Pat Hackett
Author of The Andy Warhol Diaries
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Recent viewings in Experimental Film and Video (April 2013)
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POPism is a surprisingly slow, though still very enjoyable, read. Why does it drag so? Isn't pop, by its very nature, supposed to be easily consumed and digested? After all, we're talking about a style that isn't supposed to take itself seriously, present nothing meaningful beyond surface appearances (and those superficial appearances aren't supposed to be meaningful either, are they?), find the easiest route along the flashiest path, coalesce and decay quickly, look modish and hip, never show more sleep (with the help of copious amphetamines), talk brilliantly if nonsensically, be entirely accessible and "real," and embrace the spirit of everything goes *and* everything is good.
Is "everything goes," good?
My suspicion is that this account of the 60s, which in tone sounds more like Hackett to me even if the content is Warhol, betrays the bleak possibility that pop fun is merely the glossy front for parasitic and self-destructive a-heads, vapid (though sometimes attractive) style over non-existent substance, tedious self-involvement, rank consumerism, and the dread nihilism of Nietzschean transvaluation of values. Not for nothing did critics accuse Warhol of base exploitation and amorality. Warhol writes about Tiger Morse in a way that others could have written about him:
Oh. Not sure if that is supposed to explain or excuse or both. Either way, I can admit to a persistent desire at this point and throughout the entire book: tell me more.
Warhol notes that what started as a chaotic open house atmosphere at The Factory in the early and mid 60s ended with a sense of doom and downright violence. MLK, Jr. and RFK were both assassinated, and even Warhol himself took a bullet from which he never psychologically recovered. Was it inevitable that Warhol would be shot by Valerie Solanas? Perhaps it was.
Throughout this book, which is a worthy read, I heard Allan Bloom shouting over the din created by the Velvet Underground and the "happenings" of the Exploding Plastic Inevitable. In The Closing of the American Mind, Bloom writes,
A lament from Allan Bloom; a victory for Andy Warhol. Truly, what a fascinating time to read about and POPism a wonderful book from which to dive in. show less
Is "everything goes," good?
My suspicion is that this account of the 60s, which in tone sounds more like Hackett to me even if the content is Warhol, betrays the bleak possibility that pop fun is merely the glossy front for parasitic and self-destructive a-heads, vapid (though sometimes attractive) style over non-existent substance, tedious self-involvement, rank consumerism, and the dread nihilism of Nietzschean transvaluation of values. Not for nothing did critics accuse Warhol of base exploitation and amorality. Warhol writes about Tiger Morse in a way that others could have written about him:
I've heard people say, "Tiger Morse was a fraud." Well, of course she was, but she was a real fraud.
Oh. Not sure if that is supposed to explain or excuse or both. Either way, I can admit to a persistent desire at this point and throughout the entire book: tell me more.
Warhol notes that what started as a chaotic open house atmosphere at The Factory in the early and mid 60s ended with a sense of doom and downright violence. MLK, Jr. and RFK were both assassinated, and even Warhol himself took a bullet from which he never psychologically recovered. Was it inevitable that Warhol would be shot by Valerie Solanas? Perhaps it was.
Throughout this book, which is a worthy read, I heard Allan Bloom shouting over the din created by the Velvet Underground and the "happenings" of the Exploding Plastic Inevitable. In The Closing of the American Mind, Bloom writes,
Around the campus disruptions and the student movement there has grown up a mythology...that the fifties were a period of intellectual conformism and superficiality, whereas there was real excitement and questioning in the sixties. McCarthyism--invoked when Stalinism is mentioned in order to even the balance of injustice between the two superpowers--symbolizes those gray, grim years, while the blazing sixties were the days of "the movement" and, to hear its survivors tell it, their single-handed liberation of the blacks, the women and the South Vietnamese. Without entering into the strictly political issues, the intellectual picture projected is precisely the opposite of the truth. The sixties were the period of dogmatic answers and trivial tracts. Not a single book of lasting importance was produced in or around the movement. It was all Norman O. Brown and Charles Reich. This was when conformism hit the universities, when opinions about everything from God to the movies became absolutely predictable. The evidence brought from pop culture to bolster the case for the sixties--that in the fifties Lana Turner played torchy, insincere adulteresses while in the sixties we got Jane Fonda as an authentic whore; that before the sixties we had Paul Anka and after we had the Rolling Stones--is of no importance. Even if this characterization were true, it would only go to prove that there is no relation between popular culture and high culture, and that the former is all that is now influential on the scene.
A lament from Allan Bloom; a victory for Andy Warhol. Truly, what a fascinating time to read about and POPism a wonderful book from which to dive in. show less
Well, it's Andy Warhol, so it's pretty much what you'd expect. Generally speaking, his secretary Pat Hackett did a fine job of turning Warhol's recollections into a readable book, but she made him sound nicer than he was. Even in the sympathetic biographies (like Victor Bockris's), Warhol doesn't come off as the harmless, almost goody-two-shoes voyeur he tries to be in POPism, so take this portrayal with a grain of salt.
It's never directly stated, of course, but this book isn't about the show more 1960s: that's just the incidental garnish. It's actually about an ambitious eccentric who, via his art and considerable luck, made contact with stratospherically rich people who collected paintings and enabled him to become a celebrity (and to indulge his crueler instincts). Did some part of Warhol--who came from a desperately poor background--hate these people? Probably. But another part of him yearned to join their ranks, and he made it. By the end, he had nothing like a human personality ("I don't think that there is any person there," William S. Burroughs once remarked to David Bowie)...but that, too, aligned with Warhol's desires. Or so he said. Certainly, he was famous for being a nonpersonality--a real-life cartoon character--rather than for his art. (If you've ever wondered what Pop looked like when painted by people with actual artistic talent, check out the work of Tom Wesselmann or Alex Katz.)
POPism underscores the fact that what went on at the Factory was far more interesting than Warhol's artistic output. (Does anyone really care about 100 Brillo Boxes or 40 Gold Marilyns at this stage of the game?) He and the wealthy, manipulative art crowd survived, but many of the people who gave this narrative its drama--Fred Herko, Danny Williams, Andrea Feldman, Eric Emerson--did not. The story about a drunken Judy Garland singing "Over the Rainbow" with a mouthful of spaghetti is funny, sort of, but it's also mean-spirited. Much of the book is just spiteful without being even slightly funny, and the smarmily casual tone fails to disguise the intent. show less
It's never directly stated, of course, but this book isn't about the show more 1960s: that's just the incidental garnish. It's actually about an ambitious eccentric who, via his art and considerable luck, made contact with stratospherically rich people who collected paintings and enabled him to become a celebrity (and to indulge his crueler instincts). Did some part of Warhol--who came from a desperately poor background--hate these people? Probably. But another part of him yearned to join their ranks, and he made it. By the end, he had nothing like a human personality ("I don't think that there is any person there," William S. Burroughs once remarked to David Bowie)...but that, too, aligned with Warhol's desires. Or so he said. Certainly, he was famous for being a nonpersonality--a real-life cartoon character--rather than for his art. (If you've ever wondered what Pop looked like when painted by people with actual artistic talent, check out the work of Tom Wesselmann or Alex Katz.)
POPism underscores the fact that what went on at the Factory was far more interesting than Warhol's artistic output. (Does anyone really care about 100 Brillo Boxes or 40 Gold Marilyns at this stage of the game?) He and the wealthy, manipulative art crowd survived, but many of the people who gave this narrative its drama--Fred Herko, Danny Williams, Andrea Feldman, Eric Emerson--did not. The story about a drunken Judy Garland singing "Over the Rainbow" with a mouthful of spaghetti is funny, sort of, but it's also mean-spirited. Much of the book is just spiteful without being even slightly funny, and the smarmily casual tone fails to disguise the intent. show less
I came to this book since I was into Velvet Underground, (some) Warhol movies, artists out of The Factory, etc. However I was confronted with one of my own pet peeves; people that were born in the early 50s and talk about the decade like they were a teenager or adult like people born in the late 30s talking about WWII like they were vets. There ought to be a word for that. I was born in '70 and this diary is '76-'86 and seems like recollections from my adult life: affluent Iranian jet show more setters, SSTs, Jerry Hall, etc. Little things jump out in these largely banal reports of going to parties, etc. He often has to "glue" because he was bald, but there is no need or desire to explain, he dealt with that like the "surgical corsets" he must wear after being shot by radical feminist writer Valerie Solanas. Possibly these trite things stand out to me since Warhol comes across as so ... uncomfortable, but comfortably so... Does that make since. Like an observer from an alien world who knows that he doesn't fit in. show less
My husband surprised me with this book for Christmas, meaning it was not one that I had asked for beforehand. Another surprise was how much I enjoyed reading it. It is a big book and I initially thought it would take a long time for me to finish, but I read it constantly whenever I could (that it was partly during winter break -- a slower time than the usual routine helped me finish it sooner).
The Andy Warhol Diaries is not what either of us thought it would be -- it is not an in-depth show more analysis of what he did artistically. Neither is it a diary that Warhol penned with his own hand. In the 1970s, Warhol began relating his daily incidents to his employee, Pat Hackett, over the phone. She would write longhand then type it out, turning the pages in to him on a regular basis. This continued on until his death from complications of a gallbladder operation in 1987. Pat Hackett then condensed the diaries into this book; it was originally published not long after his death.
During the time frame that the diary was "written" Warhol was already established as an artist and employed people to assist in his creations, so it was largely up to him to schmooze and party with people who would be potential clients -- clients that would pay $25,000 to have their portraits done in the traditional Warhol style. While he did other works during this time, the portraits were Warhol's bread-and-butter (to support himself and the salaries of his employees).
Being part of New York society means that Warhol associated with a lot of famous names -- Halston, Bianca Jagger, Jamie and Phyllis Wyeth, Yoko Ono and her son Sean Lennon, and so on and so on. These people seemed to party constantly! Warhol would mention coke, amphetamines, and so forth. Going into the 1980s, he begins to mention people who were sick with (or suspected to be sick with) the "gay cancer".
I enjoyed his often-sharp observations on people and events. Although, he could sometimes be dismissive of other artists such as referring to one of Andrew Wyeth's sister as "nutty who looks like she drinks and paints" (Nov. 25, 1976), or attending a Georgia O'Keeffe show and he says "she does these flowers and slashes and all she does is paint vaginas. And we saw some other people stuff and you can tell the girls' stuff always because it's simple things, it's the easy stuff. You can tell". (Aug 2, 1981)
Sometimes one gets a glimpse of people who get better-known and in some cases, more significant, much later on (usually after Andy's death): An entry for August 2, 1982 starts out with: "Mark Ginsburg was bringing Indira Gandhi's daughter down and he was calling and Ina was calling and Bob was calling saying how important this was, so I gave up my exercise class and it turned out to be just the daughter-in-law, who's Italian, she doesn't even look Indian". That would be Sonia Gandhi who became a prominent Indian politician in her own right.
Warhol did some artistic collaborations with Jean-Michel Basquiat, and several diary entries discuss Basquiat's drug addictions and on January 12, 1985, Warhol says: "Someone was saying that when all these [art] dealers heard there was a really talented black artist who would probably die off soon from drugs, that they hurried to buy his things and now I guess they're frustrated because he's staying alive. I think Jean Michel will be the most famous black artist after this New York Times thing comes out". Basquiat did eventually die of a drug overdose a year after Warhol's death.
When I finished reading this, I was left wishing that Warhol had done this diary format from the beginning-- then readers would get a glimpse of his daily life when he was developing as an artist, how he came up with his artistic concepts, and so forth. show less
The Andy Warhol Diaries is not what either of us thought it would be -- it is not an in-depth show more analysis of what he did artistically. Neither is it a diary that Warhol penned with his own hand. In the 1970s, Warhol began relating his daily incidents to his employee, Pat Hackett, over the phone. She would write longhand then type it out, turning the pages in to him on a regular basis. This continued on until his death from complications of a gallbladder operation in 1987. Pat Hackett then condensed the diaries into this book; it was originally published not long after his death.
During the time frame that the diary was "written" Warhol was already established as an artist and employed people to assist in his creations, so it was largely up to him to schmooze and party with people who would be potential clients -- clients that would pay $25,000 to have their portraits done in the traditional Warhol style. While he did other works during this time, the portraits were Warhol's bread-and-butter (to support himself and the salaries of his employees).
Being part of New York society means that Warhol associated with a lot of famous names -- Halston, Bianca Jagger, Jamie and Phyllis Wyeth, Yoko Ono and her son Sean Lennon, and so on and so on. These people seemed to party constantly! Warhol would mention coke, amphetamines, and so forth. Going into the 1980s, he begins to mention people who were sick with (or suspected to be sick with) the "gay cancer".
I enjoyed his often-sharp observations on people and events. Although, he could sometimes be dismissive of other artists such as referring to one of Andrew Wyeth's sister as "nutty who looks like she drinks and paints" (Nov. 25, 1976), or attending a Georgia O'Keeffe show and he says "she does these flowers and slashes and all she does is paint vaginas. And we saw some other people stuff and you can tell the girls' stuff always because it's simple things, it's the easy stuff. You can tell". (Aug 2, 1981)
Sometimes one gets a glimpse of people who get better-known and in some cases, more significant, much later on (usually after Andy's death): An entry for August 2, 1982 starts out with: "Mark Ginsburg was bringing Indira Gandhi's daughter down and he was calling and Ina was calling and Bob was calling saying how important this was, so I gave up my exercise class and it turned out to be just the daughter-in-law, who's Italian, she doesn't even look Indian". That would be Sonia Gandhi who became a prominent Indian politician in her own right.
Warhol did some artistic collaborations with Jean-Michel Basquiat, and several diary entries discuss Basquiat's drug addictions and on January 12, 1985, Warhol says: "Someone was saying that when all these [art] dealers heard there was a really talented black artist who would probably die off soon from drugs, that they hurried to buy his things and now I guess they're frustrated because he's staying alive. I think Jean Michel will be the most famous black artist after this New York Times thing comes out". Basquiat did eventually die of a drug overdose a year after Warhol's death.
When I finished reading this, I was left wishing that Warhol had done this diary format from the beginning-- then readers would get a glimpse of his daily life when he was developing as an artist, how he came up with his artistic concepts, and so forth. show less
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