Art Gallery of South Australia in association with Adelaide Festival. 2 Mar 2023
This is a blockbuster exhibition not to be missed! Art Gallery of South Australia’s curator Julie Robinson has spent ten years working this one out. Incredibly, AGSA has a collection of 45 Warhol photographs – all of which are on display together for the first time. Julie has augmented this with more than 200 additional photographs and their derivative artworks garnered from around the world from private and public collections.
Warhol is as quotable as Winston Churchill. “The idea is not to live forever; it is to create something that will.” Julie chronologically guides you through the Warhol oeuvre - room by room. The first gallery is lined with silver paper to replicate the 1st Factory – the Silver Factory. Silver is also emblematic of chemical photo development. In 1965, Nat Finkelstein took a snap of Warhol and Bob Dylan with the famous full-size Elvis (1963) in the background. Warhol gave the painting to Dylan who strapped it to the roof of his car.
Sometime later, he traded it with his manager for a sofa! The exhibit name plates are full of titillating minutiae and all are to be thoroughly read. Campbell soup cans (1968) aren’t far away, nor a polyptych of brightly coloured and repeated screen prints on paper - Marilyn Monroe (Marilyn) (1967). Where possible, Julie establishes the creative chain – available for viewing are the photos from which the screen prints were derived.
“My idea of a good picture is one that’s in focus and of a famous person doing something unfamous. It’s being at the right place at the wrong time.” There are numerous galleries of photo’d celebrities. The famous wanted to rub shoulders with the famous artist. He would have film stars do “screen tests.” Warhol said if I could have another face, it would be that of Debbie Harris of Blondie fame. You will also see Sylvester Stallone, Mick Jagger, Yves Saint Laurent, etc. He was a fantastic collaborator experimenting with new photography technology and its derivative art forms, so also on display are many photos of himself. One of his protégés was Christopher Makos, who shot the famous Altered Image portfolio (1981) of Warhol dressed in men’s shirt, tie and jeans, but sporting a gorgeous blond wig and make-up. Makos shot many portraits of Warhol hanging out with the glitterati at Studio 54 – Bianca Jagger, Liza Minnelli and the fashion designer Halton. Makos recalls, “Andy met Salvador Dali at a restaurant in New York and he gave him a small painting. Dali reciprocated with a medium-sized, clear plastic bag full of trash from his studio, as a joke. Andy’s feelings were hurt.”
But you don’t have to just read what Christopher Makos wrote, you can ask him yourself. He’s here! Courtesy of the exhibition. You can attend, for a small charge, a conversation between Makos and Julie Robinson on 3 March.
“I think everybody should be a machine.” This quote is often associated with Warhol’s fascination of the machinery of the camera and the repeatability of screen printing and the repetitive imagery of the famous. There is a whole wall of Warhol self-portraits taken with a Polaroid camera.
“In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.” Warhol made this prediction in 1968, well before the explosion of electronic social media and digital photography, so you can posit that he thought this was going to happen anyways with just magazines, artwork and interviews. What would he think now?
There is Australian connection. Henry Gillespie was introduced to Warhol in the early 1980s and Warhol asked him to sit for a portrait. He is presented clean-cut and looking over his shoulder dressed in suit and tie. Gillespie was the Australian editor for Warhols’ Interview magazine and he paid him with his portrait. There were three others in the set which were recovered from Warhol’s studio after his death. All four are reunited in this exhibition. If you want to know more about this, you can ask Henry. He’s here, too! And for a small fee, you can hear Henry in conversation with Julie Robinson on 5 May.
The photos and artwork continue right to the end when Warhol succumbed to complications during surgery in New York on 22 February 1987. In 2022, Shot Sage Blue Marilyn (1964) sold for $195 million.
At the media launch, Christopher Makow offered many insights. He said both he and Warhol went to Catholic schools and that’s where they got their work ethic. Warhol wanted to make art for everybody. Mission accomplished.
This exhibition was created here in South Australia and is an Australian exclusive. Makow opined that there has never been such an extensive and intelligently curated exhibition of Warhol et al photography and its artistic derivatives. He said this is a show worthy of Paris, New York and London. An exceptional, brilliantly curated display of a fantastic collection. Double bravo!
David Grybowski
When: 3 Mar to 14 May
Where: Art Gallery of South Australia
Bookings: adelaidefestival.com.au
