Andy Warhol is forever an attendee at his own shows. No less so last Wednesday, at an exhibit and book launch for a collection of Factory hey-day candids, where rows of his face beamed down from the walls.
An early crowd had gathered at Zwirner and Wirth’s Upper East Side townhouse gallery, many shooting sidelong glances and murmurs. The parlor game was fixing names for some of the now-elusive faces. Even boldface names go to the great beyond, and some of us were having more difficulty than others navigating past the Biancas and Basquiats.
An elderly Italian man gestured to a young Sly, exuding a remarkable air of savoir-faire for a guy in a g-string: “Steh-Lohne.”
One very young girl, game to the challenge, circulated through the room in a flurry of fingers stabbing air, exclaiming “Andy!” upon each successful spotting.
Andy, the original Pale Male, would likely approve.
Upstairs, four more walls of photos and Andys!, and a TV looping his adventures in cable access.
Rose Hartman paces slower than most others, sizing up each photo individually. With her short but meaningful bearing, a bright shock of hair shooting upright and an aristocratic face, she has the intent look of a scrutineer here.
Hartman shot Bianca Jagger on the white horse in Studio 54. There’s a Goldfrapp single in rotation now called, in homage, “Ride a White Horse”.
Advancing through the room, Hartman verbally captions the shots and their subjects aloud. Art dealers, dancers, models who are not actresses, musicians and artists, all in a giddy swirl.
She drags a reluctant man over to one picture. In the photo, his younger self appears to be holding up Jerry Hall.
“Actually, I was only holding her joint,” he explains.
Is it possible to find a true candid of Andy? Not here.
Rose has one, she says: his mouth pressed to Jerry Hall’s ear in mid-gossip, eyes alighting on her face, wholly unprepared for the camera. “It was very unusual to catch him unprepared.”
Otherwise, he was always on, the camera’s paramour.
“He certainly knew who to fall in love with.”
The townhouse is thrumming with people now, art kids and scenesters of at least two generations, suits and blue-hairs. Manque artists, poseurs and drag queens twirl. Rodney Dangerfield looks on from the wall. A bouquet of cameraphones sprout intently above the crush of people.
Some folks have come not to preen but to recollect. Both seem fitting ways to channel the Andy spirit.
“It’s all so over now,” says Rose. “It was such a special time because it was so short lived. I’m not saying this to be negative; it’s the way it was. Only the clever and the healthy survived.”
“So many people didn’t. Like Halston, Victor Hugo, Perry Ellis, and so on.” Rose gestures to the pictures as she talks. “Either drugs or AIDS befell them. There’s no more fun to be had. It’s done.”
That’s why, she explains, she just got back from Buenos Aries. There’s some fun yet, her smile seems to say.
“Three pesos to one dollar ain’t bad, kid.”
Jeff MacIntyre
[Pulled due to the breaking Page Six scandal. Editor had some kind words for it, however, and the event was darn memorable.]
