‘Properly analytical … always entertaining’ TIME OUT
‘Should tempt both those generally familiar with Andy Warhol and, even more, young people who have trouble imagining how popular art can challenge the status quo’ L A TIMES
Painter, filmmaker, photographer, philosopher, all-round celebrity, Andy Warhol is an outstanding cultural icon. He revolutionised art by bringing to it images from popular culture – such as the Campbell’s soup can and Marilyn Monroe’s face – while his studio, the Factory, where his free-spirited cast of ‘superstars’ mingled with the rich and famous, became the place of origin for every groundswell shaping American culture.
In many ways he can be seen as the precursor to today’s ‘celebrity artists’ such as Tracey Emin and Damian Hurst. But what of the man behind the white wig and dark glasses? Koestenbaum gives a fascinating, revealing and thought-provoking picture of pop art’s greatest icon.
‘Should tempt both those generally familiar with Andy Warhol and, even more, young people who have trouble imagining how popular art can challenge the status quo’ L A TIMES
Painter, filmmaker, photographer, philosopher, all-round celebrity, Andy Warhol is an outstanding cultural icon. He revolutionised art by bringing to it images from popular culture – such as the Campbell’s soup can and Marilyn Monroe’s face – while his studio, the Factory, where his free-spirited cast of ‘superstars’ mingled with the rich and famous, became the place of origin for every groundswell shaping American culture.
In many ways he can be seen as the precursor to today’s ‘celebrity artists’ such as Tracey Emin and Damian Hurst. But what of the man behind the white wig and dark glasses? Koestenbaum gives a fascinating, revealing and thought-provoking picture of pop art’s greatest icon.
Newsletter Signup
By clicking ‘Sign Up,’ I acknowledge that I have read and agree to Hachette Book Group’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Use
Reviews
Throughout, Koestenbaum's engagements with Warhol's life and art, tinged with poetic brilliance and surgical dispassion, feel very high-stakes indeed, making this book an engrossing battle of wills
Koestenbaum gives us a Warhol who is ineffably sad but heroic too: a man full of bravado, patience, energy and devotion to work, to making things. It's a book that should tempt both those generally familiar with Andy Warhol and, even more, young people who have trouble imagining how popular art can challenge the status quo
Wayne Koestenbaum, an astute cultural critic who in the past has eloquently explored topics ranging from opera to Jacqueline Onassis, has written a brief biography, Andy Warhol, ... Instead of portraying Warhol as he has been popularly depicted for decades, as the pope of Pop, Koestenbaum sketches him as the sovereign of Swish. This is a portrait of Andy Warhol as the ''20th century's quintessential "queer" artist.'
A properly analytic, and always entertaining, account of Warhol's effort to record the encounter between his awkward, shamed and failing body and the corporeal lustre for which he longed.This is as smart and serious account as you could desire
