Happy Birthday, Andy!

It’s no secret that we’re big fans of Andy Warhol here at Christie’s. To properly honor the Pop King on his 85th birthday we’ve chosen some quotes from three of our favorite essays on Warhol: 

From “Andy Mirrorball” by Jonathan Lethem:

“When Andy Mirrorball begged us to look or to let him look it added up to the same thing: an attempt to armor himself in rebounding glances, but not to let any single glance cut too deep, please.”

“In the Warholian formulation, the human subject had been transformed into the perfect commodity at precisely the instant that it was exposed as a construction of glances in mirrors.”

“Now, so many years since his death – in a process beginning perhaps upon the instant of his perishing – Warhol seems more alive than ever, his personality completely unhidden. What revealed itself in particular was the tenderness, loneliness, and terror he never seemed to do anything but brandish, yet which couldn’t be appreciated during his sensibility’s official regime.” 

“Andy Warhol was, from the first and to the end, like Tarzan, a kind of feral child, in the jungle of the 20th century.”

From  “The Look of Being Looked At” by Jeanette Winterson: 

“The longer we look at a Warhol the more mysterious it becomes. That is a good test of a work of art.”

“Forget the famous face, forget the Warhol. What do you see?”

“This is Oscar Wilde’s Dorian Grey for the Airbrush Age.”

“Look at a piece of Andy art and it does what it says on the tin. Even when the tin says SOUP.”

From “Andy-As-Mom” by Hilton Als: 

“Warhol’s photographs documented the playthings his children cherished: champagne glasses, glitter, city sidewalks, nail polish, tarnished dreams, and most importantly, hope.”

“The wig was the subject of the photograph, not Warhol.”