared in his art works: he painted the
Mona Lisa
in 1963, and had appropriated a detail from Leonardo’s
Annunciation
for his 1984 print series
Details of Renaissance Paintings.
In 1986, Warhol was commissioned by Alexandre lolas (the famous art dealer who gave Andy his first show in New York in 1952) to do a series of works based on Leonardo da Vinci’s
Last Supper
and offered to show them at a gallery in Milan, Italy across the street from the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, which houses the original painting. Warhol agreed and went to work on the series based on a plaster kitsch reproduction of the scene that he found, according to various sources, either at a gas station on the New Jersey Turnpike or at a tourist shop in Times Square. He did both hand-painted and silkscreened paintings, but ended up showing only the screened works in Milan
.
The show opened on January 22, 1987, drawing huge crowds as well as the glare of the media. Gallery-goers were invited first to view the original painting in the church, then proceed across the street to view Warhols versions. While in Milan, Warhol continued to feel the stomach pains that would lead to his death two weeks later on February 22, 1987
.
This interview was conducted by the Australian writer and curator Paul Taylor, editor of the influential Melbourne-based magazine
Art + Text.
Taylor died of AIDS a week after his 35th birthday in 1992
.
When printed, this interview contained the postscript:
“This is the last interview with Andy Warhol, which took place just before the opening of
II Cenacolo (The Last Supper
) exhibition in Milan.”
However, judging by the conversation, it is clear that the interview was conducted in New York City several months before the Milan show was confirmed, thus calling into question whether this is, in fact, Andy Warhols last interview
.
–KG
PAUL TAYLOR: You are going to be showing your
Last Supper
paintings in Milan this year.
ANDY WARHOL: Yes.
PT: When did you make the paintings?
AW: I was working on them all year. They were supposed to be shown in December, then January. Now I don’t know when.
PT: Are they painted?
AW: I don’t know. Some were painted, but they’re not going to show the painted ones. We’ll use the silkscreened ones.
PT: On some of them you have camouflage over the top of the images. Why is that?
AW: I had some leftover camouflage.
PT: From the self-portraits?
AW: Yeah.
PT: Did you do any preparatory drawings for them?
AW: Yeah, I tried. I did about forty paintings.
PT: They were all preparatory?
AW: Yeah.
PT: It’s very odd to see images like this one doubled.
AW: They’re just the small ones.
PT: The really big one is where there are images upside down and the right way up.
AW: That’s right.
PT: It’s odd because you normally see just one Jesus at a time.
AW: Now there are two.
PT: Like the two Popes?
AW: The European Pope and the American Pope.
PT: Did you see Dokoupil’s show at Sonnabend Gallery?
AW: Oh no, I haven’t gone there yet. I want to go on Saturday.
PT: It might be the last day. There you will see two Jesuses on crucifixes, one beside the other.
AW: Oh.
PT: And he explained to me something like how it was transgressive to have two Jesuses in the same picture.
AW: He took the words out of my mouth.
PT: You’re trying to be transgressive?
AW: Yes.
PT: In America, you could be almost as famous as Charles Manson. Is there any similarity between you at the Factory and Jesus at the
Last Supper?
AW: That’s negative, to me it’s negative. I don’t want to talk about negative things.
PT: Well, what about these happier days at the present Factory? Now you’re a corporation president.
AW: It’s the same.
PT: Why did you do the
Last Supper?
AW: Because Iolas asked me to do the
Last Supper
. He got a gallery in front of the other
Last Supper
, and he asked three or four people to do
Last Suppers
.
PT: Does the
Last Supper
theme mean anything in particular to you?
AW: No. It’s a good picture.
PT: What do you think about those books and articles, like Stephen Koch’s
Stargazer
, and a 1964
Newsweek
piece called “Saint Andrew,” that bring up the subject of Catholicism?
AW: I don’t know. Stephen Koch’s book was interesting because he was able to write a whole book about it. He has a new book out which I’m trying to buy to turn into a screenplay. I think it’s called
The Bride’s Bachelors
or some Duchampy title. Have you read it yet?
PT: No, I read the review in
The New York Times Book Review
.
AW: What did it say?
PT: It was okay.
AW: Yeah? What’s it about?
PT: Stephen Koch described it to me himself. He said it was about a heterosexual Rauschenberg figure in the ’60s, a magnetic artist who has qualities of a lot of ’60s artists. He has an entourage. I don’t know the rest.
AW: I’ve been meaning to call him and see if he can tell me the story and send me the book.
PT: Who’s making a screenplay?
AW: We thought that we might be able to do it.
PT: It’s a great idea. Would you be able to get real people to play themselves in it?
AW: I don’t know. It might be good.
PT: Do you have screenwriters here?
AW: We just bought Tama Janowitz’s book called
Slaves of New York
.
PT: Does that mean you’re going back into movie production?
AW: We’re trying. But actually what we’re working on is our video show, which MTV is buying.
PT:
Nothing Special?
AW: No, it’s called
Andy Warhols Fifteen Minutes
. It was on Thursday last week and it’s showing again Monday and it’ll be shown two more times: December, and we’re doing one for January.
PT: Do you make them?
AW: No, Vincent works on them. Vincent Fremont.
PT: Do you look through the camera on these things at all?
AW: No.
PT: What’s your role?
AW: Just interviewing people.
PT: If there was a movie made out of Stephen Koch’s novel, what would be your role in it?
AW: I don’t know. I’d have to read it first.
PT: It’s not usual for business people to talk about these deals before they make them.
AW: I don’t care if anyone . . . there’s always another book.
PT: I saw Ileana [Sonnabend] today and asked her what I should ask you, and she said “I don’t know. For Andy everything is equal.”
AW: She’s right.
PT: How do you describe that point of view?
AW: I don’t know. If she said it she’s right. (
Laughs.
)
PT: It sounds Zennish.
AW: Zennish? What’s that?
PT: Like Zen.
AW: Zennish. That’s a good word. That’s a good title for . . . my new book.
PT: What about your transformation from being a commercial artist to a real artist?
AW: I’m still a commercial artist. I was always a commercial artist.
PT: Then what’s a commercial artist?
AW: I don’t know–someone who sells art.
PT: So almost all artists are commercial artists, just to varying degrees.
AW: I think so.
PT: Is a better commercial artist one who sells more work?
AW: I don’t know. When I started out, art was going down the drain. The people who used to do magazine illustrations and the covers were being replaced by photographers. And when they started using photographers, I started to show my work with galleries. Everybody also was doing window decoration. That led into more galleries. I had some paintings in a window, then in a gallery.
PT: Is there a parallel situation now?
AW: No, it just caught on so well that there’s a new gallery open every day now. There are a lot more artists, which is real great.
PT: What has happened to the idea of good art?
AW: It’s all good art.
PT: Is that to say that it’s all equal?
AW: Yeah well, I don’t know, I can’t. . . .
PT: You’re not interested in making distinctions.
AW: Well no, I just can’t tell the difference. I don’t see why one Jasper Johns sells for three million and one sells for, you know, like, four hundred thousand. They were both good paintings.
PT: The market for your work has changed a little in the last few years. To people my age–in their twenties–you were always more important than to the collecting group of people in their fifties and sixties.
AW: Well, I think the people who buy art now are these younger kids who have a lot of money.
PT: And that’s made a difference in your market.
AW: Yeah, a little bit.
PT: How important is it for you to maintain control?
AW: I’ve been busy since I started–since I was a working artist. If I wasn’t showing in New York I was doing work in Germany, or I was doing portraits.
PT: What I mean is that as more and more artists come up, and as new galleries open every day, the whole idea of what an artist is changes. It’s no longer so special, and maybe a more special artist is one who maintains more control of his or her work.
AW: I don’t know. It seems like every year there’s one artist for that year. The people from twenty years ago are still around. I don’t know why. The kids nowadays–there’s just one a year. They stay around, they just don’t.. . .
PT: You were identified with a few artists a couple of years ago–Kenny Scharf, Keith Haring.
AW: We’re still friends.
PT: But I never see you with any of this season’s flavors.
AW: I don’t know. They got so much press. It was great. I’m taking photographs now. I have a photography show at Robert Miller Gallery.
PT: And there’s going to be a retrospective of your films at the Whitney Museum.
AW: Maybe, yes.
PT: Are you excited about that?
AW: No.
PT: Why not?
AW: They’re better talked about than seen.
PT: Your work as an artist has always been so varied, like Leonardo. You’re a painter, a film maker, a publisher. . . . Do you think that’s what an artist is?
AW: No.
PT: Can you define an artist for me?
AW: I think an artist is anybody who does something well, like if you cook well.
PT: What do you think about all the younger artists now in New York who are using Pop imagery?
AW: Pretty good.
PT: Is it the same as when it happened in the ‘60s?
AW: No, they have different reasons to do things. All these kids are so intellectual.
PT: Did you like the Punk era?
AW: Well, it’s still around. I always think it’s gone but it isn’t. They still have their hard-rock nights at the Ritz. Do you ever go there?
PT: No. But Punk, like Pop, might never go away.
AW: I guess so.
PT: How’s
Interview
going?
AW: It’s not bad.
PT: You’re going to be audited soon for the Audit Bureau of Circulations.
AW: Yeah, they’re doing it now.
PT: What difference will it make?
AW: I don’t know.
PT: It will be better for advertising. . . .
AW: Yeah.
PT: What’s the circulation now?
AW: 170,000. The magazine’s getting bigger and bigger.
PT: What magazines do you read?
AW: I just read everything.
PT: You look at everything. Do you read the art magazines?
AW: Yeah. I look at the pictures.
PT: You’ve been in trouble for using someone else’s image as far back as 1964. What do you think about the legal situation of appropriated imagery, and the copyright situation?
AW: I don’t know. It’s just like a Coca-Cola bottle when you buy it, you always think that it’s yours and you can do whatever you like with it. Now it’s sort of different because you pay a deposit on the bottle. We’re having the same problem now with the John Wayne pictures. I don’t want to get involved, it’s too much trouble. I think that you buy a magazine, you pay for it, it’s yours. I don’t get mad when people take my things.