Andy's conceptual approach to art

"I did not shoot Andy Warhol" part III:

I just realized that the reason that I wanted to write about Warhol was because he has been an influence to every kind of art and artist of today. Also last week's article needs a conclusion or rather a closing with what has been happening to his work and his paintings.

Getting back into the character, last week we were talking about Andy and his 15 minutes of fame: Andy Warhol dreamed of a television show that he wanted to call 'The Nothing Special', a special about his favourite subject: Nothing. Later in his career he did create two cable television shows, Andy Warhol's TV in 1982 and Andy Warhol's Fifteen Minutes (based on his famous quotation) for MTV in 1986. Besides his own shows he regularly made guest appearances on other programs, including The Love Boat. In 1979, Warhol appeared as himself in the film 'Cocaine Cowboys'.

Warhol's photographic approach to paintings really effected and influenced art scene all over the world. To produce his silk-screens, Warhol made photographs or had them made by his friends and assistants. These pictures were mostly taken with a specific model of Polaroid camera that Polaroid kept in production especially for Warhol. This photographic approach to painting and his snapshot method of taking pictures has had a great effect on artistic photography. Warhol was an accomplished photographer, and took an enormous amount of photographs of factory visitors, friends. Warhol was also friendly with many recording artists, including Deborah Harry, Grace johns, Diana Ross and John Lennon, and he designed the cover to Lennon's 1986 Album. Warhol also appeared as a bartender in The Cars' music video for their single "Hello Again", and Curiosity Killed The Cat's video for their "Misfit" single (both videos, and others, were produced by Warhol's video production company).

Warhol strongly influenced the New Wave / Punk Rock band Devo, as well asDavid Bowie. Bowie recorded a song called Andy Warhol's Silver Screen" for is 1971 album Hunky Dorey . Lou Reed wrote the song "Andy's Chest", aboutthe woman who shot Warhol, in 1968. He recorded it with the Velvet

Underground, but this version wasn't officially released until the VU album appeared in 1985. He recorded a new version for his 1972 solo album Transformer produced by Bowie and Mike Ronson.

Warhol had a re-emergence of critical and financial success in the 1980s,partially due to his affiliation and friendships with a number of prolific younger artists, who were dominating the Bull Market of '80s New York art:Jean Michele Basqiat, Julian Schnable, and other so-called Neo-Expressionists as well as members of the Transavantgarde movement in Europe, including Francesco Clemente and Enzo Cucchi. On February 14 1987, Andy Warhol rang his dermatologist, Karen Burke , about a pain in his right side that he had had for awhile. He had been in a lot of pain in Italy the previous month while there for a show of his Last Supper paintings. Warhol had checked into room number 1204 of New York Hospital's BakerPavillion under the name of Bob Roberts'. He kept his wig on throughout his

hospital stay, including during the gallbladder operation. During theoperation the surgeon also repaired a hernia which Andy had since his shooting in 1968. Although the gallbladder operation went fine, Warhol died early in the morning Sunday February 22, 1987 - on Billy Name's birthday - from an unexpected heart attack. After his passing, Warhol was portrayed by Crispin Glover in Oliver Stone'smovie 'The Doos' (1991), by david Bowie in Basqiat, a film by Julian Schnabel, and by Jared Harris in the film 'I shot Andy Warhol', directed by marry Harron (1996). Warhol appears as a character in Michael Daugherty's 1997 opera Jackie O. Actor Mark Bringleson makes a brief cameo as Warhol in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997). Many films by avant-garde cineast Jonas Mekas have caught the moments of Andy's life. Sean Gregory Sullivan depicted Warhol in the 1998 film 54. Guy Pearce potrayed Warhol in the 2007 film, Factory Girl, about Edie Sedgwick's life. Actor Greg Travis portrays Warhol in a brief scene from the 2009 film Watchmen.

I remember the shooting of the movie, Basquiat in 1995, I was walking downin downtown somewhere near Bowery Street and ran into a friend who was working in the movie. He said, David Bowie and Gary Oldman were having a good time and they were singing "dancing on the street" and dancing on thestreet.

When I sat down to write the first half of this article in the early days ofthis month of September, I got to know that very week a multimillion-dollar collection of artwork by Andy Warhol was stolen from the home of a wealthy art collector in West Los Angeles. Los Angeles Police Department reported that : The valuable collection included 10 silk-screen paintings of famous sports figures, among them Muhammad Ali, Chris Evert, Jack Nicklaus and O. J. Simpson. According to investigators, the artwork was on display in the dining room of Richard Weisman, a businessman and art connoisseur whose well-known collection was featured in a book he published in 2003, "Picasso to Pop: The Richard Weisman Collection." The paintings are about 40 inches by 40 inches each, and were created between 1977 and 1979.

Warhol influenced many of my generation artists as well as few generationsbefore us as well. My biggest influence from Andy is that, to think like him and his conceptual approach to art through life and living.