In the Factory, it was all about the freaks. In a cult, it’s all about the big loudmouth. People drifted into the Factory and hung around and semi-or full-on-worshipped Andy but Andy never said anything, never told them to do anything, he just did his art and his movies. A cult is where a bunch of idiots think they will get closer to God or create the perfect revolution by following this loudmouth macho when they know, we know, the loudmouth knows, the postman and his second cousin knows, that the whole cult thing exists for the sole purpose of the loudmouth macho getting to sleep with younger and better looking women than his existing lifestyle will permit, and drive about in younger and better looking cars. Everyone knows about Andy Warhol’s Factory, and it’s all true. The other thing that happened is that nobody got paid.Īlso what happened, and I thought this was interesting, is The Factory.
Then Andy would get offended when other people who watched the movie like say a critic didn’t think it was brilliant. So the film would be like two oddballs having a desultory conversation about something inaudible, and after 45 minutes the guys takes his clothes off and then wanders off set. If the sound was audible, that was a bonus. Andy would ask a couple of people to be in it, probably the person who thought of it would be there, and they would do the whole thing in a day in one take with no script.
Pre-Flesh ‘n’ Trash, what seems to have happened a lot is that some space cadet would be really high and would suggest something loopy to Andy and he would go wow gee that’s great we must make a movie of that and he would get someone who knew how to switch on a camera to do the idea i.e. In the last Andy Warhol movie, Bad (1976), a woman throws a baby out of a window. They thought they could take Joe Dallesandro with a pretty ribbon bow tied round his flaccid member and trying to find a vein in his groin, but they couldn’t, so out they went into the bitter winter night. Flesh caused more walk-outs than any movie I was ever at – bang, bang, bang went all the seats as they snapped up when offended patrons stormed out. Anyway, the barely-watchable ones are directed by Paul Morrissey. Robert Hughes called them “hour upon hour of tantrum, misery, sexual spasm, campery and nose-picking trivia”. But I don’t like these artistic johnny one notes anyhow – Mark Rothko was the same but less funny.Īlso, Warhol’s films are horrible, but that’s okay, they’re supposed to be. The rest of it, the portraits and the soup cans and Marilyns is a celebration of banality which only scores jeavily by the simple device of turning up the volume and drowning out every other noise. Ha ha, they missed the boat there, because those ones really rocketed in price because Andy didn’t do many because they didn’t sell. I quite like Andy’s electric chairs and car crashes – amusingly, they didn’t sell because collectors for some entirely superficial reason did not want a PERSON FRYING or MANGLED CORPSES hanging over their dining table or in their gold lame office. I hate Warhol’s stuff marginally less than Jasper Johns’ or Rauschenberg or – well, let’s not get into it. To put this in context, I have a problem with 95% of everything, and that’s on a good day. I have a problem with 90% of all modern art – no make that 95%. When I got my first television set, I stopped caring so much about having close relationships. I quite like Andy’s electric chairs and car crashes – amusingly, they didn’t sell because A QUOTE FROM ANDY TO SET THE TONE
POOR JOHNNY ONE NOTE I have a problem with 90% of all modern art – no make that 95%. A QUOTE FROM ANDY TO SET THE TONE When I got my first television set, I stopped caring so much about having close relationships.