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Andy Warhol's photography is getting its own exhibit at Fotografiska this fall that will showcase more than 120 images, 20 of which have never been shown to the public before.
"Andy Warhol: Photo Factory," opening September 10, will pay homage to Warhol’s New York City studio and give viewers an inside look at his life and work. They'll come to understand how he experimented with photography and how it served as a springboard for his iconic silkscreen paintings, commissioned portraits, and commercial work.
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The exhibit will be split into six categories:
Polaroid portraits of celebrities, artists, and friends. You'll see Debbie Harry, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Dolly Parton, Grace Jones, Keith Haring and Giorgio Armani). Notably, among the Polaroids are nine photos from the "Ladies and Gentlemen" series of trans women, drag queens and civil rights icons that Warhol paid to pose for him like Marsha P. Johnson, but it also includes anonymous women whose portraits offer an intimate lens into their life and times. Additional Polaroids in the show depict inanimate objects and the torsos of nude models
Lesser-seen unique gelatin silver prints. Warhol photographed his creative process, friends, and surroundings, including hotel lobbies, room service trays and other inanimate objects.
Polaroid collages created for publications. Collages he made for Vogue Paris and Mondo Uomo will be on display.
16mm film Screen Tests from the mid-1960s
Photo booth strips taken in Times Square in the 1960s
The artist’s most recent stitched photographs series. This is Warhol's final body of work exhibited before his death in 1987. He physically sewed together prints in consecutive grids of four, six, and 12 images, incorporating his characteristic use of repetition.
Fotografiska is also screening four films: Archie and George with Coca Cola; Lou Reed; Edie Sedgwick and Kipp Stagg and Freddie’s Last Dance, throughout the exhibition, stemming from Warhol’s private "Screen Tests" series. They're short, black-and-white film portraits that display close-up and intimate shots of subjects from New York’s cultural scene.
The exhibit will be an amazing chance to get a new perspective of his work and see intimate and lesser-seen celebrities in ways you haven't before.
"Warhol was as restless as he was relentless and shortly after he took up film, he picked up his own cameras: Polaroids and nifty little point-and-shoots," says Curator, writer, and photography critic Vince Aletti. "All of Warhol’s silk-screened and painted portraits, both commissioned and otherwise, were based on his Polaroids. His sitters included an ever-changing pantheon of pop celebrities, from Dolly Parton to Keith Haring, Jane Fonda to Pele, as well as a gaggle of New York drag queens and a host of pretty boys only too happy to take their clothes off for the camera."
"Andy Warhol: Photo Factory" opens at Fotografiska (281 Park Avenue South) on September 10.
