I'll Be Your Mirror: The Selected Andy Warhol Interviews (14 page)
Read I'll Be Your Mirror: The Selected Andy Warhol Interviews Online
Authors: Kenneth Goldsmith
Bay Times
Reporter”
JOSEPH FREEMAN
October 30, 1965
Bay Times, Sheepshead Bay High School, Brooklyn,
New York, April 1, 1966
Andy Warhol’s Index (Book), 1967
In 1967, Andy Warhol published Andy Warhol’s Index (Book) (Random House/Black Star Books: New York). It was a portrait of Warhol’s scene at the Factory and included photographs of Andy and his friends, pop-up pages, a silver balloon, and a flexidisc with sounds from tape recordings Warhol had made ofNico talking to poet Rene Ricard. Also included were the following three interviews: one done for a high school student newspaper in Brooklyn, another with a German reporter at the Factory, and a third focusing exclusively on Warhols film Chelsea Girls.
Billy Name, who was in charge of the book’s production, recalled: “I originally called the book Andy Warhol’s Index. The idea was to publish an index of films which viewers should see (all of Andy Warhol’s films) as opposed to the Catholic Church ‘index’ of films to be avoided as censored by the church (many of the operators at the Factory were Catholic). Random House objected, saying the project was supposed to be a ‘book.’ So I changed the title to Andy Warhol’s Index (Book).”
Name was also in charge of selecting texts for the book. “None of the interviews contained in Andy Warhol’s Index (Book) were done for this project; I selected them from our folder of interviews about the Factory which had already appeared elsewhere in print, in order to have some literary-text content in the book along with all the photo images I had at my disposal. The reason these interviews were chosen for the book is because they appeared to contain a substantial amount of text, thereby fulfilling the ‘need’ for reading matter in the book. We had several interviews on file and the ones I chose seemed to be the most ‘charming,’ ridiculous, or the most like ‘Warhol Factory stuff (as opposed to New York Times or Art in America stuff).”
Joseph Freeman was a student at Brooklyn’s Sheepshead Bay High School when he interviewed Warhol. The experience had such a marked effect on him that, according to Name, ‘After interviewing Warhol, Freeman was asked by Andy to work at the Factory as Andy’s paid assistant. He did what Gerard Malanga had previously done; helping with silkscreening paintings, screen cleanup and general gopher.” The Bay Times is still published twice a year by Sheepshead Bay High School.
–KG
“Do you think pop art is. . . .”
“No.”
“What?”
“No.”
“Do you think pop art is. . . .”
“No . . . no, I don’t.”
“Why did you leave commercial art?”
“Uhhh, because I was making too much money at it.”
“Is your present work more self-satisfying?”
“Uhhh, no.”
“OK, if you say so. Are you drawing for yourself to express your individuality more fully or because you are so well paid?”
“Uhhh . . . well, Gerard does all my paintings.”
“What was the purpose of making a 4 ½ hour film of Robert Indiana eating two mushrooms?”
“How do you know it was two mushrooms? It was only one mushroom.”
“Well, in the article I read it said it was two mushrooms.”
“Oh, it was one mushroom.”
“What was the purpose of it?”
“Well, it took him that long to eat one mushroom.”
“I mean, why did you have to film it?”
“Uhhh, I don’t know. He was there and he was eating a mushroom.”
“About how much time do you spend on your painting?”
“No time. . . . What color are your eyes?”
“I think they’re blue but my mother says they change a lot.”
“They look . . . they look brown.”
“Yeah, that’s what she says. She says at night they look brown.”
“Well, why’d you say they were blue?”
“Because that’s the color I’ve known all my life. She says they’re blue.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, they’re blue.”
“They’re brown.”
“They’re blue.”
“They’re brown.”
“Yeah, I mean, you know, it’s not my fault. I just thought they were blue.”
“They’re so black. The middle part is so black. . . . What kind of paintings do you paint?”
“You know, my mother and father just bought me an easel and a . . . uh . . . uh . . . what’s that thing called?”
“A brush?”
“Yeah, a brush. And a palette and a sketch box, and I didn’t paint anything yet.”
“Why don’t you put some paint on the floor, and then put the canvas . . . do you have a room . . . your own room?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, take the canvas that they gave you and put it in the doorway, and then put paint in front of the doorway, and then somebody will step in the paint and on the canvas. And then you won’t have to do anything.”
“But that wouldn’t be my own work.”
“It would be pretty colors.”
“Yeah, it would be pretty colors but that’s not exactly what I wanted to do.”
“What did you want me to do?”
“I like shapes.”
“You could have a shape on your foot.”
“Maybe I could put a rubber stamp on my foot.”
“Yeah, it would be fantastic.”
UNKNOWN GERMAN REPORTER
1966-67
Andy Warhol’s Index (Book), 1967
The origin of this interview with a German reporter is murky. Billy Name: “I used the interview without permission (as with all included contents), and do not recall the name of the reporter or his publication.” The interview was originally set in two typefaces, with the German reporter’s words in a gothic typeface and Andy’s in a clean sans-serif. “I used the two-different-type set-up in the book to accent the stylization of cultures and for design and flavor purposes,’” says Name. The interview is reproduced here without the original typographical treatment.
The Balloon Farm, a nightclub on St. Mark’s Place in the East Village, was originally called The Dom. Warhol presented the Exploding Plastic Inevitable there in April of 1966. In the late summer of 1966, Bob Dylan’s manager, Albert Grossman and a partner took over the Dom and renamed it the Balloon Farm.
–KG
GERMAN REPORTER:–You know this is the second evening I am here and first you weren’t here and now you, I finally got you. And what I felt is a feeling of composition of many things which are seemingly disconnected, yet then made a whole, and is that what you want to do right here as we just talk about the discoteque [
sic
], a match between the dance floor, the music, the film, etc.?
ANDY:–Different people getting together (
indistinct
)
GERMAN REPORTER:–And to get these people who have a kind of sensual impulses from what they are getting here.
ANDY:–Yeah.
GERMAN REPORTER:–How does that fit into the other work you are doing? Because, you are called a pop-artist, which I know means very little, because what does “pop” mean after all. It’s something totally new and we can put anything into it that we want. How would you yourself put into it–how would you define who you are and what you want to do?
ANDY:–It keeps me busy.
GERMAN REPORTER:–It keeps you busy, but you are working, you are a craftsman, an artist, and you have a studio, you are making films. Now, for instance, let’s talk film-making. You are making so-called “underground” films, also another word. But what does it depict, and what do you want to depict in the films you are making?
ANDY:–I haven’t thought about it yet.
GERMAN REPORTER:–You are a difficult subject to interview, because. . . .
ANDY:–I told you, I don’t say much.
GERMAN REPORTER:–Yah, I know. I know. Talk is very little, doing is everything.
ANDY:–Yes.
GERMAN REPORTER:–You don’t want to talk at all..
ANDY:–Eh. No.
GERMAN REPORTER:–You said that you were willing to talk to me. And obviously, since you were nice enough to say, well, okay, we’ll talk, that I would ask you questions, and that the questions would be more or less that I would like a definition of Andy Warhol, because I wouldn’t want to define you, I would rather have a definition of you about yourself and the role you think you are playing among young people, because they are flocking to you. They are adoring you. They love you. I know that because I have talked to many. This is what interests me and it interests me what it does to you.
ANDY:–Nothing.
GERMAN REPORTER:–You just want to go back to your–I mean you are going around sitting here and you’re sitting there watching–going back to your factory and so on–that is your own private life and nobody else’s business.
ANDY:–What do you mean?
GERMAN REPORTER:–A lot has been written about you. And was this without your cooperation?
ANDY:–Eh, yah.
GERMAN REPORTER:–You mean, people have just seen what you have done and observed and, therefore, Andy Warhol was formed for them?
ANDY:–Yah.
GERMAN REPORTER:–Since when do you have the discoteque [
sic
]? How did this occur to you that you would open this at all?
ANDY:–It happened all by itself.
GERMAN REPORTER:–Really?
ANDY:–Yah.
GERMAN REPORTER:–It just happened. All these things are really, I mean, they happened? And your relationship to people who are coming here–I talked to Nico and to Ingrid and so on. I have a feeling that it is all happening. They are just there. I mean they drink coffee, then eat a piece of salami and then they go on stage and then they come back and you are here or you are not here and so all this kind of logical things where it is very difficult to find the logic, and why should it?
ANDY:–No, no. There isn’t any.
GERMAN REPORTER:–But there is a connection between here and when you go to your factory and work there. . . .
ANDY:–No. . . .
GERMAN REPORTER:–There is a connection. . . .
ANDY:–No.
GERMAN REPORTER:–And, what are you working on now, if you care to say?
ANDY:–I wouldn’t.
GERMAN REPORTER:–You wouldn’t.
ANDY:–No, I’m not working on anything.
GERMAN REPORTER:–Not on films?
ANDY–Eh, well, we’re starting tomorrow again.
GERMAN REPORTER:–Isn’t there something that Nico is in where you make people enter and come?
ANDY:–Yah, but we did that three weeks ago.
GERMAN REPORTER:–What is the subject?
ANDY:–There’s no subject.
GERMAN REPORTER:–There’s no subject. It’s a short. . . .
ANDY:–No.
GERMAN REPORTER:–Long. . . .
ANDY:–About 70 minutes long.
GERMAN REPORTER:–And, are they talented girls? I mean. . . .
ANDY:–They’re young.
GERMAN REPORTER:–They’re future . . .
ANDY:–Yes.
GERMAN REPORTER:–. . . but only within the framework of what you are doing, or do you think one day they will go away and become film. . . .
ANDY:–Yah.
GERMAN REPORTER:–Yes, you would like that?
ANDY:–Oh, sure. Yes.
GERMAN REPORTER:–Does your life go in rounds always? Would you describe any direction? I mean, I could. It bores me to tears, but I could describe the direction.
ANDY:–No.
GERMAN REPORTER:–You would not.
ANDY:–You tell me.
GERMAN REPORTER:–Well, I cannot tell you. I mean, I can tell you what my life’s direction is–it’s misdirection, but it is one. But you wouldn’t even say it’s a misdirection.
ANDY:–No.
GERMAN REPORTER:–Are you satisfied? Are you happy?
ANDY:–Oh yeah. Yeah.
GERMAN REPORTER:–Have you any inkling, do you know why you are happy?
ANDY:–(
No reply
)
Chelsea Girls
”
GERARD MALANGA
1966
Arts, February 1967
Andy Warhol’s Index (Book), 1967
Chelsea Girls, a three-and-a-half-hour split-screen film, was Warhols most successful 1960s movie and a breakthrough film for the underground genre. As David Bourdon succinctly stated, “The word around town was that underground cinema had finally found its Sound of Music in Chelsea Girls” (Bourdon, 249). After opening at the Film-Makers Cinémathèque, it moved to the Cinema Rendezvous on December 1, 1966, making it the first underground film to get a two-week run in a midtown Manhattan art theater. Extraordinary national press combined with word-of-mouth praise led to a series of sold-out screenings in New York and before long, it was playing in theatres across the country.
The film was not conceived as a whole; rather, it is a compilation of various reels that Warhol had been shooting during the summer of 1966. The final film consists of twelve different reels of film–eight in black-and-white and four in color–juxtaposed side by side on a single screen; it documents the life of Warhol’s female associates (Nico, Brigid Polk, International Velvet), many of whom lived in The Chelsea Hotel on West 23rd Street in New York City. Although screenwriter Ronald Tavel had written two scripts for the film, most of it was improvised. The superstars played themselves, often acting outrageously for the camera, blurring the line between documentary and fiction, giving mainstream America a glimpse into the mid-60s underground New York lifestyle.
–KG