Three events come together this month, each of which presents a different aspect of the life and work of Andy Warhol. In London at the Coskun Gallery's new Walton Street space from 11 October to 22 December you can see Warhol's iconic paintings of Marilyn Monroe, Lenin and Jackie Kennedy which have been described as 'modern-age Madonnas'.
During the first week of the exhibition, the gallery will also be showing Warhol's epic homage to the Empire State Building in New York which he made in July 1964. Aiming his camera out of a window of the Time-Life Building, he recorded the Empire State over six hours, from twilight at 8:00pm through to darkness at 2:30am. The film contains just one image and, contrary to Hollywood conventions at the time, the film extends, rather than condenses, real time. Warhol used all the footage he shot unedited, and when the film premiered in March 1965 he projected it in slow motion, adding over two hours to the final running time. The full eight-hour film will be projected onto the exterior façade of the Coskun gallery as well as inside the gallery, from 11 -15 October.
To mark the 20th anniversary of Warhol's death in February 1987 Empire Editions are publishing Andy Warhol: The Day the Factory Died, a book of photographs from the artist's memorial service which took place at New York's Saint Patrick's Cathedral on 1 April 1987. The photographs taken by Christophe von Hohenberg, published for the first time in this beautifully produced book, feature a cavalcade of celebrities from the worlds of Hollywood, fashion, pop music, art and society. We publish a selection of the photographs below.
Von Hohenberg took over two hundred photos of the famous and infamous who attended the packed service. Fellow artists such as David Hockney, Francesco Clemente, Julian Schnabel, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Mapplethorpe and Yoko Ono attended along with art dealers Leo Castelli and Holly Solomon; the writers George Plimpton, Fran Lebowitz, Dominick Dunne and Tom Wolfe came to pay their respects as did popular music stars such as Liza Minnelli and Lou Reed, and fashion designers Calvin Klein and Diane von Furstenberg.
The book, designed by Daniel Stark of Stark Design in New York City, features endpapers of the day-glo, Stephen Sprouse-designed, Warhol camouflage aprons that the waiters wore at the luncheon following the memorial mass. The foreword which addresses Warhol's still controversial legacy is by Anthony Haden-Guest, and an essay by New York cultural historian and curator Charlie Scheips, who collaborated with von Hohenberg on the creation of the book, draws together the events of that day, recreating the character of the time, both as a search for a lost, bygone era but also as a guide for those too young to remember that halcyon era Warhol so profoundly influenced.
The book features over 45 letters from many of the notable figures present at the memorial service and concludes with rarely seen photos of the actual burial ceremony in Warhol's native Pittsburgh.
Andy Warhol: The Day the Factory Died is published by Empire Editions. For more information call +1 212 777 3730 or email info@empireeditions.com.
Also this month in London ARTPROJX and the Gagosian Gallery in association with The Royal Academy
will be premiering Ric Burns's new documentary film about Andy Warhol. The film will be shown on
Wednesday 25 October, 6.30pm - 11pm, at the Prince Charles Cinema near Leicester Square. For tickets (£10 which includes a beer and popcorn) call the Box Office on +44 (0) 20 7494 3654 (open 1-9pm).
The invitation to Andy Warhol's memorial service on 1 April 1987
The crowd outside the cathedral
Bianca Jagger
Diane von Furstenberg
Julian Schnabel
Claus von Bulow
Raquel Welch
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