# Andy Warhol [Wikipedia Link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Warhol) ( 1928 – 1987 ) ## Description Painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who became the leading figure of Pop Art; through the Factory he became a hub connecting visual art, underground film, music, and celebrity culture in 1960s New York. ## Key Tags #pop-art #underground-film #factory #screen-tests ## Essential Works - [[Empire]] - 1964 single-shot, 8-hour film of the Empire State Building; extreme durational cinema - [[Sleep]] - 1963 film of poet John Giorno sleeping, over 5 hours long - [[Chelsea Girls]] - 1966 dual-projector, split-screen film shot at the Chelsea Hotel - Screen Tests - series of several hundred silent, static black-and-white portrait films of Factory visitors ## Details Trained as a commercial illustrator before moving into fine art in the late 1950s. Founded the Factory (1962/63) as a studio and social space that produced paintings, films, music, and publications, and that functioned as a magnet for the downtown avant-garde, drag and queer subcultures, and celebrity visitors. His films are notable for extreme duration, static camera, and a flattened, voyeuristic gaze that echoes his silkscreen technique of repetition and mechanical reproduction. Also served as manager/producer for The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967). ### Concepts and Theories - [[Repetition and Seriality]] - extended the concept through silkscreen multiples and serial film structures like the Screen Tests - [[Durational Cinema]] - pushed long-take duration to its extreme in Empire and Sleep, foregrounding boredom and real time as material - [[Camp]] - channeled a queer camp sensibility through Factory performance, drag, and casting ### Creative and Technical Practices - [[Silkscreen Printing]] - adapted commercial silkscreen technique into a fine-art method built on repetition and mechanical reproduction - [[Static Long-Take Filmmaking]] - developed the fixed-camera, unedited long take as a portrait and durational film form ### Key Collaborators - [[Paul Morrissey]] - co-director/collaborator on later Factory films (active 1965–1972) - Chelsea Girls, Flesh, Trash - [[Gerard Malanga]] - Factory assistant, poet, and actor (active 1963–1970) - Screen Tests, silkscreen production assistance - [[Nico]] - Velvet Underground collaborator and Factory performer (active 1965–1967) - Chelsea Girls, The Velvet Underground & Nico - [[Billy Name]] - Factory photographer and designer (active 1964–1970) - Factory documentation photography, silver Factory interior design ### Institutional Affiliations - [[The Factory]] - Warhol's studio and social hub, founder (active 1962–1984, studio at 47th St then Union Square, NYC) ## References ### Primary Sources Bibliography Warhol, Andy, and Pat Hackett. *POPism: The Warhol Sixties*. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980. Warhol's own account (with Hackett) of the Factory years, Pop Art's rise, and the underground film scene. ### Secondary Sources Bibliography Angell, Callie. *Andy Warhol Screen Tests: The Films of Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonné, Volume 1*. Harry N. Abrams, 2006. Catalogue and critical framework for the Screen Test portraits, useful for their relation to durational/portrait cinema. Bourdon, David. *Warhol*. Harry N. Abrams, 1989. General critical biography covering the paintings, films, and Factory milieu.