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New York, 8:47 PM
Sat Nov 28
9 posts in the last 24 hours
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11/14/09
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09/12/09
And no one snubbed him quite as hard as Jasper Johns. As with his crush on Capote, Warhol was impressed with Johns' meteoric early success, being taken seriously by all the "right" people. But Johns sharply rejected Andy's overtures of friendship. Deeply closeted himself, he and Rauschenberg mocked Andy as "Wendy Airhole". The AbEx macho ethos was still afoot in the late 1950's art world, and Warhol simply could not "pass", he was too femme, and Johns and Rauschenberg found that deeply threatening- they didn't want to be associated with him. And many others in the artworld at this time disliked his work, thought it fey, decadent, unserious. He was treated as a gay illustrator, and it took him years to get beyond that stigma.
Andy was deeply wounded by his rejection from the art world of the time. So if he seems dumb about it, or catty about Johns, it was coming from a certain pain of rejection. Of course, it freed him to do his own thing, in a famously novel and striking way. But yes, he cared about art, he just felt the art world didn't care much for him.
09/12/09
09/12/09
Good to know. Curious to learn more. I always thought of him as sort of a pet rock.
09/12/09
@Baroness: Thanks so much. I'm no expert, but somehow I think Warhol might have appreciated this. I know I would like a copy (or a multiple series).
09/12/09
09/12/09
09/12/09
Warhol was commissioned to do a large-scale work for the 1964 World's Fair in Queens, affixed to the exterior of a round pavillion. He chose to do massive silkscreen prints of "Wanted" posters, printed on metal. Objections erupted when it was unveiled- that it was a glorification of mob figures, a bad representation of NYC. etc. It looked very cool in extant photos.
But unsaid in the uproar: the 13 "most wanted" men he chose were also uncommonly handsome, gangster-sexy. The homoerotic subtext of the series in a public fair might also have played a part in their destruction, "wanted" given a subversive alternate meaning.
Rather than have the panels removed for the family-friendly 1964 World's Fair, in a Mad Men era, Warhol chose to leave the panels up, but had them sprayed with opaque silver. Underneath the silver paint were images of homoerotic desire- handsome gangsters, veiled , censored, erased. Something of the Catholic iconicism of Warhol makes me think this plan, this veiling of truth- gay desire under a silver veil- as deeply subversive.
09/12/09
And perhaps humanity. If I may be so bold.
Actually each and every one of you here has. What a great discussion. (I will however not DARE click on that 'Show hidden threads' link... which I know will send me into the pits of despair.)