Issue No. 220: 50 Years of the Art of Soup

I think I read that the Warhol Foundation in partnership with Campbell's Soup made something like 1.2 million of the four commemorative cans pictured below for sale at Target at $.75 per can starting yesterday (2 September). The LA Times and several bloggers predicted that all stores would sell out within "15 minutes". They didn't. But, last night I did notice that about a dozen Ebay sellers had

already listed sets of the four tomato soup cans with starting bids of as much as $24. I decided that purchasing a surplus of soup cans and squirreling them away might prove lucrative on a rainy day in a decade or so. If not, they'll make nice gifts.

This morning, I schlepped over to Target, filled my cart with sixteen Warhol cans and, upon checking out, discovered that Link would not cover my purchase. What does this mean? On a personal level, I guess that when you buy this special soup, you are getting the actual soup for free. What I paid for are the fancy labels; the paper. In terms of the big picture, why won't the government make a little donation of $675,000 to the Warhol Foundation (a non-for-profit that promotes the visual arts)? I'll investigate this more later.

Erik R. Peterson 

Issue No. 189: Max's Kansas City

Ted Lange ('Issac, the bartender') with Andy Warhol in 'The Love Boat' (Episode 200). It was filmed in March 1985 and was broadcast in October 1985.

Issue No. 132: An Excerpt from "Karl, Andy and Me".

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I get a sense that there was a deeply intrinsic need for people to "express" that is somehow threaded to the spirit of social change looming in the early 60s that has been eclipsed by the "I-got-mine's" attitude pervasive today. Also, you must keep in mind that Warhol/Morrissey were interested in creating a new kind of cinema (at least in the beginning) which was supposed to be an extension of Abstract Expressionist Painting. While thematically being extremely subversive and almost transgressive compared to the mainstream American cinema of the time. Even movies that touched on controversial subject matter like "Butterfield 8" were covered in a family-friendly veneer (which the Warhol/Morrissey films pealed away). Suddenly, the provincial movie-going audience was seeing objectification of the male nude form, homosexual sex, men beating women, queens being bitchy and reading each other, blatant iv drug use all presented in an unshielded, unapologetic, glorious way. It was modern independent cinema inventing itself, improvisational acting for unscripted dramas and queer culture namelessly birthing itself in the public eye. Whether you like the films or not, it's undeniable that they have laid a topical blueprint which the makers of transgressive and queer culture continue to draw from.

Yes, in many ways "Women in Revolt" is a shitty movie. By Hollywood - and even independent - standards, but it sparked and continues to spark very poignant cultural dialogues. Why does it take a cast of drag queens talking about radical feminist theory for radical feminist theory to actually have an impact? Would the luminaries of the New Drag Feminist Movement of the early 90s like Vaginal Davis exist if not for the legacy of the ladies preserved by that film?

It is wrong to compare Waters to Warhol/Morrissey. First of all, Waters has a definite, self-consciousness about making comedy that the audience is really going to laugh at. He's not inspired by high art, but bad COMMERCIAL film-making of the 50s. A huge distinction between him and Warhol. You somehow don't have to laugh out loud at Warhol/Morrissey to experience their films. Like being coked up or on speed when something amusing happens, one often laughs in the brain but is unable to physically manifest the guffaw. Waters mainly was a pot-smoker.
Another significant distinction. Waters also wrote very specific scripts which he insisted all his actors follow to the letter. If someone said "a" instead of "an" he would reshoot the scene. Warhol/Morrissey scripts were more akin to a modern Woody Allen script. Prose outlining concepts and themes which he wants the actors to improvise dialogue about.

"Heat" is an amazing meditation on many of the themes and concepts introduced by "Sunset Boulevard" viewed and then regurgitated through a prism of an amphetamine-attled eye of liberated queerness steeped in the fringe social mores of 1970................................................................................
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~ Erik Peterson

Issue No. 99: Andy Warhol Would Have Turned 83 Yesterday.

You glean new information everyday.

Warhol instructed Billy Name [ne Linich], to write back asking if Campbell's would be interested in purchasing any of the soup can pieces. This was the letter sent in reply:

From warholstars.org:

JULY 9 - AUGUST 4, 1962: ANDY WARHOL HAS HIS FIRST SOLO POP EXHIBITION.

The exhibition at Irving Blum's Ferus Gallery on La Cienega Blvd. in West Hollywood featured Warhol's series of 32 different canvases of Campbell's soup cans. A nearby supermarket piled up real Campbell's soup cans in their window, advertising them as "the real thing for only 29 cents a can."

Six of the Warhol paintings were sold for $100 each. The buyers included Don Factor, Betty Astor, Ed Jans and Bob Brown. Blum ended up getting the buyers to relinquish their ownership so that he could get keep the set together, and bought the entire series for $1,000.00 from Warhol, paying him $100.00 a month. (PS219) A year after Warhol died, Irving Blum was offered $10 million for the paintings. They are currently on permanent loan to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. (BC27)

Interesting.....

Issue No. 81: Inspiration or Recycling?

..a picture by Helmut Newton from 1985 [left] showing an outfit of Yves Saint Laurent's Rive Gauche collection from 1985. On the wall a portrait series by Andy Warhol done in 1972. Gucci's SS 2011 collection [right].

....a wonderful picture from 1971 by Barry Lategan [left] and a 70ties inspired collection by Marc Jacobs for SS 2011 [right].

David Bowie photographed by Geoff McCormack in 1973 might have inspired Riccardo Tisci to do this wonderful jacket in his last summer collection.

Source: intothefashion.com.