Andy Warhol never goes away, but 35 years after his death, he is everywhere. There are The Andy Warhol Diaries and Andy Warhol’s America on TV, The Collaboration and Chasing Andy Warhol in theatres on either side of the Atlantic, while Christie’s is hoping to net a record-setting $200m (£152m) when it auctions a 1964 Marilyn screen print next month.
Whole forests have been flattened trying to unravel the Warhol enigma – Blake Gopnik’s 2020 biography thuds in at 976 pages. Yet in just 55 minutes, Lou Reed and John Cale’s 1990 album and film Songs for Drella get to the heart of a man obscured by his wig, shades and blank expression. Their song cycle starts with Smalltown, a jaunty portrait of Warhol’s childhood in Pittsburgh, “Bad skin, bad eyes, gay and faddy” (or is it “fatty”?), through his hyper-productive golden era in the 60s, to his later years battling pain from the wounds sustained when he was shot by Valerie Solanas (author of the Society for Cutting Up Men Manifesto), alienation from collaborators and friends, and a growing dearth of ideas. All the themes biographers have subsequently treated as great revelations – Warhol’s Catholicism, his queerness, his relationship with his mother – are here, explored with taut precision and economy.
