I'll Be Your Mirror: The Selected Andy Warhol Interviews (40 page)

PT: You don’t do anything about it?

AW: No. It got a little crazy when people were turning out paintings and signing my name.

PT: What did you think about that?

AW: Signing my name to it was wrong but other than that I don’t care.

PT: The whole appropriation epidemic comes down to who is responsible for art. If indeed anyone can manufacture the pictures of those flowers, the whole idea of the artist gets lost somewhere in the process.

AW: Is that good or bad?

PT: Well, first of all, do you agree with me?

AW: Yes, if they take my name away. But when I used the flowers, the original photograph was huge and I just used one square inch of the photo and magnified it.

PT: What do you ever see that makes you stop in your tracks?

AW: A good display in a window . . . I don’t know . . . a good-looking face.

PT: What’s the feeling when you see a good window display or a good face?

AW: You just take longer to look at it. I went to China, I didn’t want to go, and I went to see the Great Wall. You know, you read about it for years. And actually it was great. It was really really really great.

PT: Have you been working out lately?

AW: I just did it.

PT: How much are you lifting now?

AW: 105 pounds.

PT: On the benchpress? That’s strong.

AW: No, it’s light. You’re stronger than me, and fitter and handsomer and younger, and you wear better clothes.

PT: Did you enjoy the opening party thrown by GFT at the Tunnel?

AW: I had already been there before.

PT: In the sixties you mean?

AW: (
Laughs.
) No–the manager or someone took me around it a few days ago.

PT: It’s a very convenient club for the Bridge and Tunnel people–they’ll be able to come in on those tracks from New Jersey.

AW: I don’t know whether it was my idea to call it the Tunnel or whether it was someone else’s idea that I liked, but I think it’s a good name.

PT: And lots of people turned out for Claes Oldenburg’s show that night.

AW: He looked happy. A lot of people said he looked happy. I always liked Claes actually. You looked great the other night. I took lots of photos of you in your new jacket.

PT: Yes? How did I turn out?

AW: They haven’t come back yet. Next time you come by I’ll take some close-ups.

PT: For the Upfront section of
Interview
perhaps? Except that I’m not accomplished enough.

AW: You could sleep with the publisher.

PT: If you were starting out now, would you do anything differently?

AW: I don’t know. I just worked hard. It’s all fantasy.

PT: Life is fantasy?

AW: Yeah, it is.

PT: What’s real?

AW: Don’t know.

PT: Some people would.

AW: Would they?

PT: Do you really believe it, or tomorrow will you say the opposite?

AW: I don’t know. I like this idea that you can say the opposite.

PT: But you wouldn’t in this case?

AW: No.

PT: Is there any connection between fantasy and religious feeling?

AW: Maybe. I don’t know. Church is a fun place to go.

PT: Do you go to Italy very often?

AW: You know we used to make our films there.

PT: And didn’t you have a studio in the country for a while?

AW: Outside of Rome.

PT: And did you go to the Vatican?

AW: We passed by it every day.

PT: I remember a polaroid you took of the Pope.

AW: Yeah.

PT: Did you take that from very close up?

AW: Yes. He walked past us.

PT: And he blessed you?

AW: I have a photo of him shaking Fred Hughes’s hand. Someone wanted us to make a portrait of the Pope and they’ve been trying to get us together but we can’t and by now the Pope has changed three times.

PT: Fred said he used to feel like the Pope in the old Factory in Union Square. He used to go out on that balcony and wave at the passing masses underneath.

AW: He has a balcony now.

PT: Yes, but from the current Factory he can only see the reception area.

AW: He can wave.

PT: And sometimes it’s just as busy as Union Square too.

1.

Andy Warhol, like Blossom Dearie, was a vocal artist: he did strange things with standards. He underspoke them. A chanteuse is supposed to “sell” the song. Andy, like Blossom, stinted the standard, gave it less, in order to give (secretly) more. He sidestepped the interlocutor’s assignments. Andy’s idea of an “I-Thou” relation was a talk show; both guest and host were gods, momentarily. Momentary was the only way to be. And the space of an answer–yes, no, maybe–gave Warhol room enough to stretch his fairy amplitude.

2.

He sang the
dumb
notes, the mute, anesthetized, autistic micropitches that ghost the public, declaimable melody. When Warhol’s responses to questions sound inane, they interrogate our discourses of inanity. (See Avital Ronell’s smart study,
Stupidity.
) When Warhol gives a girly answer, he insists on art’s link to the tawdriest masquerades, the skankiest trannies. When Warhol praises porn, he pushes art’s button; when Warhol announces that he’s quitting painting, he rises to Sistine heights.

3.

The culture police want to limit creators to one medium, one stance. Paint, but don’t make films. Write essays, but don’t star in soaps. Be a docent, but don’t be a public indecency. Warhol spread himself thin; the interview is one more slice of bread he insisted on buttering. Space hog, he laid permanent claim to the word
interview
by publishing a magazine with that name. His own liminal behavior, whether seen or unseen, exposed the
inter
within the
view:
vision, according to Warhol, is always cut, interrupted, interposed by a wedge of thirdness. Warhol’s interviews, gathered here, play the wedge game with indisputable mastery.

4.

Like a decadent’s Christ or Saint Sebastian, Warhol struck the pose of
being-stigmatized
. A journalist’s hostile, unknowing questions can be acts of discursive violence. As if imitating Wilde’s 1895 trial, Warhol torqued the witness stand, through irony and camp, into a tea party, and taught us how to circumvent intimidation by mesmerizing the bully.

5.

Andy wanted to be left alone, and yet he paradoxically pretended to seek interpersonal encounter; into the unsafe space of the interview, he inserted not his own, vulnerable, actual body, but a replacement body, a mannequin, a dummy.
It looks like me, but it’s not. Ym elsewhere. I seem to be answering your questions, but dont be fooled. Transcendentally indifferent to your groveling, literal-minded suppositions, I protect you from my barbed fury by absenting myself from the scene of polite exchange. Ym priceless: off the market. Ym only pretending to take part in art’s barter system
.

6.

Like Chaplin, Warhol impersonated
tramp
and
fool:
he also played
horny
and
moneygrubbing
. Those were four stock roles in the one-reel comedies that interviews, in his transmuting hands, became. Like Stein, Warhol performed
simpleton;
direct statement–American declarativeness–suited his temperament, which was not, in the last analysis, evasive or olympian, but nakedly confrontational.
Nude
was his favorite condition: nude restaurant, nude philosophy, nude cognition, nude art, nude anything. Put
nude
in the adjectival slot, and the noun automatically gets upgraded. Andy gave nude interviews. He
denuded
interlocution–stripped it, turned it into Laurel and Hardy, or Vladimir and Estragon. Or into a spooky mirror scene, two hand puppets operated by one puppeteer. Andy’s den of interlocution transparently gave onto other rooms, other scenes, other instances of revenge, equalization, and vertigo. Reading (or watching) a Warhol interview, we’re never neatly
outside
it. Because Warhol isn’t exactly within his body, he nudges the interviewer, too, a few millimeters away from pat embodiment. Andy’s aim, in the interviews, is ambientdestabilization. He unhinges everyone in the vicinity–especially those who think they know the difference between good and bad art, between worthwhile and useless behavior, and between elation and depression.

7.

Warhol’s affect is poised between happiness and sadness, between a speedy emptiness and a lethargic fullness. We can’t pinpoint his mood, and we may, sympathetically, wish to ask:
is Andy okay?
Do the interviews prove that he is ailing, or do they demonstrate his resilience, his at-homeness, his immunity? Interviews–like any of his screens, whether silk or silver-hardly offer unmediated revelation. They offer, instead, a cage: Warhol, playing Houdini, escapes conversation’s captivity. His interviews perform a drag-act of imprisonment within unsympathetic interlocution; in doing so, they paint a day-glo exit sign that we would be well advised, as Warhol’s acolytes and inheritors, to follow.

The trail leading to the inception of this book goes back to a dinner in New York City’s Chinatown with Ken Freedman and Hank Lewis several years ago. As summer was approaching, the conversation naturally turned to beach reading, whereupon Hank suggested
POPism
as the perfect summer book. A few days later, I picked up a battered copy of it at the 26th Street flea market, and I became intrigued with all things Andy.

Fast-forward to the summer of 2002: my favored beach book was
Spontaneous Mind: Allen Ginsberg Selected Interviews
1958–1996 edited by David Carter. That summer, while in the Madison Square Park playground, I happened to mention how much I was enjoying Carter’s book to another dad, Tad Crawford, who told me that he knew David Carter and he was sure that David would be pleased to learn how engaged I was with his book. He gave me David’s phone number, and a meeting was arranged.

Meeting David Carter was a godsend. His book–an example of excellence in this field–is the standard to which Fve to edited my own; my work lives in the shadow of Carter’s achievement. A long lunch at Tea & Sympathy in the West Village provided me with a road map: I heard of the potential pitfalls, the snakes in the grass, and was warned of the landmine-laden permissions business. We discussed the vast differences between Warhol and Ginsberg and chuckled over how different the end results would be (Ginsberg’s legendary loquaciousness vs. Warhol’s enigmatic quips, to mention but one example). Over the course of writing this book, I called upon David several times to draw from his vast knowledge and experience. I cannot thank him enough for his generosity and for the inspiration he has provided to me.

While I had a hunch that there was plenty of Warhol interview material to be found, I didn’t have any idea of its depths until I encountered Matt Wrbican, archivist of The Andy Warhol Archives at the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. With good humor and patience, Matt led me through the dizzying maze of Warhol’s
Time Capsules
, where much of this material came from. During my two visits to the Museum, Matt was constantly making suggestions about great hidden pieces, while tossing off arcane anecdotes of the circumstances surrounding many of the interviews. Without Matt and the Andy Warhol Archives, this book would not exist.

Greg Pierce, of the film and video archives at the Andy Warhol Museum, was equally generous. Drawing from the vast amount of Warhol footage, Greg was able to pinpoint exactly what I needed for my project. His knowledge in this field and intimacy with the material is unparalleled. I wish to thank him and Geralyn Huxley for making available to me obscure and difficult-to-find Warhol interviews on film and video. Thanks also to Clovis Young, George Reider, Lucy Raven, and Jim Thomas for making my Pittsburgh stays more comfortable.

Back in New York, I want to thank Tan Lin for introducing me to Neil Printz, co-editor of
Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonne: Paintings and Sculpture, 1961–1963
. I showed Neil all the material I collected at the Warhol Archive over lunch at Bottino in Chelsea, and he generously gave advice about the organization and selection of the interviews. This was greatly enhanced by Neil’s introduction to Calle Angel, adjunct curator of the Andy Warhol Film Project at the Whitney Museum of American Art, who on several occasions provided leads to authors and helped shape the contents of the book. Without her input, this book would have been a much lesser work.

Of the many contacts that Neil Printz provided me with, few were as valuable as his introduction to Michael Hermann, Assistant Director of Licensing at the Warhol Foundation. Michael must be one of the most in-demand people in the Warholian universe, and I wish to thank him for taking my project with as much seriousness as he would have with a more lucrative–and sexy–project.

I had the good fortune to host Gerard Malanga on my WFMU radio show following the publication of his book
Archiving Warhol
. He regaled the listeners for three solid hours with poetry, music, and detailed reminiscences of his years with Andy. My radio encounter with Gerard served as an impetus to gather this material; he has been unfailingly generous with his materials and knowledge.

On the air with Gerard, he mentioned a show,
Andy Warhol Work and Play
, that he was going to be involved with at the Fleming Museum in Burlington, Vermont. Curious, I looked up the show online and ordered the catalog. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I read the introductory essay by Reva Wolf, “Work Into Play: Andy Warhol Interviews.” Right then and there I knew I had to have Reva write the introduction to my book. A trip to New Paltz to visit her turned out to be an informative and pleasant early summer afternoon; we swapped our Warhol interview collections and shared trade secrets. Upon returning, my cache of interviews had increased twofold. Much of the material in this book comes from Reva’s collection. I am grateful to be associated with such a staggeringly original and open-minded intellectual.

One night in the fall of 2002, after attending an Alan Licht performance at the Marianne Boesky Gallery, I was having a drink with the poet and scholar Michael Scharf. I mentioned that I was doing this book, and he asked who Fd like to write the preface. Jokingly, I said Wayne Koestenbaum, feeling that such a well-known New York figure and Warhol expert was far out of my league. Offhandedly, Michael said that he had studied with Wayne at the CUNY Grad Center and that they were still friendly; he offered to make an introduction when the time was right. That time was July, 2003, when the three of us met for coffee at La Gamin in West Chelsea. After an hour of frantic gossip, I asked Wayne if he’d be interested in writing a preface to the book, to which he answered yes. I responded that I was flattered but wasn’t he “finished” with Warhol after spending so long working on his Penguin biography? “No,” he answered, “my infatuation with Warhol just keeps on growing.”

The scholar Marcus Boon suggested that I get in touch with Victor Bockris and helped me to make that connection. My weekly meetings over breakfast with Victor in a small West Village cafe were delightful. He is one of the greatest talkers I’ve ever met, and I would sit astonished as he regaled me with tales of the New York underground from days gone by. His keen editorial eye, careful proofreading, and fact-checking of the manuscript helped shape the final book. He made numerous suggestions and offered limitless advice gleaned from his years in the biographical trenches, all of which helped enrich this project.

In a pinch while looking for an elusive reference, I took a chance and e-mailed Billy Name, not knowing if I was going to get a response. However, not only did I get a response, but I received a flood of invaluable information. I cannot thank him enough for his work, his generosity, and his cooperation.

Thanks to Alain Cueff for garnering European support of this book. He is truly a kindred spirit.

Parents always mean well, but their helpfulness in professional matters is often less than helpful. Except for this book. While it was still a vague idea in my head, my mother, Judy Goldsmith, suggested that I meet Bob Markel, a literary agent, who was dating her business partner. One cold December afternoon in 2002, Bob came to my loft to discuss the project. After he left, I knew Mom had steered me right.

Bob connected me with my editor at Carroll & Graf, Philip Turner, who has been responsive and thorough with this manuscript, helping mold it into what it is today.

Although Fve never met him, I must acknowledge Gary Comenas, creator of warholstars.org, a site I visited daily during my research. Gary’s site could be the very best resource on Andy Warhol there is–either in print or on the Web.

Thanks to the following people who helped me track down interviews or interviewers: Michael Denneny, Michael Gerber, Susan G. Graham, Trina Higgins, Craig Highberger, Geralyn Huxley, Thorn Hollinger, Paula Krimsky, Olivier Landemaine, Jules Lipoff, Lindsay Mann, Patrick Merla, Lylian Morcos, Elizabeth Neumann, Michele Robecci, Judy Sail, Grace L. Scalera, Alan Schwartz, Dan Streible, and The Andy Warhol Archives, Pittsburgh.

Finally, thanks to my interested and patient wife, Cheryl Donegan, who was exposed to every twist and turn on this long road. I owe you one, pal.