Warhol by the Book

Warhol By the Book THE MORGAN LIBRARY & MUSEUM NEW YORK CITY FEBRUARY 5-MAY 15, 2016 Andy Warhol, whose work was inspiration to some and provocation to others, was an author and a bookmaker, as well as an iconic artist. His bibliophilic nature is being explored in Warhol By the Book at the Morgan Library & Museum through May 15. Some one hundred and forty objects represent more than eighty Warhol publications, as well as dozens of projects that were either unique or never made it to print. Through them, one gains a renewed sense of the energy and drive of one of the twentieth century's most renowned artists, as well as a perhaps previously unknown understanding of the breadth of his vision and sensibility. Curator Sheelagh Bevan described Warhol's illustration work as "incredibly energetic, full of frivolity and pastel colors, delightful and alive." (1) A sense of wit and play suffuses many of the works, but so does a serious involvement with literature. Bevan, who co-organized the show with the Warhol Museum, where a different version ran, (2) highlights Warhol's bookish side. He wasn't solely making artists' books, though he created some of the most innovative and striking. Across several decades, he was developing ideas with poets, collaborating with musicians, paying homage to authors, writing texts of his own, spoofing cookbooks, making books for children, and writing his own experimental novel. Giving a hint of Warhol's diversity of thinking and vision, the exhibition starts with two of his charming, pastel-toned shoe sketches, from a series of advertisements done for the I. Miller shoe company. Selections from A la recherche du shoe perdu, his whimsically titled Proust-referencing series, ran weekly in the New York Times in the mid-1950s. Between the two offset lithographs is a portrait by Edward Wallowitch, a friend and frequent collaborator, picturing Warhol's face ringed by (empty) high heels. Like many of the works in the show, it's witty, but with a kick. Below them is a vitrine with an open copy of one of Warhol's better-known books, the self-published A Gold Book, from 1957, in an edition of one hundred. In it, the line between Warhol's commercial work and his fine art blurs. Imagery from one finds its way to the other, and the book had dual purposes as well--Warhol used them as Christmas gifts for friends, but also as promotional material. A page of gold and black shoes is on view. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Warhol's involvement in the 1960's New York poetry scene is documented with Ron Padgett's Two Stories for Andy Warhol ("C" Press, 1965) for which Warhol designed the cover. John Ashbery, Ted Berrigan, Allen Ginsberg, and Padgett were among the poets who posed for Warhol's Screen Test series (1964-66), documented in Gerard Malanga's Screen Tests/A Diary (1967) with a cover by Warhol. A 1988 lithograph on metalized polyester film advertising The Andy Warhol Diaries (1989) glistens with a mirrored background, and plays with the ideas of the viewer and the viewed, as one sees glimpses of oneself reflected back through pink and orange patches of Warhol's own face. It opens the main gallery arrestingly. Opposite it is a sketch of James Dean in acrylic on paper titled Ads: Rebel Without a Cause (James Dean), from c. 1985. It shows the sure, practiced hand of an accomplished draftsman, reminding us that while Warhol toyed with many media, he didn't need gimmicks. Lifting and copying images from the world around him was his response to the growing role of mass media as a definer, producer, and purveyor of culture. While some might dismiss Warhol's recreating existing images as "lazy," curator Bevan pointed out, "That's how ideas and imagery have always been transmitted--through appropriation and copying. …