Irresistible photographs of Warhol’s many-sided mise en scène
From The Velvet Underground to the silver studio-cum-squat-palace that was the Factory, Andy Warhol’s reach extended far beyond painting and screenprints. So ingrained is he in the fabric of modern culture it is virtually impossible to escape his influence even today. A new exhibition at the Centre Pompidou-Metz in France explores his many collaborations and the relationship between music, dance and art in his unfading body of work.
Warhol Underground uses music to recast Warhol’s work in a new light and includes more than 150 photographs from the likes of Steve Schapiro, Stephen Shore, Billy Name and Nat Finkelstein alongside some of the artist’s most iconic artworks. The exhibition’s audio-visual backbone is only further supported by a collection of record sleeves Warhol highly prized and a room filled with the silver cloud balloons that filled both the Factory and the set of Merce Cunningham’s 1968 dance performance Rainforest.
The photographs – some familiar, some lesser known – show Andy in repose, on the toilet, under a silver cloud, painting or posing with Lou Reed, Nico and The Velvet Underground, and manage to capture all that affected cool that somehow has most of us still utterly hooked on the king of pop.
Stephen Shore: Lou Reed, Andy Warhol, 1965-1967
Steve Schapiro: Andy Warhol and The Velvet Underground, Los Angeles, California, 1966
Stephen Shore: Andy Warhol, the Factory, NYC, 1965-1967
Steve Schapiro: Andy Warhol and The Velvet Underground, Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles, 1966
Stephen Shore: Warhol with ‘Silver Clouds’ in Factory, 1965-1967
Stephen Shore: Andy with Mirrored Disco Ball, 1965-1967
Andy Warhol posing as a secret agent in the Factory, New York, 1965
Andy Warhol at the Factory on the telephone, New York, 1968