One of my favorite movies of all time is Julian Schnabel's "Basquiat" from 1996. I realize that movie critics, art critics, and pretty much anybody who has a bone to pick with Julian Schnabel may not think this movie is as great as I do, but that's their problem. Granted, I don't know a whole lot about the life and work to Jean Michel Basquiat, nor can I say much about the art scene in New York in the 1980s, so I don't know how accurate it is. One thing I can say is that it is a great story of the rise and fall of a young artist who made it for just doing his thing. I will also say that I particularly appreciate movies about artists, even if they aren't the best, because they might introduce the viewer to an artist or an art movement they previously didn't know anything about.
The soundtrack is amazing- from the Pogues to Public Image Ltd., to Grandmaster Flash and Melle Mel to Tom Waits. The music is haunting when it's not exciting, and shows that the 1980s wasn't the musical wasteland that it's often dismissed as.
For the most part the acting is really great, too. I'm not too picky when it comes to acting, I can only tell when it's really bad and when it's really good. Jeffrey Wright as the title character is wonderful and captures the creative, yet still really innocent and not at all put together character of an artist who is only 19 years old when he makes it in the New York art world. Benicio Del Toro plays the best friend and I think he rocks it- we all know someone with priorities and ideas like Benny's. I think Claire Forlani is annoying in just about anything, so I'm not crazy about her in the girlfriend role, but I can overlook it with the rest of the cast that includes: Denis Hopper, Gary Oldman, Christopher Walken, Parker Posey, Willem Dafoe, and Courtney Love.
And, oh yeah, possibly my favorite casting decision in the history of cinema: David Bowie as Andy Warhol. For as much as I love David Bowie, which is a whole lot, I'll admit that he may not be the best actor out there. But I don't know if Andy Warhol himself could have played a more hilarious and lovable Andy Warhol.
If I haven't yet convinced you to go out and rent this movie (or watch it again), I'll leave you with this clip to either get you hooked or, at the very least, make you smile.
Showing posts with label Andy Warhol. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Andy Warhol. Show all posts
Monday, March 23, 2009
Saturday, February 14, 2009
My Date With Andy Warhol, part 3
The last part of the exhibit were the two staggered rooms. These rooms held more of his art, plus a good number of the films that he made over the years. The films were projected simultaneously on different hanging screens. One room probably had 5 different movies showing, and the other probably had 12. The movies and their set-up was my biggest complaint about the whole exhibit. While some of his films were silent, many of them had sound, so the way the Wexner people set it up (or this could be the way the exhibition travels, I'm not really sure) was that in front of each screen there was an odd-shaped bench/cushion thing that you could sit on and above it was another odd shaped thing (I have no idea what to call it) in which a speaker was put, so that you could hear the movie you were sitting in front of. But, much like the speakers in the first room, the volume on most was much to low to actually make out anything that anybody was saying, and for some of them you could overhear the speakers for the film next to you. On top of that, it was unclear for some which bench matched up with which screen. So, though some of the films were kind of interesting to watch, I found the whole set up too confusing to really enjoy. Maybe this was the point, and if it was, then I'm going to go from confused to annoyed.
A few of my favorite films to watch: Outer and Inner Space, with Edie Sedgewick. This one is meant for a double screen. All it is is Edie Sedgewick sitting there, talking, next to a TV where a pre-recorded profile of Edie Sedgewick was talking. On one screen there was a zoomed in image of this, and the other screen was zoomed out. So there were four Edies and they all looked like they were talking to each other. Even if the volume wasn't so low, you still wouldn't really be able to hear what she was saying because they were all talking at the same time. That was probably my favorite. I also really enjoyed the one where Warhol filmed the Velvet Underground rehearsing, and then being busted in on by the police. Even after the police came in and they stopped playing, the camera kept rolling and you could see people just milling around and Andy talking to the police.
I mentioned that a lot of his other work was in these two rooms. There were tons of silk-screens (probably 20 different soup cans, a few Elvises, a gun), a few drawings, and a few sculptures (the Brillo Pad boxes). But this led to another problem, and what was essentially the main problem with this part of the exhibit. These two rooms were really tall, but thin. Some of his work was hung up so high that you couldn't see it, or you couldn't see it without getting dizzy. It was impossible to go to the far side of the room and look up, because there were screens everywhere. The main problem with the exhibit was that they had too much stuff and not enough space. I understand wanting to get as much as possible in your exhibit, but I think that the overall experience would have improved with maybe 4 or 5 less movies, and either less silkscreens, or putting some of them in other parts of the center (and there was plenty of room where they could have been put to be seen better).
Overall I think they did a really kick- as job, but when I'm in charge, we'll go for quality, not quantity.
On my way out, of course I stopped at the gift shop. I really wanted an exhibition catalogue, and since I got in for free, I figured I could afford it, especially considering everything was 30% off, due to it being the end of the run. But the price of the catalogue was $50! Whoa, no thank you.
Since I was already at OSU and Nick told me not to hurry home on account of his workload, I figured I'd go check out the Art History building, since I applied to grad school there. Hayes Hall. A decent looking red building (I forgot to get a picture of the outside). In the front hall there was a little lounge area with some chairs and two cases of faculty publications. It was quite something.
I walked around and looked into some of the classrooms. Decent sized rooms for small-ish classes. I found this written on the board of a seminar room, which made me smile:
I looked at the doors of the faculty offices, where they had little fliers of the classes they teach. I didn't think so, but it looks like the faculty might match my interests pretty well after all. There seemed to be good representation of the medieval/Italian Renaissance classes.
I passed a pay phone and was amused to see it flashing this:
We didn't have this kind of school spirit at Kenyon.
After my self-tour of the art history building, I walked around the Oval Mall a little bit, but there wasn't a whole lot to see on a Sunday evening. The big library is under construction, slated to be open this summer, so if I did decide on OSU they will have a newly-remodeled library which will probably be pretty sweet. I left campus and walked up and down High Street a bit and decided to grab a quick and cheap dinner at The Flying Pizza
It was a little hole-in-the-wall, pizza by the slice place. It wasn't the most fantastic pizza I've ever had but for two big slices and a pop for $6, I was happy with it.
Since I was parked next to one of the smaller libraries, I decided to check it out and see what OSU students were doing without their main library. This library wasn't exactly small, but with so many freaking students, they were all crammed in together. There's no way I could study if everybody and their brother was at the table with me, so I'm sure they will be just as happy to see the main library re-open as I would be.
Satisfied with my date with Andy Warhol and my tour of Ohio State, I headed back to my car and hit the open road back to Cincinnati.
A few of my favorite films to watch: Outer and Inner Space, with Edie Sedgewick. This one is meant for a double screen. All it is is Edie Sedgewick sitting there, talking, next to a TV where a pre-recorded profile of Edie Sedgewick was talking. On one screen there was a zoomed in image of this, and the other screen was zoomed out. So there were four Edies and they all looked like they were talking to each other. Even if the volume wasn't so low, you still wouldn't really be able to hear what she was saying because they were all talking at the same time. That was probably my favorite. I also really enjoyed the one where Warhol filmed the Velvet Underground rehearsing, and then being busted in on by the police. Even after the police came in and they stopped playing, the camera kept rolling and you could see people just milling around and Andy talking to the police.
I mentioned that a lot of his other work was in these two rooms. There were tons of silk-screens (probably 20 different soup cans, a few Elvises, a gun), a few drawings, and a few sculptures (the Brillo Pad boxes). But this led to another problem, and what was essentially the main problem with this part of the exhibit. These two rooms were really tall, but thin. Some of his work was hung up so high that you couldn't see it, or you couldn't see it without getting dizzy. It was impossible to go to the far side of the room and look up, because there were screens everywhere. The main problem with the exhibit was that they had too much stuff and not enough space. I understand wanting to get as much as possible in your exhibit, but I think that the overall experience would have improved with maybe 4 or 5 less movies, and either less silkscreens, or putting some of them in other parts of the center (and there was plenty of room where they could have been put to be seen better).
Overall I think they did a really kick- as job, but when I'm in charge, we'll go for quality, not quantity.
On my way out, of course I stopped at the gift shop. I really wanted an exhibition catalogue, and since I got in for free, I figured I could afford it, especially considering everything was 30% off, due to it being the end of the run. But the price of the catalogue was $50! Whoa, no thank you.
Since I was already at OSU and Nick told me not to hurry home on account of his workload, I figured I'd go check out the Art History building, since I applied to grad school there. Hayes Hall. A decent looking red building (I forgot to get a picture of the outside). In the front hall there was a little lounge area with some chairs and two cases of faculty publications. It was quite something.
I walked around and looked into some of the classrooms. Decent sized rooms for small-ish classes. I found this written on the board of a seminar room, which made me smile:
I looked at the doors of the faculty offices, where they had little fliers of the classes they teach. I didn't think so, but it looks like the faculty might match my interests pretty well after all. There seemed to be good representation of the medieval/Italian Renaissance classes.
I passed a pay phone and was amused to see it flashing this:
We didn't have this kind of school spirit at Kenyon.
After my self-tour of the art history building, I walked around the Oval Mall a little bit, but there wasn't a whole lot to see on a Sunday evening. The big library is under construction, slated to be open this summer, so if I did decide on OSU they will have a newly-remodeled library which will probably be pretty sweet. I left campus and walked up and down High Street a bit and decided to grab a quick and cheap dinner at The Flying Pizza
It was a little hole-in-the-wall, pizza by the slice place. It wasn't the most fantastic pizza I've ever had but for two big slices and a pop for $6, I was happy with it.
Since I was parked next to one of the smaller libraries, I decided to check it out and see what OSU students were doing without their main library. This library wasn't exactly small, but with so many freaking students, they were all crammed in together. There's no way I could study if everybody and their brother was at the table with me, so I'm sure they will be just as happy to see the main library re-open as I would be.
Satisfied with my date with Andy Warhol and my tour of Ohio State, I headed back to my car and hit the open road back to Cincinnati.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
My Date With Andy Warhol, part 2
After I had fully absorbed the first room (to which I eventually returned to sit in the speaker booths and watch the screen tests some more) I made my way to the ramp. For those of you who haven't been the the Wexner Center, its on an angle:
So one side is a ramp that goes from the first floor to the top, then there's a top area that spans the entire width, and there are two staggered rooms on the other side. On the wall of the ramp there were pictures and quotes from him up high, and 25 or 30 TVs playing clips of the Factory Diaries at eye level. The Factory Diaries are basically home movies from the Factory, there is footage from photo shoots, people hanging out, Andy on the phone, etc. Each TV had two sets of headphones attached so that you could listen in. My favorite, unsurprisingly, was the one where David Bowie and his band were visiting in 1971. He looked pretty uncomfortable when he knew the camera was on him, but later he had a really great conversation with a guy who hung around the Factory (I don't know his name). They were talking about music- Bowie recommended a few artists to the guy, and the guy was telling him about some of his favorite bands. Bowie was really excited that he had recently found a Lenny Bruce record for $2, and then was aghast to hear that British records cost $7 in the States. It was incredibly charming. I found this on youtube, and even though you can't hear anything, you might get a kick out of watching it:
At the top of the ramp, there were four different things. The first was some kind of time capsule which I didn't think was interesting at all. Next to that was this tiny little dark room with a screen on the far wall and speakers mounted inside, where they were showing the Exploding Plastic Inevitable. I had never seen footage of it before, but it was absolutely hypnotizing. The combination of haunting music by the Velvet Underground, and the flashing multi-colored lighting, and the trippy dancing made it seem like they really captured what it felt like to be on shit-tons of drugs in the late 60s.
Here's a clip:
The next installation was a platform with maybe 50 more TVs, with a stool in front of each one of them. Each one was showing episodes from the two cable tv shows he created: Andy Warhol's TV, and Andy Warhol's Fifteen Minutes. I wasn't too terribly interested here, it was mostly interviews, many with now obscure people, but I did watch an episode of Andy Warhol's TV in which he sat at a table with Lisa Robinson, Debbie Harry, and Chris Stein and they tried to explain the music industry to him.
At the top of the building, there was an installation piece called "Silver Clouds." They sectioned off the top of the ramp with ropes hanging from the tall (30 feet?) ceiling, and inside a dozed 4 foot, pillow-shaped, silver mylar balloons that floated around the space, powered by box fans mounted on the ceiling. Viewers were encouraged to touch the "silver clouds", which was particularly entertaining for the little kids that had been dragged along. While I myself didn't play withe them, I enjoyed stepping into the space and watching both kids and adults take part in the capturing and releasing of the silver clouds.
So one side is a ramp that goes from the first floor to the top, then there's a top area that spans the entire width, and there are two staggered rooms on the other side. On the wall of the ramp there were pictures and quotes from him up high, and 25 or 30 TVs playing clips of the Factory Diaries at eye level. The Factory Diaries are basically home movies from the Factory, there is footage from photo shoots, people hanging out, Andy on the phone, etc. Each TV had two sets of headphones attached so that you could listen in. My favorite, unsurprisingly, was the one where David Bowie and his band were visiting in 1971. He looked pretty uncomfortable when he knew the camera was on him, but later he had a really great conversation with a guy who hung around the Factory (I don't know his name). They were talking about music- Bowie recommended a few artists to the guy, and the guy was telling him about some of his favorite bands. Bowie was really excited that he had recently found a Lenny Bruce record for $2, and then was aghast to hear that British records cost $7 in the States. It was incredibly charming. I found this on youtube, and even though you can't hear anything, you might get a kick out of watching it:
At the top of the ramp, there were four different things. The first was some kind of time capsule which I didn't think was interesting at all. Next to that was this tiny little dark room with a screen on the far wall and speakers mounted inside, where they were showing the Exploding Plastic Inevitable. I had never seen footage of it before, but it was absolutely hypnotizing. The combination of haunting music by the Velvet Underground, and the flashing multi-colored lighting, and the trippy dancing made it seem like they really captured what it felt like to be on shit-tons of drugs in the late 60s.
Here's a clip:
The next installation was a platform with maybe 50 more TVs, with a stool in front of each one of them. Each one was showing episodes from the two cable tv shows he created: Andy Warhol's TV, and Andy Warhol's Fifteen Minutes. I wasn't too terribly interested here, it was mostly interviews, many with now obscure people, but I did watch an episode of Andy Warhol's TV in which he sat at a table with Lisa Robinson, Debbie Harry, and Chris Stein and they tried to explain the music industry to him.
At the top of the building, there was an installation piece called "Silver Clouds." They sectioned off the top of the ramp with ropes hanging from the tall (30 feet?) ceiling, and inside a dozed 4 foot, pillow-shaped, silver mylar balloons that floated around the space, powered by box fans mounted on the ceiling. Viewers were encouraged to touch the "silver clouds", which was particularly entertaining for the little kids that had been dragged along. While I myself didn't play withe them, I enjoyed stepping into the space and watching both kids and adults take part in the capturing and releasing of the silver clouds.
To be continued...
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
My Date With Andy Warhol, part 1
A few days ago, I realized with shock and awe that it is almost February 15th, which means the closing of "Andy Warhol: Other Voices, Other Rooms" at the Wexner Center in Columbus is about to come to a close. A huge Warhol exhibition on it's only stop in the U.S., and in my backyard no less, I wasn't about to miss it. Luckily, the stars aligned: Sunday I was off work, Nick had a day's worth of grading to do, and it was beautiful outside- it was the perfect day to hop in the car and drive the vast expanse of I-71 north to Columbus.
This is the most boring drive ever, by the way.
The Wexner Center for the Arts is located on the Ohio State campus, off High Street, which is where you go when you are a Kenyon student and go to Columbus to do something cool like eat ethnic food or get a tattoo (for those particular ventures, I recommend Bento Go-Go for sushi and Evolved for body art). I parked in the familiar parking garage and walked over.
Admission is $8, but I'm not ashamed to pull out my expired student id to get something for free. As I made my way down the stairs to the beginning of the exhibition I had to remind myself to be patient and take it all in. I find that with huge shows I tend to rush through them, but I was determined to absorb this one. I didn't drive two hours to get there and rush through. Photography wasn't allowed, but I'll do some google and youtube searches to give you and idea of what things looked like. The exhibit starts with "A Biography in 42 Pictures," which told the story of Andy Warhol's life through pictures of him as a child, his autographed picture of Shirley Temple (as a child he collected autographs), pictures of the Factory, and Polaroids that he took of himself. It was augmented by little blurbs going along with most of the images. It was a good way to get eased into the exhibit and get acquainted with at least the timeline of his life and his major projects.
The first room of the exhibit was, in my opinion, the best. In the center there were four huge screens onto which were projected his "Screen Tests." They were four minute clips in which he filmed his friends- everyone from Salvador Dali to Lou Reed, to Edie Sedgewick- just sitting and looking at the camera. It may not sound that interesting, but it might have been my favorite part of the room. They reminded me a little bit of how pictures in Harry Potter are just people who sit there. But you looked at them and they stared back at you, and you didn't feel the need to turn away because they were just projected images and not real people. I thought it was really cool that you could just sit there and watch a person's face for minutes at a time without feeling like a social freak. You could watch the little changes that a face makes even when it is seemingly blank- blinking, opening and closing lips, tiny eye movements, the slightest twitch of a nose. These are things that you know happen, but you rarely experience them because we don't typically stare at other people for minutes on end.
Here's a clip of Salvador Dali's screen test. Obviously somebody was filming another screen, so the quality isn't great, but you get the idea.
On one wall in this room were some of his paintings and some of the first issues of Inter/View (now Interview), which he founded. There were also cases of Polaroids, which I thought were the most interesting. There were 20 self-portraits in drag, and tons more of his famous friends. To name just a few: Truman Capote, Mick Jagger, Jean Michel Basquiat, Jimmy Carter, Sean Lennon, Robert Rauchenberg, Jack Nicklaus, Sylvester Stalone, O.J. Simpson, Max Ernst, William S. Burroughs, Liza Minelli, Debbie Harry, and Grace Jones. Talk about a social circle. On the other side of the room were about 12 different booths cut out of the wall that people were sitting in. Once I walked over, I learned that each booth had a speaker in it where you could sit and listen to interviews, conversations, music, and events (like dinner out with friends or brunch at his family's house) that Warhol had recorded. Apparently he carried a tape recorder around with him everywhere, which I didn't know. This was a really cool idea and a unique set up, but the volume was so low! My hearing definitely isn't the keenest of my five senses, but there were some that I couldn't make out a single word and found that standing and leaning just my head in (the speakers were on the ceiling) achieved the best results.
To be continued...
This is the most boring drive ever, by the way.
The Wexner Center for the Arts is located on the Ohio State campus, off High Street, which is where you go when you are a Kenyon student and go to Columbus to do something cool like eat ethnic food or get a tattoo (for those particular ventures, I recommend Bento Go-Go for sushi and Evolved for body art). I parked in the familiar parking garage and walked over.
Admission is $8, but I'm not ashamed to pull out my expired student id to get something for free. As I made my way down the stairs to the beginning of the exhibition I had to remind myself to be patient and take it all in. I find that with huge shows I tend to rush through them, but I was determined to absorb this one. I didn't drive two hours to get there and rush through. Photography wasn't allowed, but I'll do some google and youtube searches to give you and idea of what things looked like. The exhibit starts with "A Biography in 42 Pictures," which told the story of Andy Warhol's life through pictures of him as a child, his autographed picture of Shirley Temple (as a child he collected autographs), pictures of the Factory, and Polaroids that he took of himself. It was augmented by little blurbs going along with most of the images. It was a good way to get eased into the exhibit and get acquainted with at least the timeline of his life and his major projects.
The first room of the exhibit was, in my opinion, the best. In the center there were four huge screens onto which were projected his "Screen Tests." They were four minute clips in which he filmed his friends- everyone from Salvador Dali to Lou Reed, to Edie Sedgewick- just sitting and looking at the camera. It may not sound that interesting, but it might have been my favorite part of the room. They reminded me a little bit of how pictures in Harry Potter are just people who sit there. But you looked at them and they stared back at you, and you didn't feel the need to turn away because they were just projected images and not real people. I thought it was really cool that you could just sit there and watch a person's face for minutes at a time without feeling like a social freak. You could watch the little changes that a face makes even when it is seemingly blank- blinking, opening and closing lips, tiny eye movements, the slightest twitch of a nose. These are things that you know happen, but you rarely experience them because we don't typically stare at other people for minutes on end.
Here's a clip of Salvador Dali's screen test. Obviously somebody was filming another screen, so the quality isn't great, but you get the idea.
On one wall in this room were some of his paintings and some of the first issues of Inter/View (now Interview), which he founded. There were also cases of Polaroids, which I thought were the most interesting. There were 20 self-portraits in drag, and tons more of his famous friends. To name just a few: Truman Capote, Mick Jagger, Jean Michel Basquiat, Jimmy Carter, Sean Lennon, Robert Rauchenberg, Jack Nicklaus, Sylvester Stalone, O.J. Simpson, Max Ernst, William S. Burroughs, Liza Minelli, Debbie Harry, and Grace Jones. Talk about a social circle. On the other side of the room were about 12 different booths cut out of the wall that people were sitting in. Once I walked over, I learned that each booth had a speaker in it where you could sit and listen to interviews, conversations, music, and events (like dinner out with friends or brunch at his family's house) that Warhol had recorded. Apparently he carried a tape recorder around with him everywhere, which I didn't know. This was a really cool idea and a unique set up, but the volume was so low! My hearing definitely isn't the keenest of my five senses, but there were some that I couldn't make out a single word and found that standing and leaning just my head in (the speakers were on the ceiling) achieved the best results.
To be continued...
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