ii iii

iv v
Published by the National
Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne,
in collaboration with The Andy Edited by Max Delany & Eric Shiner
Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh
viii ix
Contents Foreword xiv

Andy Warhol and Ai Weiwei: 1

in dialogue and correspondence
Max Delany

An interview with Ai Weiwei 33

Eric Shiner

‘Point, push down, and a lot, repeatedly’ 61

John Tancock

FAKE | Factory 85
Caroline A. Jones

Political and artistic legacy in Ai Weiwei’s art 117

Gao Minglu

Readymade disasters: the art and 141

politics of Andy Warhol and Ai Weiwei
John J. Curley

The art in being public 173

Anna Poletti

Empire and eternal peace 205

Kathryn Weir

The collecting habit 233

Larry Warsh

Meeooaaww-AW-AWW 257
Matt Wrbican

Notes 282

Artists chronologies 286

List of works 290

Acknowledgements and contributors 308

Foreword
The National Gallery of Victoria and Together we conceived the exhibition especially grateful for the support of our
The Andy Warhol Museum are honoured with Andrew Clark, Deputy Director, Presenting Partner the State Government
to present the first major exhibition NGV, and Max Delany, Senior Curator of Victoria and the Premier of Victoria, the
featuring two of the most consequential of Contemporary Art, NGV, with early Honourable Daniel Andrews MP. We also
artists of the twentieth and twenty-first concept collaboration from The Warhol’s thank Creative Victoria and the Minister
centuries: Andy Warhol and Ai Weiwei. former Milton Fine Curator of Art, Nicholas for Creative Industries, Martin Foley MP.
Developed by the NGV and The Warhol, Chambers. The NGV edition of the Principal Partner Mercedes-Benz is a
with the participation of Ai Weiwei, Andy exhibition has been curated by Max Delany, longstanding supporter of the NGV and we
Warhol | Ai Weiwei explores the significant while The Warhol’s new Milton Fine Curator thank CEO Horst von Sanden. We thank our
influence of these two exemplary artists of Art, Bartholomew Ryan, is the organising Major Partners EY and Managing Partner
on contemporary art and life by focusing curator for The Warhol’s edition. We also Melbourne Gerard Dalbosco; Higgins
on the intersections between their acknowledge key staff who were critical Coatings and Chairman John Higgins;
practices. Surveying the scope of both in the conceptualisation, development Official Airline Qantas Airways and CEO Alan
artists’ careers, the exhibition presents and presentation of this exhibition and Joyce; Learning Partner La Trobe University
more than 300 works, including major publication: from the NGV, Isobel Crombie, and Vice-Chancellor Professor John Dewar;
new commissions, immersive installations Assistant Director, Curatorial and Collection and Partner Macquarie Group and Head of
and a wide representation of painting, Management; and Don Heron, Head of Macquarie Capital, Australia & New Zealand
sculpture, film, photography, music, Exhibitions Management, Design and Robin Bishop. We gratefully acknowledge
publishing and social media. Multimedia; and from The Andy Warhol donors The Loti and Victor Smorgon Fund;
Museum, Geralyn Huxley, Curator of Film Vivien and Graham Knowles; and Lion
Warhol and Ai are remarkable for the and Video; Matt Wrbican, Chief Archivist; Capital and Chairman Bruce Parncutt.
ways they have redefined the role Jessica Beck, Assistant Curator of Art;
and identity of the artist in society. Keny Marshall, Director of Exhibitions; and We are extremely thankful for the support
Parallels exist between the manner Patrick Moore, Managing Director. of our Tourism and Media Partners Vogue
in which they have transformed our Australia and Editor-in-Chief Edwina
understanding of artistic value and studio We are delighted to publish a series of McCann; Sofitel Melbourne On Collins and
production. Considered as a dialogue new scholarly essays here that explore the General Manager Clive Scott; smoothfm
between artists from different cultural rich conceptual and discursive relations and COO Nova Entertainment Louise
contexts and backgrounds, this exhibition between Warhol and Ai’s work, and we Higgins; Herald Sun and Executive General
explores a range of themes integral to are grateful to all contributing writers Manager, The Herald and Weekly Times
both artists’ practices, including the role for their engaging texts. An exhibition Peter Clark; Tourism Victoria and Minister
of portraiture and self-representation; and publication of this scope demands for Tourism, the Honourable John Eren
the readymade and the transformation considerable vision and commitment, and MP; Val Morgan and CEO Damien Keogh;
of aesthetic value; relationships between we acknowledge staff across all areas of Adshel and CEO Rob Atkinson; Melbourne
the individual and the state, politics and both museums who have contributed their Airport and CEO Lyell Strambi; and
capital, celebrity and dissidence; freedom expertise, energy and creativity to the Seven Network and CEO Tim Worner. We
of speech and artistic expression; as realisation of this major project. acknowledge Supporters Dulux and CEO
well as modes of social critique and Patrick Houlihan; and MECCA Brands and
the documentation of everyday life. The Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei draws extensively CEO Joanna Horgan.
exhibition also reflects on the time and on the collections of The Andy Warhol
place of the artist – one representing Museum, one of the four Carnegie While an exhibition of the work of Andy
twentieth-century modernity and the Museums of Pittsburgh, and the studio of Ai Warhol or Ai Weiwei is a significant
‘American century’, and the other our Weiwei. We also sincerely acknowledge the cultural event in its own right, the
twenty-first century contemporaneity and National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; the presentation of both artists together is
the ‘Chinese century’ to come. Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern a unique opportunity that promises new
Art, Brisbane; as well as Larry Warsh, New understandings and insights. It is with great
We extend our sincere appreciation York; the Stockamp Tsai Collection, pleasure that we invite you to experience
to Ai Weiwei for his commitment to New York; and other lenders to the the spirit, courage and passion inherent in
the exhibition and the major new exhibition for generously providing critical the work of these two outstanding artists.
commissions conceived especially for and valued works from their collections.
it. Ai is one of the most significant and Tony Ellwood
inspiring artists working today; an agent The presentation of this exhibition in Director, National Gallery of Victoria,
of historical change whose art, ideas and Melbourne and Pittsburgh has been made Melbourne
courage are an inspiration to many in the possible thanks to the commitment of our
international community. It has been a generous supporters, including The Fine Eric Shiner
great privilege to work with him and his Foundation and the National Endowment Director, The Andy Warhol Museum,
studio staff. for the Arts (in Pittsburgh). We are Pittsburgh

xv
 Andy Warhol
and Ai Weiwei:
in dialogue and
correspondence
Max Delany

xvi Andy Warhol Self-Portrait c. 1982 1

2 3
‘Warhol... practiced
the passions, desires,
ambitions, and
imaginations of his era.’
Ai Weiwei

Ai Weiwei At the Museum of Modern Art 1987

Ai Weiwei’s self-portrait At the Museum of Modern Art, 1987 (above, from the New York
Photographs series), is one of thousands of black-and-white photographs that document
the young artist’s social milieux and artistic research in New York during the 1980s: his
activities and relations with the Chinese artistic and intellectual diaspora community;
his participation on the margins of the New York art world; his commitment to social
activism; his involvement with influential poets, such as Allen Ginsberg; and his
identification with the work of Marcel Duchamp, Jasper Johns and Andy Warhol. In this
photograph, taken at MoMA in the year of Andy Warhol’s death, Ai, in his late twenties,
identifies himself explicitly with Warhol by adopting a Warholian pose in front of the Pop
artist’s multiple Self-Portrait, 1966. Reflecting on Warhol’s death almost two decades later,
Ai remembered:

The news bathed the entire city in gray, and many people were saddened and
grieved. The departure of an incredible man whisked away a certainly uncertain
world, as well as the vain and legendary people and events that revolved around
him. It was as if an enormous magnet had suddenly lost its pull.1

4
(previous) Ai Weiwei Forever Bicycles 2011 (detail) 5
 For Ai, Warhol’s magnetism remains undiminished and enduring: ‘Andy Warhol is the
most important artist of this era’, he has remarked more recently, ‘even though he has
been gone for more than twenty years.’2 Warhol’s significance and value lies in the way
he worked, the way he communicated and the way he saw art; in Ai’s words, ‘Warhol
represented how an individual can give good ideas generously to society’.3
Notwithstanding their radically different cultural contexts and backgrounds,
parallels may be drawn between the two artists’ lives, public profiles, artistic and
Seymour Rosen Installation view of Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans, Ferus Gallery, Los Angeles, 1962
conceptual approaches, and engagement with media and communications. Warhol
is one of the twentieth century’s most consequential artists whose influence
extended beyond the world of art to film, music, publishing, celebrity and popular
culture. A leading protagonist in the development of Pop Art, he created some of
the most defining iconography of the late twentieth century through his exploration authorities – has expanded the definition and reach of Ai’s art. Attracting more than
of consumer society, fame and celebrity, media and advertising, death and disaster, 100,000 readers per day, it has been described as a form of social sculpture and a
politics and capital. Ai is among the most renowned contemporary artists practising virtual space dedicated to the production of new social realities.6
today. His work addresses critical global issues of the early twenty-first century,
including the relationship between tradition and modernity, the role of the individual ICONOCLASTIC GESTURES AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF ARTISTIC VALUE The
and the state, questions of human rights and the value of freedom of expression. Both ubiquity of Warhol’s art and iconography today makes it hard to imagine the radical
Warhol and Ai have been central in redefining the role of ‘the artist’ – as impresario, impact and transformative nature his innovations in painting and filmmaking had in
cultural producer, activist and brand – and each has become famous for developing the early 1960s, when Warhol’s iconic imagery and iconoclastic gestures expanded
their persona and celebrity in order to communicate their art and ideas into social the terms of what art could be. His deadpan paintings of Campbell’s Soup Cans, first
contexts beyond the province of art. exhibited at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles in 1962 (above), ran counter to the artistic
shibboleths of the time. Their readymade commercial imagery, mechanical manufacture
FACTORY AND FAKE: THE ROLE OF THE STUDIO Andy Warhol and Ai Weiwei are and serial production constituted a wholesale critique of notions of artistic originality,
notable for the unique ways in which each has transformed our understanding of uniqueness and authenticity, while the apparent avoidance of self-expression,
the role of the studio and artistic production. Warhol’s Silver Factory, established diminution of the artist’s hand and perceived evacuation of meaning stood in defiance
in a disused hat manufactory on East 47th Street, Manhattan, was legendary for of the romantic, heroic and transcendental values associated with prevailing artistic
bringing together artists and poets, filmmakers and musicians, bohemians and tendencies, notably in relation to Abstract Expressionism.
intellectuals, ‘superstars’, ‘drag queens’ and socialites, as well as for the serial The subversion of aesthetic conventions apparent in Warhol’s silkscreen paintings –
production of silkscreen paintings, films, video, music and publishing. The Factory aligned with a critique of commodity production – was equally evident in his filmmaking.
not only functioned as a studio, office and production line, but also as a libertarian, Warhol’s early films, such as Sleep, 1963 (p. 214), Kiss, 1963, Blow Job, 1964 (p. 230), and
carnivalesque space of aesthetic, social and sexual choice, whose dim-mirrored Empire, 1964 (pp. 212–13), embodied many of the trademark characteristics which came
silver-foiled walls ‘redoubled [the] confusion of actor and audience’.4 Ai’s self- to distinguish avant-garde, underground film: namely, minimal editing and static points
designed studio in Caochangdi, on the north-eastern outskirts of Beijing, is equally of view; an emphasis upon reality, duration and the slowing down of time; the avoidance
renowned for its interdisciplinary approach, post-industrial and delegated modes of narrative; the deployment of amateurs and non-actors; and foregrounding of the
of production and innovative, experimental approach to materials and technologies. matter-of-fact materiality of film itself. If Warhol’s early films stretched the conventions
It too plays host to teams of researchers and craftspeople, designers and archivists, and experience of mainstream cinema, the immersive aesthetics of his Exploding Plastic
activists and assistants, and is known for its strategic use of communications Inevitable multimedia shows – produced in 1966–67 for the now legendary rock group
technology and social media. The Velvet Underground – constituted a new form of ‘expanded cinema’ encompassing
If Warhol’s Factory operated according to Fordist principles of serial production and film and slide projections, music and performance, light and sound, and the involvement
the assembly line, Ai’s studio might be seen as a post-Fordist space of art, architectural of spectators themselves (p. 231). Through the entrepreneurial efforts of filmmaker-critics
and social production encompassing new information technologies, specialised projects and impresarios such as Jonas Mekas and Warhol himself, these exhilarating, confusing
and labour, social criticism and political engagement.5 Ai’s blog, for example – which spectacles redefined the experience of art, film and performance for participants and
occupied much of his attention from 2005–09 before being shut down by Chinese audiences alike.

6 7
(previous) Ai Weiwei Coloured Vases 2006
(above) Ai Weiwei Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn 1995

Warhol’s Silver Clouds, 1966 (pp. 22–3), transposed these immersive, performative with a history of cultural violence most strikingly.9 Drawing attention to the desecration
aesthetics to the gallery context. Propelled by air and the bodies of viewers, these of cultural heritage, the artist’s performative, iconoclastic action in this work is
reflective, floating pillow forms conflated painting, sculpture, time and movement, presented matter-of-factly, with the viewer left to contemplate the event and what
displacing the work of art from the walls of the gallery into space itself. With a keen might be salvaged from the destruction.10 Ai is attentive to the spectacle and event
understanding of happenings and spectacle culture, Warhol introduced experience, status of the work of art, as well as its social context. The deployment and replication
event and participation into aesthetic consideration, prefiguring the operations of of readymade bicycles in Ai’s Forever Bicycles series, ongoing since 2003 (pp. 24–5), for
Minimalism as well as performance and relational art.7 example, combines Duchamp’s readymade with Warholian repetition and visual drama,
The significance of Warhol’s expansive practice, and his apparent iconoclasm, openly promoting an intensely sensory effect and collective experience – reminiscent of
has not been lost on Ai Weiwei, whose work is marked by an equal measure of formal Warhol’s Silver Clouds – with the energy of social progress signalled in the perspectival
experimentation and audacity, along with semantic playfulness, humour and wit. If rush and multitude of cyclical forms.
Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans celebrated American vernacular and popular traditions,
his serial processes of commodity production also enacted a critique of consumer READYMADE GESTURES AND THE SPECTRE OF MARCEL DUCHAMP The figure of
culture and culture industry by forcing high art and mass culture into ‘an increasingly Marcel Duchamp looms large over both Warhol’s and Ai’s practice. Warhol was a key
tight embrace.’8 Ai’s installations of painted Neolithic vases perform an equally uneasy protagonist (along with John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns before
confrontation of tradition and modernity. Works such as Whitewash, 1993–2000 (p. 89) – him) in the critical reception and reappraisal of Duchamp’s work in New York in the
132 late Stone Age vases mostly painted white – re-enact the erasure of history and 1960s and its emphasis on ideas over artisanal skill; recourse to industrial fabrication
loss of cultural heritage experienced collectively in China in the period of the Cultural and serial production; and critique of originality and authenticity. Duchamp himself
Revolution. Similarly, in his Coloured Vases series since 2006 (pp. 8–9 & 19), Neolithic appears in Warhol’s Screen Test: Marcel Duchamp, 1964–65 (p. 12), a 16 mm film
and Han dynasty urns are plunged into tubs of industrial paint, giving the ancient in which the French artist nonchalantly smokes a cigar, takes a drink and smiles
vessels a new glaze and painterly glow, and appeal to new beginnings and cultural quizzically, returning Warhol’s – and the viewer’s – gaze in a decidedly deadpan
change through transformative acts of renovation and renewal. manner. One of Ai’s earliest works made on arriving in New York was the assisted
Ai’s photographic triptych Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn, 1995 (above), which readymade Hanging Man, 1985 (p. 12) – in which Duchamp’s enigmatic profile is
shows the artist holding, releasing and subsequently smashing a Han dynasty vase, fashioned from a coat hanger11 – and Shovel with Cow Hide, 1986, a readymade spade
demonstrates his investment in Chinese cultural traditions and his critical engagement covered in cowhide, which gestures respectfully to Duchamp’s In Advance of the

10 11
Ai Weiwei Hanging Man 1985 Andy Warhol Screen Test: Marcel Duchamp 1966 (still)

Broken Arm, 1915 (Museum of Modern Art, New York). Ai’s New York photographs also
reference Duchamp, including the self-portrait In Front of Marcel Duchamp’s Work,
Museum of Modern Art, 1987.12
If Ai’s adoption of photography in the 1980s is indebted to Warhol’s relentless
documentation of everyday life, his embrace of the readymade in the same decade
shows an appreciation of Duchamp’s commingling of ‘language, thought and vision’.13
Duchamp equipped Ai with a repertoire of neo-Dada strategies and a conceptual
approach that included linguistic play, irony, institutional critique and negation. Safe
Sex, 1986, a raincoat with a condom issuing from its waist, calls forth the mysterious,
erotic economy of Duchamp and at the same time introduces a social dimension by
referencing the increasingly detached and forbidding nature of socio-sexual relations
at the height of the AIDS crisis. As Charles Merewether has observed:

While Warhol was a critical influence in shaping his approach, we may also say
that the stock-in-trade ideas of the Dada movement – the chance encounter, the
found object or objet trouvé, and the notion of metamorphosis or transforming
potential of objects – become fundamental to Ai Weiwei’s orientation.14

On his return to Beijing in 1993, Ai increasingly incorporated Chinese cultural

references into his repertoire of readymade gestures, combining acerbic wit with
an increasingly direct political engagement.15 Whilst his Coloured Vases display an
understanding of Robert Rauschenberg’s Erased de Kooning Drawing, 1953 (San Francisco Ai Weiwei Han Dynasty Urn with Coca-Cola Logo 1994

Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco), there is a specific cultural critique inherent in
Ai’s recontextualisation and Situationist détournement of these revered Chinese cultural
artefacts. Ai’s Han Dynasty Urn with Coca-Cola Logo, 1994 (opposite), for example, might
be compared to Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans, and Duchamp’s L.H.O.O.Q., 1919 – an
image of the Mona Lisa adorned with fanciful moustache and sexually evocative title –
but it more candidly invokes the conflicted identity of Chinese cultural heritage and
capitalist economics. Warhol’s Brillo Soap Pads Box, 1964 (p. 20), and Ai’s Ton of Tea,
2006 (p. 21), are each redolent of their respective cultural contexts; Warhol’s adoption of

12 13
 Ai Weiwei 4851 2009 (stills)

commercial aesthetics activates a critique of the status of the art object and its claim to blogging in 2005, posting hundreds of photos on a daily basis, accompanied by
representation, while Ai’s compressed cube of Pu’er tea – a staple of Chinese life, trade social commentary on contemporary China, criticism of government policy, thoughts
and custom – delivers a symbolic register and a material presence more concerned with on art and architecture, and reflections on his life as an artist. He wrote passionately
historical reference and cultural narrative. As Jay Curley notes in this publication: about the Sichuan earthquake that killed thousands of school children in 2008, and
reminisced about his time in the New York art scene. Owing to his openness and at
Warhol and Ai use their art as a means of resistance – whether symbolically times provocative stance in the face of government authority and censorship, and his
or directly – that can reveal a more complicated reality lying behind the blank establishment of a ‘Citizens’ Investigation’ into the students who perished in schools
facades of, respectively, American capitalism and Chinese communism.16 as a result of the earthquake and sub-standard or ‘tofu-dregs’ architecture, Chinese
authorities shut down Ai’s blog on 28 May 2009 – two-and-a-half weeks after he posted
SOCIAL MEDIA Warhol was a fanatical chronicler of his everyday life, which he recorded the names of more than 5000 children, as ‘a memorial for innocent lives lost’.20
on audiotape, photographic and celluloid film, and video, as well as in diaries, memoirs The transcribed text from Ai’s blog, now published in book form, remains a
and Interview magazine. As Warhol explained, by the end of the 1960s he was ‘taping valuable document of his commitment to social justice and freedom of expression.21
and polaroiding everything in sight’.17 Through the 1970s this activity was complemented Following the artist’s eighty-one day detention in 2011 (without charges being filed),
by his Factory Diaries, c. 1971–76, an extensive video record of the sometimes banal and and his subsequent release, he has continued to use the internet to reflect upon
at other times rivetingly eventful comings and goings at the Factory. From our present political repression and state-sanctioned restrictions on freedom of speech, also
vantage point, we can see Warhol as a social media artist before his time: Warhol’s producing ambiguous internet memes and double entendres such as the ‘Grass Mud
Factory Diaries might be considered as a precursor to reality television, The Philosophy Horse’ and ‘Leg Gun’ in symbolic defiance of internet censorship. As Ai has noted,
of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again) (1975) a literary precedent to Facebook, ‘The techniques of the internet have become a major way of liberating humans from
and his Polaroids an analogue forerunner of Instagram and the ‘selfie’. Warhol had a old values and systems, something that has never been possible before today’.22
keen understanding of what might be achieved in ‘fifteen minutes of fame’, and actively
cultivated celebrity.18 He was an acute producer of new social realities through the HISTORY PAINTING AND AGENTS OF CHANGE The elusive nature of Warhol’s life and
production of art, music, television, publishing and multimedia events, and equally as work has continued to produce great speculation and disputed interpretation. As
a voracious participant in society life. As Ai has noted, Warhol ‘was a complicated American art historian and critic Thomas Crow has contended, analysis of Warhol’s work
composite of interests and actions; he practiced the passions, desires, ambitions, and is often overshadowed by a focus on his cult of celebrity and the suggestion, fuelled by
imaginations of his era ... this is the true significance of Andy Warhol’.19 Warhol’s own pronouncements, ‘that he and his art were all surface’. As Crow suggests,
Inspired by this legacy, Ai took up photography in the 1980s, publishing and conventional readings ‘turn around a few circumscribed themes: the impersonality of the
curating in the 1990s, and blogging in the 2000s, and continues to be an incessant images he chose and their presentation, his passivity in the face of a media-saturated
producer of social media content through Twitter, Instagram, media interviews, reality, and the suspension in his work of any clear authorial voice’. He continues:
social activism and other forms of communication. His activities on social media
move fluidly between the role of artist, activist and cultural critic, embracing the The debate over Warhol centres on whether his art fosters critical or subversive
poetic and polemical, the symbolic and political, and the experimental and didactic apprehension of mass culture and the power of the image as commodity,
in equal measure. The internet has enabled significant change in the realm of art succumbs in an innocent but telling way to that numbing power, or exploits it
while also introducing artistic ideas and values into wider public discussion. Ai began cynically and meretriciously.23

14 15
 Crow turns to the visual evidence of Warhol’s work to underscore its complexity of As is the case for Warhol, Ai’s art cannot be considered in isolation to the multiple
thought and feeling. Warhol’s representation of guns and knives, hammers and sickles, roles he plays as a curator, architect, activist and public intellectual. In an especially
race riots, political assassinations, most-wanted men, electric chairs, car crashes proactive decade upon return to Beijing from New York in 1993, Ai turned to editorial
and suicides, not to mention the spectacular images of capital itself in his series of and curatorial modes, helping to establish the underground Beijing East Village artists’
Dollar Signs, 1981, are neither affirmative nor ambivalent images, but might be seen community in 1993; editing the Black, White and Grey Cover Books, (1994–97, p. 122)28
as critical and commemorative works that constitute a grand narrative chronicle of and co-founding Beijing’s first centre for contemporary art, the China Art Archives and
his time. Indeed, rather than a painter of indiscriminate subject matter and anodyne Warehouse, in 1997.29 These initiatives activated an experimental, avant-garde art scene
icons of consumer culture, the case is made for Warhol as a critical artist whose in Beijing through the dissemination of texts and scholarship, works of installation and
work powerfully dramatises ‘the breakdown of commodity exchange’ with ‘the mass- performance art, and alternative ways of living and thinking. In 1999 Ai designed his
produced image as the bearer of desires exposed in its inadequacy by the reality studio-house, his first architectural project, and in 2003 established the architectural
of suffering and death’.24 Warhol’s images of death and disaster, according to Crow, practice FAKE Design, whose work is characterised by refined, minimal forms, material
achieve a form of ‘peinture noir … a stark, disabused, pessimistic view of American resourcefulness and sensitivity for heritage principles and community values.30
life’.25 When taken together alongside the parade of celebrities, political figures, Consistent with this approach is Ai’s role as agent-provocateur, with a rebellious
superstars and demi-monde who appear in his portraits, films and photography, streak and a generous yet critical stance towards art and society. The photograph
we might rightly claim for Warhol the status of history painter.26 June 1994, 1994 (pp. 166–7), of the artist Lu Qing (Ai’s then girlfriend and later wife)
This understanding of Warhol as a critically astute reader and chronicler of lifting her skirt in Tiananmen Square is testament to his mischievous approach, but
contemporary American life is a view shared by Ai, who suggests: serious intent. Introducing private subjectivity and libido into an official, public space
known for its history of imperialism, revolution and fledgling democracy movements,
Understand him, and you will understand the United States, for he is the the work’s expression of women’s sexuality doubles as a riposte to the patriarchal
most tragically beautiful legend in the history of American art, a unique authority of the Communist state. The Study of Perspective series of photographs,
artist of purely American values … He touched upon almost all the important 1995–2011 (pp. 134–7), in which the artist’s finger is repeatedly raised in defiance of
personalities and things of his time … encompassing almost any possible architectural and state monuments, continues this anti-authoritarian attitude. In the
means of expression: design, painting, sculpture, installation, recordings, asymmetrical spatial relations between individual and state, the composition of these
photography, video, texts, advertising.27 works also echoes the unforgettable image of a lone demonstrator blocking the
path of a military tank at Tiananmen Square in 1989. With the installation S.A.C.R.E.D.,
Ai Weiwei’s work too can be seen to record the passions, ambitions and aspirations 2011–13 (p. 30, 155 & 160–3) – a series of architecturally scaled dioramas depicting
of his own historical moment, with recourse to an equally complex array of aesthetic scenes from the artist’s incarceration in the detention cell in which he was held for
forms and cultural processes. His early drawings of the 1970s, which documented the eighty-one days – Ai adopts a theatrical, agit-p(r)op mode of address that casts him
streets and rooftops of Shanghai with ink on rice paper, display the poetic sensibility as both rebel and victim of oppression.31 These works remind us that police and
of a young artist whose childhood upbringing was largely spent in western Xinjiang politics share a related etymology.32 Ai’s representation of political contestation is as
Province, a remote desert area where his father, the eminent poet and intellectual Ai much concerned with activating human desire and historical processes as it is with
Qing, had been sent for manual labour and ‘re-education’ during the Cultural Revolution. making images that remind us of the critical role imagination can play in grappling
Made in the late 1970s, when Ai became involved in burgeoning democracy movements with the forces of history.
and the avant-garde artists’ collective the Stars group (established in 1979), the drawings It is arguably this desire to communicate, and a curiosity for new experience,
are marked by an individualistic world view and artistic experimentation at odds with the that most directly aligns the socially-engaged practices of Ai Weiwei and Andy
officially sanctioned aesthetics of Socialist Realism. His videos about the Beijing Ring Warhol across generations and cultural contexts. Through the critique of politics
Roads of 2003–05 (pp. 209–10 & 220–1) also take the city as their subject, recording the and economy – and the status of the image itself – they have served (intentionally
rapid urban transformation of Beijing in hundreds of hours of video. Mapping the urban and unintentionally) as agents of cultural and historical change. In their cultivation of
plan of the city according to the configuration of Beijing’s Ring Roads, these videos turn celebrity and dissidence as artistic forms, Warhol and Ai have been able to project
the gaze of the surveillance camera upon the administrative, financial and political their ideas and provocative critical insights into the public realm understood in the
structure of the city, recording its life at a specific moment in time, the disappearance widest sense. Both have forged new social realities, and done so generously, through
of local neighbourhoods and heritage architecture, and the subsequent dispersal of their art, philosophy and lifestyle and through simple, self-aware gestures, such as
communities away from the city centre in the lead up to the 2008 Olympics. the offer of flowers for freedom, and memorial acts of beauty and remembrance.

16 17
(opposite) Andy Warhol Campbell’s Soup II: Tomato-Beef Noodle O’s 1969; Ai Weiwei Coloured Vases 2014 19
20 Andy Warhol Brillo Soap Pads Box 1964 Ai Weiwei Ton of Tea 2006; (overleaf) Andy Warhol Silver Clouds, 1966, installation view, The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh 21
26 (previous) Ai Weiwei Forever Bicycles, 2011 (detail), installation view, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, 2011; (above) Andy Warhol holding a copy of a: a novel, c. 1968 Ai Weiwei holding a copy of Weiwei-isms, 2012 27
Andy Warhol Fabis Statue of Liberty 1986

28
30 Ai Weiwei S.A.C.R.E.D. 2011–13 (detail) Andy Warhol Skull 1976 31
 An interview
with Ai Weiwei
Eric Shiner

32 Ai Weiwei Dumbass 2013 (still) 33

34 35
‘I think art can change
the world. If anything
can change the world,
it is art.’ Andy Warhol Self-Portrait 1963 (detail) Ai Weiwei Portrait in the Mirror 1989 (detail) Eric Shiner: What compelled you to move to New York City in the
early 1980s, and how did Andy Warhol factor into your thinking at
that time? Did you, in fact, meet Andy in those early days?

Ai Weiwei Ai Weiwei: My father, Ai Qing, was a poet. He was accused of being a

‘rightist’ and was exiled to the remote desert region of Xinjiang. We
lived through the Cultural Revolution (1966–76) and political struggles.
Those early experiences informed my decision to leave China; to be
far away. Throughout my childhood, the United States was portrayed
as a propagator of imperialism and as an enemy of the state.
America seemed like the furthest place I could possibly go. I wanted
to be in New York, the cultural centre. I arrived in the United States in
1981 and went to New York in 1983, where I remained for ten years.

Early on, I was exposed to Andy Warhol and was immediately drawn
to him. He was, and remains, an interesting figure, not only for his
art and personality but also everything related to him. The first book
I bought in New York was The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to
B and Back Again) (1975). I found a signed copy of the book at the
Strand.1 Reading it gave me a first-hand account of who Warhol was
as a person, what he was like and what his interests were, what
his style and attitude was towards everything. I read other books
from his generation, but to me Warhol always remained the most
interesting figure in American art. I saw him a few times during
openings in the downtown art scene, around the Lower East Side,
and once at PS1.

ES: Prior to leaving China, what was your work like in the 1970s?
What informed it? What changes did you see as a result of your
move to New York?

AW: Before I went to the United States, I was a student at a film

school. My major was in animation and the kind of work I was doing
involved very simple drawings. I realised much later that my way
of making drawings was similar to Warhol’s, particularly his early
drawings of cats and portraits for his friends. At the time, I knew
almost nothing about contemporary American art. I had received one
book, as a gift, on Jasper Johns’s work. In our so-called art circle,
nobody appreciated what Johns had done. It was not until after I
had arrived in New York that I began to appreciate his work. Johns
became an early influential figure in my studies and a bridge to
understanding the work of Marcel Duchamp and, ultimately, Warhol.

(previous)
36 Ai Weiwei Dumbass 2013 (still) 37
 ES: Describe what it was like to return to China after so
many years in New York. What surprised you the most? What
angered you the most? Do you think your decision to return
was the right one to make?

AW: Before I came back, everyone was saying that China had
changed dramatically, but I was under no illusions. I knew there
were some things that could never change. When I returned,
I realised I was right. Yes, we have very tall buildings, wide
roads and many cars. Economically, China has developed
tremendously; however, the state is still under strict communist
control. Freedom of speech, freedom of expression, universal
suffrage and an independent press are not accepted. All of
these common values are restricted and controlled, which is
very disappointing.

Andrej Warhola, date unknown (detail) Ai Qing at Beiwei Hotel, Beijing, 1980 (detail)
ES: Warhol’s father died after drinking contaminated water in When I first returned, I did not have much to do. If I wasn’t
West Virginia when Andy was only fourteen years old. It was at home, I would go out to the antique market. Visiting the
the most traumatic event a young man could endure. Can you antique market imparted experience and knowledge I would
talk about your own relationship with your father and how that have never gained elsewhere. I soon attempted to establish
shaped you as an artist? an underground culture, to publish independent books and
develop a platform for contemporary activities. I made the
AW: I come from a very different kind of family. My father was an Black Cover Book (1994, p. 122), White Cover Book (1995) and
intellectual, a poet, but he was also exiled. Growing up, I never Grey Cover Book (1997).2 I organised an exhibition titled Fuck
saw my father write a word. During the Cultural Revolution, the Off (2000). With Hans van Dijk and Frank Uytterhaegen, I
most difficult period, he was forced to clean toilets. At the time, established the first contemporary gallery in China, which we
those kinds of public toilets in rural China were beyond one’s named China Art Archives and Warehouse. There we exhibited
imagination. But he made the toilets so clean and I never saw early works by artists working in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
someone put so much effort into cleaning toilets. I really respect Many artists active today came from that period.
my father as someone who was highly aesthetically trained and
lived and breathed poetry, but who at the same time handled the I never really evaluate decisions as being right or wrong. I could
most lowly and brutal work, while never really complaining. That not know what my life would have been like if I did not come
mentality, and his actions, had a very strong influence on me. back. I guess every decision is the right decision. I never think
that I have made any wrong decisions in my life. I do not even
ES: What was the most rewarding part of your time in New think I can make a wrong decision.
York? Can you talk about how long you were there, what
it meant for you, how you survived, and ultimately what Ai Weiwei Last Dinner in the East Village 1994

compelled you to return to China?

AW: I spent my time in the United States as an outsider, never

really aspiring for so-called American values. I never tried to get
myself established with position, status, economic satisfaction
or material things. I had very limited resources, so I worked all
kinds of jobs. From carpentry to house cleaning, gardening to
print and frame shops, I took many different kinds of jobs to
survive. I saw no opportunity for me to feel comfortable in that
society and to be recognised. However, my stay in the United
States was a chance to immerse myself in the arts and to be
involved in intellectual discussions. This allowed me to be quite
independent and liberal. I enjoyed spiritual freedom there.

After twelve years in the United States without returning to

China, I received news that my father was ill, and I decided I
had to return. Before he passed away, I had to come back and
stay with him.

38 39
 ES: Like Warhol, you have used visual art, language and
a certain dose of philosophy to become a major agent of
change in global aesthetics and the very meaning of the term
‘art’. Did you consciously look to Warhol for inspiration, or did
similarities in your approach develop organically?

AW: I am very attracted to all that Andy Warhol did. His

language, activity, habits, publications and studio are all very
attractive. I am particularly interested in his desperation to
communicate, as evidenced by his films and publications,
such as Interview. In some ways, we are similar. We both enjoy
metropolitan life and like to be involved in cultural activities;
however, I never really tried to copy what he did. He is the
product of American culture and I am not. I always thought
of myself as an outsider. I do not have his confidence, even
though I realise he was someone who was very shy. His
sensitivity and uncertainty were attractive qualities and
made him unique.

My condition is very different. When I returned to China, I

had already given up on art. I did not think I could make it
and questioned whether there was even a need for me to
make a career in art. I called myself an artist only because of
my attitude and lifestyle, rather than anything else. I did not
produce anything. Not until much later, after I got involved
with architecture, did I become more socially connected
and a spokesperson for a new lifestyle and philosophy. The
internet was introduced to me and I discovered blogging. That
totally changed my situation because, finally, I found this most
precious gift that allowed somebody like me, who had already
lost all hope to communicate, a new opportunity to express
myself. I was completely drawn into it. I spent day and night
on the internet, discussing and sharing ideas about current
events. That moment was when I felt closest to Warhol. What he
did in the 1960s, all those parties and openings, is what many
people do now. His writings were similar to the 140-character
messages of Twitter. I began creating documentary films, taking
and posting a lot of photos online, and ended up participating
in more interviews than Warhol ever did. I can be very proud of
myself in this regard.

ES: One of the most interesting points of comparison

between you and Warhol is the frequent use of repetition
in your practices. Can you talk about the importance of
repetition in your work?

AW: Warhol and I both make work for the purpose of

communication. Repetition works in two ways: it gives a work
a stronger position, and makes the impression double and
triple. There is a continuity and development. This is especially
effective in the information age. Because we live in a post-
industrial information age, information is repeatedly reused to
establish a ground for communication. It is interesting to see
the same image at different times. It is equally as interesting
Cover of Interview, vol. 1, no. 11, 1970 as seeing different images at the same time.

40 41
42 Andy Warhol Natalie 1962 Ai Weiwei Forever, 2003, installation view, Ai Weiwei’s studio, Beijing 43
 ES: Warhol is famous for essentially branding his studio
the Silver Factory and turning his mode of production, the
assembly-line practice of screen-printing for example, into
an extension of this brand. Does your studio, FAKE Design,
embody your larger artistic mission in a similar way?

AW: Warhol’s studio was very impressive. It was not only

impressive for its production, but for the continuous
happenings. So many things happened in his studio. He even
got shot there. So many events took place and so much life – all
the characters and personalities – passed through that space.
The Factory was truly a melting pot. Warhol created his own
society there.

My studio in China cannot be as open and liberal as his was.

We have so many restrictions. Around my studio, there are
fifteen to twenty surveillance cameras. Often there are police
cars parked nearby. Our internet is monitored and our phones
are tapped. Even so, we have about thirty people working in
the studio doing communication, research and design work.
Ai Weiwei in his studio, Caochangdi, Beijing, 2005
They are young people who come from all over the world. We
are very productive and are more or less like a family. We have
about twenty cats and a couple of dogs. We receive many
visitors, from university students and local artists to activists
and art lovers. For the production of work, we enlist many other ES: In recent years, a book of ‘Weiwei-isms’ was released.
teams in different locations. Some factories can be more than Was your writing modelled in any way on The Philosophy of
1500 kilometres away. We are open to any material or structure, Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again)? Do you think your
and we find experts who are the best at what they do. We do philosophy has the power to change the world? It certainly
not know what our next artwork will look like, and we have no worked for Warhol on a social level, but your work addresses
clear purpose or direction; however, new experiences feed our change on political levels. What are your thoughts about this?
curiosity and tempt us to make different things. Can an artist truly change the world?

AW: That book was not actually edited by me, but I do love
to write. I have a lot more writings; there are endless writings
happening. We are editing all the time. Writing is such a
William John Kennedy Untitled (Warhol Filming Taylor Mead’s Ass Suite II of IV) 1964, printed 2010
beautiful thing. It can be done alone and it can never be
finished. Once you start writing, you begin to understand
how lacking you are in terms of knowledge and skill. Writing
requires great energy. I love to do interviews because they are
much more casual and easier to handle. Writing can be very
influential. If I can appreciate Andy Warhol’s Philosophy then
there must be somebody who can appreciate my writing. We are
all so ordinary and that puts us at a similar level in terms of our
feelings and thoughts. It means we all have something that can
be shared.

In terms of changing society, I have no idea because I am living

in conditions where you can be placed in jail because of one
sentence or tweet. Why do powerful systems, such as those
in China, fear an individual’s opinion or attitude? Why do these
kinds of societies fear ideas and art and self-expression? This
means those ideas and expressions are powerful. They are as
powerful as those who are afraid of them. It is unbelievable, but
that’s the truth. I think art can change the world. If anything can
change the world, it is art.

44 45
 ES: Today, you are one of the most respected artists in the
world, and yet you maintain a constant sense of humour as
well as deep passion for and seriousness in your work. Warhol
also exhibited these qualities. Where do you get your sense of
humour from, and your penchant for hard work?

AW: I think we are living in two completely different conditions.

As an individual, you realise you can contribute and help out
in a situation – you can be useful to others. At the same time,
you realise life is very limited, very short, and can easily vanish
or disappear; take how suddenly Warhol disappeared, for
example. Only when Warhol disappeared did we realise the kind
of emptiness and the kind of fakeness he provided to society
had true value, because we cannot afford or cannot bear to be
without it. Once it disappeared, the loss was so prominent. It left
a vacuum in its place.

I think any kind of humour has to come from a profound

understanding of human desire and, at the same time, an
understanding of its restrictions and limits. It is reconciliation.
You re-understand your condition, which is limited, then you
have to use humour to comfort yourself and to overcome.
I never realise if something is hard work until I feel I cannot
move anymore. It is like when a vehicle runs out of gas: then
you realise there’s another condition besides driving, moving
forward. For me, to work resembles life itself. The sound,
the texture, the kinds of movement of art, those expressions
resemble life – the best part of life.

Cover of Ai Weiwei’s Blog: Writings, Interviews, and Digital Rants, 2006–2009 2011
ES: What is your favourite work by Andy Warhol, and why?

AW: I love Warhol’s early drawings. When he was making them

he wasn’t as well known. Those beautiful drawings show his
personality so precisely. His life is inseparable from his art.
To think of Warhol’s art apart from his personality is impossible.

Cover of The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again) 1975

46 47
48 Andy Warhol Self-Portrait No. 9 1986 Ai Weiwei Illumination 2014; (overleaf) Evocation of Exploding Plastic Inevitable (EPI), 1966–67, installation view, The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh 49
 Ai Weiwei Last Photo in
the East Village 1994

52 53
54 55
56 (previous) Ai Weiwei With Flowers 2013–15 (opposite and above) Andy Warhol Flowers 1970 57
58 Ai Weiwei Grapes 2011 Ai Weiwei Sunflower Seeds 2010 59
 ‘Point,
push down,
and a lot,
repeatedly’
John Tancock

60 Andy Warhol Ozzy Osbourne n.d. 61

62 63
‘My idea of a good picture
is one that’s in focus and
of a famous person doing
something unfamous.’
Andy Warhol

Ai Weiwei Mirror 1987

I think anybody can take a good picture. My idea of a good picture is one that’s
in focus and of a famous person doing something unfamous. It’s being in the
right place at the wrong time. Andy Warhol 1

Composition, lighting, these classic photographic qualities did not interest me.
All I’m interested in is point, push down, and a lot, repeatedly. Ai Weiwei 2

I take photos every day, which, to me, is just like drawing. It’s an exercise about
what you see and how you record it. And to try not to use your hands but rather
to use your vision and your mind. Ai Weiwei 3

Between 1982 and 1987 Andy Warhol and Ai Weiwei were living in New York at the same
time, only a short walking distance from each other but worlds apart.4 Their paths
did not cross as Ai, who had just arrived in New York, mostly socialised with other
Chinese expatriates and visitors from China, while Warhol was an instantly recognisable
celebrity. Strangely, Warhol does make an appearance in one of Ai’s 1987 contact
sheets entirely by chance. Ai remembers picking up a roll of film on St Mark’s Place,
a location as familiar to him in the 1980s as it was to Warhol in the 1960s, and saving
only the images of Warhol photographed at an opening.5 To an unusual degree both
artists viewed the camera as an inseparable part of their daily life, although the three
quotations that begin this essay reveal differences in their approach to photography.

(previous) Ai Weiwei Street Scene. Lower East Side 1987 (detail)

64 65
 choice as rent was cheap and mainstream social values had no appeal for him. Although
he purchased his first camera in 1982, Ai did not take many photographs until 1986,
just before the exhibition of Andy Warhol’s stitched photographs at the Robert Miller
Gallery, New York, in 1987.
Ai Weiwei Lower East Side 1985 Ai’s first New York photographs record a fairly hermetic existence focused on
Chinese visitors to his East 3rd Street apartment and the immediate neighbourhood.
His brother Ai Dan appears, as do numerous striving artists and musicians, including
Tan Dun and Wang Keping who have since become prominent figures in their respective
fields of music and sculpture. Ai’s photographs of the Lower East Side, mostly centred
on a few streets between Avenues A and B and Tompkins Square Park, capture it at the
moment housing demonstrations against gentrification occurred right on his doorstep.
His photographs document many of these protests, not only those against inequalities
in housing but also AIDS rallies and, most pertinent to Ai, protests for democracy in
China outside the United Nations Building in June 1989, and in Washington, DC the
following month.
By distilling the ten thousand or more photographs Ai took during the decade he
spent in New York to a total of only 227 images, the book and travelling exhibition
Ai Weiwei: New York 1983–1993 (2010) revealed changes in his personal and social life,
as well as developments in his political thinking during this time.7 Although Ai attended
numerous gallery openings, he kept his distance from artists, preferring instead the
company of counterculture luminaries such as Allen Ginsberg, through whom he met
anthropologist Harry Smith, artist Robert Frank and poet Gary Snyder. Twenty years
earlier, in 1964, Ginsberg and Smith had both sat for Warhol’s three-minute Screen
Tests (p. 226) and, along with Keith Haring and perhaps one or two others, are some
of the few people to appear in photographs by both Warhol and Ai. Equally important
as the direct exposure to the work of Warhol, Jasper Johns and Marcel Duchamp that
Ai gained during this period was the development of his own ideas concerning the
relationship between the state and the individual, captured so vividly in his numerous
images of political confrontations.
The New York Ai photographed was a chaotic place, dangerous to some degree –
Leila Davies Singelis Jones St. Sunday 1952 the Lower East Side at this time was the reputed drug capital of the world – but that
was what made it interesting. Ai wrote on his blog that the

While Ai’s statement that the essence of photography is to ‘point, push down, and a lot, most appealing thing about New York is that it was built from mistakes. In its
repeatedly’ is equally applicable to both artists, Warhol’s definition of a good picture early stages, Greenwich Village was a hamlet, but after some simple planning
as ‘one that’s in focus and of a famous person doing something unfamous’ differs the lifestyle was preserved. New York’s ruined factories were taken up by artists
markedly from Ai’s focus on ‘vision and mind’. and have become fashionable districts, and the nearby immigrant communities
Warhol was constantly shuttling between Uptown and Downtown New York as he chose their locations because they had to. Thus the city has become a most
juggled the multiple activities of his professional and social life. ‘Uptown is for people interesting place.8
who have already done something. Downtown is where they’re doing something new.
I live Uptown but I love Downtown’, he said.6 Union Square was a kind of unofficial Asked if he experienced any culture shock on arriving in the United States, Ai replied
boundary between the two zones, defined as much by social cachet as cultural in the negative: ‘I thought life should be just like that – very free, no one looking out for
attitudes. When Ai decided to settle in New York the Lower East Side was an obvious you, and you deciding what to do for yourself’.9

66 67
68 Andy Warhol Contact Sheet, China 1982; (opposite) Ai Weiwei New York Photographs 1983–93
 Andy Warhol Bianca Jagger, Liza Minnelli and Jacqueline Onassis c. 1976–79 Ai Weiwei 65 kg Zhang Huan 1994

Warhol took such freedoms for granted. From the day he arrived in New York in adept business manager Fred Hughes, fashion arbiters such as Diana Vreeland and Nan
1949, he worked at creating a persona that would ultimately make him the centre of Kempner were as keen to sit for their portraits as the drag queens Warhol photographed
attention, able to create his own rules and to establish a position for himself in the for his 1974 series of paintings were before them. The thousands of Polaroids Warhol
upper reaches of society and celebrity culture that could never have been predicted. took reveal the full range of celebrities whose orbit he entered in photographic sessions
Photographs taken by close associates document his transformation, from the preceding the painting of his portraits; from Jimmy Carter and Empress Farah Diba
dressed-for-success commercial-artist-to-be in Leila Davies Singelis’s 1952 portrait Pahlavi of Iran in 1976, to William S. Burroughs and Grace Jones in the 1980s.
(p. 66) to the counterculture impresario of the first Factory on East 47th Street so Warhol’s photographic activity accelerated during the second half of the 1970s,
memorably captured in Billy Name’s Andy Warhol’s Index (Book) (1967). referred to by Bob Colacello in his tell-all biography of 1990 as the ‘high party years’.11
Photography became an equal partner with painting in Warhol’s canvases of the Andy Warhol’s Exposures (1979), the first book devoted to his photographs, seldom moved
Pop period and in the portraits that became a major source of income from 1970 outdoors or far away from ‘Society’.12 There is a claustrophobic feeling to these tightly
onwards, but it was not until 1976, when he purchased a Minox 35 EL camera, that cropped, high-contrast images of a world in which Warhol existed as both participant
photography became an all-consuming interest providing visual accompaniment to and voyeur – an entirely different kind of involvement from that characterising Ai’s
tape recordings made by his ‘wife’ (Warhol’s tape recorder). Between 1976 and 1987 photographs of gatherings with his circle of friends and acquaintances on the Lower
he took approximately 100,000 photographs – roughly 10,000 a year10 – most of them East Side a few years later, and in Beijing from 1993 onwards. In the eight years between
taken by the time Ai’s photographic practice picked up its pace in 1986. the publication of Exposures and his premature death in 1987, Warhol’s photographic
In a sense, Ai continued where Warhol left off, at least in terms of location activity was highly diverse in character: his urban views, and close-ups of street furniture
(Manhattan for the most part, until he returned to Beijing in 1993), productivity (the and domestic appliances of this period have little in common with his shots of the rich
number of photographs he took grew exponentially each year, and continues to do and famous taken in his role as the most famous of the paparazzi.
so) and his attitude to the photographic process itself; however, occasional parallels On one notable occasion, Warhol used his camera in the same way tourists all over
observable in their oeuvres are far outnumbered by differences reflecting their the world do when they go to exotic locations. He did not really like to travel, except
dissimilar backgrounds and range of interests. For both artists, photography was a when business required it (even resisting going to his own house in Montauk), but in
form of visual diary enabling them to re-experience events that otherwise would have 1982 was invited to Hong Kong by Alfred Siu, a young industrialist, to discuss a series
been forgotten. The casual, snapshot aesthetic they shared sometimes resulted in of commissioned portraits for a new nightclub. This was Warhol’s first trip to Asia
startling parallels as, for example, between contact sheets for Warhol’s New York City since 1956, and after four days in Hong Kong, during which all the possible portrait
(January 1984) and one of Ai’s contact sheets dating from 1987. commissions fell through, he and his small entourage went to Beijing.13
Before he started using a camera, Warhol collected movie-star and fashion Warhol had first focused on the idiosyncrasies of contemporary China a decade
photographs – a passion that continued for the rest of his life – and by the mid-1970s earlier when working on his series of paintings, prints and drawings based on the
he was socialising in these rarefied circles in person. Polaroid photography allowed image of Mao Zedong. In a conversation with art critic David Bourdon on 4 September
him to enter this social milieu far removed from the Factory and its superstars, such 1971, he remarked: ‘I’ve been reading so much about China. They’re so nutty. They don’t
as Jackie Curtis and Candy Darling – among the first subjects Warhol captured using believe in creativity. The only picture they ever have is of Mao Zedong. It’s great.
Polaroid in 1969. Only a few years later, as Warhol’s underground credentials became It looks like a silkscreen’.14 Warhol’s multiple variations on the iconic image of Mao exist
chic and his portrait business took off thanks to the astute management of his socially in the realm of his Marilyns, Elvises and Jackies, and offer no political commentary –

70 71
 Village where in 1994 he photographed two of Zhang Huan’s most radical performances,
12 square meters and 65 kg. Unlike Warhol, for whom social networking was an essential
aspect of both his art and business interests, Ai chose to associate with like-minded
individuals who shared his anti-authoritarian attitudes. He focused on developing his
own practice, which became increasingly diverse in the 1990s, and on encouraging a
younger generation of artists to adopt a similarly critical position; as for example, in the
exhibition Fuck Off in Shanghai, co-curated with critic Feng Boyi in 2000.
Andy Warhol The Great Wall of China 1982
Between 1994 and 1997 Ai devoted much of his time to editorial work, publishing
three books – Black Cover Book (1994, p. 122), White Cover Book (1995) and Grey Cover
Book (1997) – that provided information on important developments in Western and
although Chinese authorities remain sensitive to them to this day, evident from the Chinese contemporary art (including the translation of Gene Swenson’s infamous
recent withdrawal of paintings of Mao from a Warhol exhibition at the Power Station of 1963 interview with Warhol). Although he was continuing to make a limited number of
Art, Shanghai, and at the CAFA Museum, Beijing, in 2013.15 In an unusual role for him, three-dimensional objects at this time, many of Ai’s most provocative works emerged
once Warhol arrived in Beijing in 1982 he became a sightseer, and not a well-informed from his photographic forays into the centre of Beijing and beyond. In June 1994, 1994,
one, as he disarmingly admitted in his diary.16 Contrary to his expectations, the major for example, Ai and his new girlfriend Lu Qing went to Tiananmen Square and, perhaps
monuments – the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square and the Great Wall (above) – did as a lark, she lifted her skirt in front of the iconic portrait of Mao Zedong (pp. 166–7).
not disappoint. He compared the experience of going to see the Great Wall to walking This playful gesture of disrespect was the first of many that gained momentum the
up to the Empire State Building;17 however, as in his perambulations through New York, following year, with the production of the first three images of what would later be
unassuming details such as billboards, posters and a soda bottle frequently caught titled the Study of Perspective series, 1995–2011 (pp. 134–7), in which Ai gave the finger
Warhol’s eye, and many were used in the sewn photographs that became a major to the White House, Victoria Harbour and Tiananmen Square.
preoccupation in the early 1980s. While Warhol seems to have been awed by what he saw on his four-day trip to
The photographs taken during his Hong Kong/China trip are an anomaly in Warhol’s Beijing, Ai found the city increasingly distasteful and a constant reminder of what made
oeuvre and fascinating evidence of his response to a culture with which he was largely him leave China in the first place. Now he could compare Beijing to New York from
unfamiliar. Quite different are the photographs that Ai started taking when he returned first-hand experience, Ai clearly saw how the planning of a city and its relationship
to China in 1993 to take care of his ailing father, the poet Ai Qing. For the next six years to the country in which it is situated reflects the political system of which it is part.
Ai lived with his parents and brother in a traditional courtyard-style house inside the Thus, he found New York to be ‘a most interesting place’,19 but Beijing to be something
Second Ring Road, Beijing. The twelve-year period during which he had been living else altogether. Because everything in Beijing centred on Tiananmen Square, with
overseas in the United States was marked by increasing prosperity in the wake of the steady addition of ring roads leading to worsening traffic and increasing levels of
Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms, and a relaxation in cultural policies that led to the pollution, Ai did not move outside his neighbourhood unless he had to:
growth of a wide range of contemporary art movements throughout China in the 1980s.
Ai had also missed the events of 4 June 1989 in Tiananmen Square, when hundreds Beijing can really torment people. There are countless large districts, and if you
of unarmed students were gunned down by representatives of the People’s Liberation were to walk the circumference of any one district you would die of exhaustion;
Army in a political crisis that still cannot be openly discussed in China to this day. there is no place to stop for a rest, it is very inhospitable; there are no facilities
The Beijing Ai returned to, the undisputed focus of political and cultural power in for outsiders, and none of the districts has suitable relationship to the city. In
China, was in the throes of a massive transformation, much of which he recorded in his this special period of history, everyone has moved house, none of the neighbors
photographs, notably in the series Provisional Landscapes, 2002–08. Close examination know each other, and there are no friends that you grew up with.20
of the 40,000 photographs or so he took between 1993 and 2003 also reveals the
complex development of his art;18 slow to begin with, then picking up speed in the Although Ai and Warhol never met, their photographs reveal their many shared
latter part of the decade. In total contrast to New York, contemporary art in China was interests as well as their differences. ‘Understand him,’ Ai wrote of Warhol, ‘and you
still an underground activity, with exhibitions and performances taking place in private will understand the United States’.21 The same might be said of Ai Weiwei in relation
apartments and surreptitiously. Shunning the commercial success of movements such as to China. His contested position in his home nation is due to the clarity with which he
Political Pop, Ai gravitated towards the radical activities of the more independent groups reveals deep-seated political and cultural problems the Chinese authorities prefer not
who favoured performance and photography, notably in the area known as the East to have aired in public.

72 73
74 Christopher Makos Andy Warhol at Tiananmen Square 1982 Ai Weiwei 8th Street Subway Station 1987 75
76 Nat Finkelstein Andy Warhol with The Velvet Underground, Gerard Malanga and Mary Woronov at The Factory 1966 Ai Weiwei Ai Weiwei. Williamsburg, Brooklyn 1983; (overleaf) Ai Weiwei Communist John 1989 77
78 79
80 Andy Warhol Men 1982 Andy Warhol Chinese Characters 1982; (overleaf) Ai Weiwei Bill Clinton at His Last Campaign Stop in New York 1992 81
82 83
 FAKE Factory
Caroline A. Jones

84 Billy Name Andy Warhol in the Silver Factory 1964 85

86 87
‘I want to be
a machine.’
Andy Warhol1

Ai Weiwei Whitewash 1993–2000

REPLICATION Andy Warhol’s ‘machine’ quote was captured by a machine – a tape Fred W. McDarrah Andy Warhol stands amid his Campbell’s
Tomato Juice Box installation at the Stable Gallery, New York,
recorder sitting on the lap of journalist Gene Swenson in a Manhattan restaurant in 1963. April 21 1964
The recorder had to be hidden because at this point the shy artist’s public persona had
not yet been crafted by countless self-portraits: in The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From
A to B and Back Again) (1975), through a Bolex 16 mm movie camera or via Warhol’s ‘wife’,
the Norelco-brand cassette recorder he began to wield in the mid 1960s. Swenson’s
interview was published in the United States later that year, and translated into Chinese
three decades later, for Ai Weiwei’s Black Cover Book in 1994 (p. 122). Ai embraced the
public Warhol, taking up Philosophy (the first English book he purchased and read in
New York) in the early 1980s and quitting painting for the machinic, photographic and
telematic media of the twentieth century. We can hear his affinity strongly by 2003: ‘I
wanted to do some art works where I would not put any effort or skill into it’.2 Such
questions of skill and the machine will be the focus of the present essay, interrogated
as practices in the two artists’ studios, dubbed, respectively, Factory and FAKE.

88
(previous) Ai Weiwei With Flowers 2013–15 (detail) 89
 a notable exception being in determining how to seal his mylar Silver Cloud balloons
(pp. 22–3) for a 1966 exhibition at Leo Castelli Gallery in New York.4 Ai’s FAKE Design
company, by contrast, routinely works with engineers (for example, the global firm Arup,
which engineered the artist’s 2008 ‘Bird’s Nest’ Olympic stadium in Beijing). His works
often feature the artisanal manufacturing for which China is renowned, intensifying the
contrast between the 1960s Factory and the new millennial FAKE.
Comparing FAKE and Factory inevitably reveals the economic, aesthetic and
Billy Name Exterior of the First Factory, 231 East 47th Street 1964 geopolitical shifts that have transformed the work of art from the 1960s to the present.
Whereas Warhol’s studio practice was emblematic of the mid twentieth century, Ai’s
art process reveals the determining characteristics of the early twenty-first. Essentially,
Warhol’s early works invoked an aesthetic of production, shifting to reproduction;5
whereas Ai’s practice reveals the spectrum of delegated artisanal labour and
communications at the contemporary conceptual artist’s command.
Warhol’s studio space took its name around 1964, at first rather playfully, from
a hat manufactory that had once occupied its address at 231 East 47th Street; his
associates soon covered the walls (and some of the windows) with aluminium foil to
convey a space-age look and silver-screen glamour. Technically speaking, Warhol’s
Factory was a symptom of Manhattan’s increasingly post-industrial condition –
manufacturing spaces were closing one by one (the building housing Warhol’s first
Factory was demolished in 1968). Only the activism of artists living in SoHo in the
1970s preserved the cast-iron loft buildings that became synonymous with New York’s
‘alternative’ contemporary art scene.6
Conversely, Ai’s studio was built to his own design in 1999. One of his first works of
architecture, the minimalist brick building went up in a few months on a tract of land
in Caochangdi (now part of greater Beijing) with little concern for legality or permits,
in true Chinese developmental fashion. The walled compound has an address plaque
labelled 258 FAKE in English, and the corporate name floats like an aegis above the
simple utilitarian workspace that looks more like a warehouse and loading dock than
an atelier. Another vast workspace, the Zuoyou Studios (in the Zuoyou Art District), is
where Ai’s more massive installations are assembled. FAKE, as a legal entity, has an
existence far more robust than the metaphorical Factory of Warhol. If you wanted to
prosecute Warhol on tax evasion, you would have to sue Warhol himself; to get Ai, the
Ai Weiwei Studio House, Beijing, 1999
Chinese party-state went after FAKE.7
Having accepted the nickname of the Factory for his workspace, Warhol also
eventually accepted the name ‘Pop Art’. His first coinage for the kind of silkscreened,
Ai’s studio production is organised through his corporation – FAKE – written with two multiplied and apparently affectless art he was making had been ‘Commonism’, in a bid
Chinese characters: FA (signifying development) and KE (signifying class). He likes how to bridge his family’s soot-laden working-class origins (and potential leftist sympathies)
this ‘class development’ operation is redolent of an English curse when pronounced with an emerging aesthetics of plenty in the postwar United States. Popism was another
in Chinese.3 His ‘fake’ company employs real factories (if by that we mean workshops name floating around, about which Ai has commented, ‘Nothing could be more social
and production plants where he is not the only client), whereas Warhol’s Factory was, than that’.8 At Warhol’s exhibition opening at the Stable Gallery, New York, in 1964, the
indeed, a fake. Warhol’s Factory used eighteenth-century labour arrangements (piece artist posed in the middle of repeating, identical Campbell’s tomato juice boxes that
work and line assembly), together with state-of-the-art, twentieth-century technologies formed an array replicating their Factory production (p. 89) – rows of plywood boxes
(photo-silkscreening, tape recording and filming). Warhol rarely worked with engineers, that he and his assistant Gerard Malanga had completed by successively painting, then

90 91
 the description of multiple blows required to straighten each length of rebar twisted
in the Sichuan earthquake (Straight, 2012, first exhibited as Wenchuan Steel Rebar at
the Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, DC, in 2012); the delicately painted stripes on 100
million porcelain sunflower seeds (Sunflower Seeds, 2010, commissioned for the Turbine
Hall, Tate Modern, London); the precisely jigged sections of salvaged tieli wood that
form a map of China (Map of China, 2004); or the extraordinary carpentry that merged
Allan McCollum Over Ten Thousand Individual Works 1987–88 (detail)
a traditional piece of furniture with a massive structural beam, without striking a nail
(Pillar Through Round Table, 2004–05).
The unifying trope here is labour. Staggering, earnest, skilled, manual labour. In
screening, the necessary colours. Ai’s Whitewash installation (1993–2000, p. 89), now in a move Warhol would certainly authorise, the skill set of the artist becomes that of
the M+ Sigg Collection, Hong Kong, presents a similar array, but one that has nothing a precise manager, who must find the best place to ‘shop out’ extensive subsidiary
to do with its production. As with Warhol’s boxes, these are containers, some of which craft and the best craftsman to supply it. For Warhol such operations did not have far
also bear fresh paint; however, the point of the work is stunningly different. Because Ai to go – simply to the nearby graphic repro shop, where a pilfered film still, marked
has collected late Stone Age vases rather than built new plywood boxes, what results for cropping, could be converted into a negative transparency and used to expose
from his ‘whitewashing’ is a pointed contrast between centuries of traditional craft still a photo-sensitive transfer onto a silkscreen. The more automatic the better; but the
available in China and the brutal demolition of that heritage by the pell-mell Chinese ‘painting’ still happened at the Factory. Warhol’s shopping out, which allowed that
economy. Whereas Warhol values the banality of machine-like labour in the ‘brand-new’ still from Henry Hathaway’s Niagara (1953) to fuel decades of iconic Marilyns, merely
contemporaneity of the postwar United States, Ai’s whitewash highlights lost heritage. enabled the look of the machine-made. Ai conceives of a similarly quixotic project –
The contrast between 1960s Warhol and twenty-first century Ai allows us to having millions of humble sunflower seeds made out of clay, each of them to be painted
understand something profound about those different art worlds. Ai has access to so they are uniquely individual – and then cultivates a relation with the Jingdezhen
Duchamp and Warhol, but filtered through New York postmodernism of the 1980s, (Jiangxi province) porcelain firm in order to produce them. As one frequent assistant, the
by which time the readymade had become appropriation in the works of Jeff Koons, sculptor Li Zhanyang, put it: ‘I’m just his hands’.12 Ai’s hands would do, but they could not
Haim Steinbach, Sherrie Levine, and Allan McCollum (above).9 These artists practised achieve the sublime expenditure of labour by thousands of hands that the artist wants.
détournement rather than mediatic repetition; where Warhol had circulated signs and It is significant that Warhol took up print technologies at the Factory when he
simulacra, the appropriationists’ work often featured commodities that, by virtue of wanted to ‘be a machine’, since printing was what others had done with his commercial
their Duchampian designation by the artist, had been removed from use value and artwork. By contrast, if Ai originally made things by hand, his FAKE inversion was to
converted to exchange value. (In McCollum’s case, they were patent ‘plaster copies’.) delegate that merely repetitive labour. The entire point of printmaking is repetitive
Appropriation went well beyond the machinic ‘look’ of Commonism; what it gave Ai was invariance; the meticulous workers hired for Ai’s work apprentice themselves to plying
a Western licence to delegate labour from a distance and accumulate it, quite unlike centuries-old skills along similar lines. Epistemologies of printing – the ways in which
the proto-delegation of Warhol’s repetitive screenings (which could have been done the print produces knowledge, the presuppositions about knowing that are coded
by others, but were not). What Ai would pioneer back in Beijing was thus an Eastern into its operations – allow us to ask questions of subjectivity (of the artist, and of the
understanding of the delegation of labour that could reference China’s imperial past viewer) rather than simply of pictorial subject matter. The repetition and reproduction
and global future at the same time: labour as reskilled, distributed and anonymous; entailed by ‘being a machine’, via printmaking, involved body disciplines that became
labour so intensive as to approach the sublime; labour as the continuous toil of the tangible in Warhol’s art; those disciplines can also be intuited in the repetitions of the
Chinese worker from 10,000 BC up to this minute. sunflower seeds, the painted pots, or the sanded wood in Ai’s installations. Bending,
‘China cannot always be the production quarter of the world’, Ai has said.10 But while painting, dipping, rubbing, sanding or screening are labours that can be empathetically
it is, he will necessarily engage with that reality. Warhol wanted things to ‘be easy’, and felt by viewers of the finished works.
so does Ai. But Warhol’s saying ‘I want somebody to be able to do all my paintings for The first dot matrix, which appears in Warhol’s painting Before and After, 1961
me’ never really got him out of the Factory. Similarly, Ai’s desire to make a work of art (Museum of Modern Art, New York), was hand-painted from a traced projection and
without ‘putting any skill into it’ does not remove skill from what he puts on display. On then printed on with a rubber stamp. The stamped dot patterns applied a subtle
the contrary, skill is hypotactically present in much of his work: it is abundantly visible or grid that aimed to replicate a half-tone screen. The Campbell’s iterations from 1962,
discursively produced, as the subordinated artisanal craft that anchors the conceptual by contrast, used hand-cut stencils and spray paint, leaving indices of the bending,
work of the contemporary artist.11 It is the pattern under the shock of industrial paint; placing, and spraying operations of Warhol and his assistants. All of this was to remove

92 93
 flawless images Ai was drawing in rapid succession ‘had no heart’.15 This kind of rebuke,
together with the art history classes that introduced him to Duchamp and Warhol (and
the contemporary gallery exhibitions where he found the basketballs of Jeff Koons ‘such
a fresh approach’ 16), led the young immigrant to quit art school, as he had quit film school
back in Beijing. Craft was clearly not the point, but what would take its place? How to get
from the ‘Business Art Business’ to the appropriations and delegations of Koons?
The aesthetic that had launched Warhol’s fine art career was one of production.
Ai’s challenge was to figure out how this lesson could apply to him after he returned to
Beijing. For Warhol, the look of production began with printer’s tear sheets and crude
half-tone reproductions, mimicking his chosen sources in the misaligned degraded
advertising imagery at the back of magazines. Production involved the body and the
subject as well as the product, as the artist’s early Before and After paintings (drawn
from a plastic surgery ad) suggest. The grid of inked and printed rectangles maps
itself out like the cleverly repeating patterns of industrially printed wallpaper, but
is sufficiently misaligned to reveal its application by humans. The faintly pencilled
grid guided the disciplined performing body of the artist (or one of his assistants),
constraining placement of the blocky stamp just so, or the small stencil guiding
the spray paint, again and again. A labouring body is not only disciplined by such
repetitions, but internalises them, connecting Surrealist ‘automatism’ to the postwar
discourse of automation – being a machine.
Ai returned to a very different China after his twelve years in the United States.
Billy Name Andy Warhol Arranging Flower Paintings on the Factory Floor 1964
Information on Duchamp and Warhol had become widely available by 1993 through a
flood of journal articles and essays entering Chinese art schools during Deng’s reform
period. Indeed, Ai himself had crafted one of these essays in collaboration with Xu Bing,
the ‘creative touch’ that had characterised his commercial illustrations. Far from in which they poked fun at the unquestioning Chinese uptake of Western art theory.
discontinuous with his later work, the early commercial art set up the now inverted Salvaging paintings from the trash in their East Village neighbourhood in New York, Xu
tension between printed repetition and the individuated mark of ‘art’ – as in the and Ai fabricated a fictitious artist for the works, inserted his name into an appropriated
famous chiasmus in the Philosophy where he narrates the switch from the business of American art review, then flogged it to a Chinese journal to translate and publish
art to the ‘Business Art Business’.13 Warhol’s commercial art had offered ‘hand-drawn’ as ‘important’.17 The postmodernity of Ai’s take on these influences is revealed in the
illustrations that in fact involved transfers and tracings to produce a look of blotted Black, White and Grey Cover books he made between 1994 and 1997 with Xu Bing and
ink – a handmade quality destined for mass reproduction.14 (A good example being So Zeng Xiaojun after returning to Beijing, which mingled ‘Modern Art Documents’ (not yet
Happy, 1950s.) Such part-reproductive processes intentionally obscured both the quasi- routinely called postmodern, even in New York) by Duchamp, Warhol and Koons, with
industrial circuitry and the substantial contribution of handwork by assistants that were statements and documentation of contemporary practices by Chinese experimental
part of Warhol’s studio. By inversion, in the clean lines of his early paintings, the look of artists breaking away from state sponsorship in the mid 1990s.
the handmade gave way to the sheen of repetitive silkscreen production – rendered Despite frequently repeated claims of ‘doing nothing’ in these years, Ai had clearly
as ‘unique artwork’ by unorthodox combinations, whether varied background colours, been busy building an entire art world for himself in Beijing. The Cover publications
overprinting, or gridded repeats. were part of this activity, as well as his design for the non-state art institution China
Ai’s only artistic craft is the superlative drawing skill he gained under the watchful Art Archives and Warehouse, built in 1997 with European backing.18 He also curated
tutelage of a friend of his father, a skill visible in works such as Street in Shanghai, (with Feng Boyi) a counter-exhibition to the Shanghai Biennale in 2000 titled Fuck Off
Shanghai Rooftops and Suzhou (p. 128), all from 1979. According to the artist, such (the Chinese title translates as Uncooperative Approach). But what characterised his
mastery of precise rendering (pen only, no pencil, never an eraser) was seen as too production at this time? Ai’s embrace of the replicated object, the first being that
skilled once he got to New York. In classes Ai took at Parsons School of Design, New ubiquitous collectible, the Han vase, was as significant as Warhol’s adoption of printed
York, beginning in autumn 1982, his teacher (painter Sean Scully) observed that the surfaces. In place of shopping out, Ai went shopping.

94 95
(opposite) Nat Finkelstein Andy Warhol with Holly Solomon Silkscreens, The Factory, NYC 1965

Marcel Duchamp Fountain 1917/64

In his transition from commercial to fine art, Warhol had tried two new Coca-Cola
paintings of differing styles – one drippy and one with crisp, taut lines – and asked
his filmmaker friend Emile De Antonio to help him choose between them. De Antonio
preferred the crisp icon, and the rest is history. In his transition, Ai turned to the very
same logo for his first mature Beijing work, Han Dynasty Urn with Coca-Cola Logo, 1994
(p. 13). The artist drew a careful outline of the scripted logo in graphite and then filled it
in with a thin wash of what looks like mineral red. The calligraphic script merges rather
delicately with the cream body of a Western Han (Xi Han) dynasty urn, hardly hinting at
the violence of later variants – not only Whitewash, but also the infamous Dropping a Han
Dynasty Urn, 1995. As Roger Buergel has observed:

The logo is an intrusion. It embeds itself in the vase, takes possession of it,
but the history of that empire’s expansion is only half the story. The rest, less
familiar to foreigners until now, speaks to the Chinese knack for assimilating
the foreign – a talent as ruthless as it is inspired.19

The inspiration for this possessive iconoclasm and its manifestly hybrid results
continue to motivate Ai, as the 2007 Neolithic Pottery with Coca-Cola Logo (p. 239)
makes clear. The modest skill required to apply the trademarked soft drink logo reads
as even more of an intrusion in this later work, since its metallic paint obscures the
complex mineral and organic slip glazes that form magical animal figures on the
original vessel.
Certainly these works are assisted readymades in the veritable tradition of R. Mutt’s
Fountain of 1917 (above). They even share Duchamp’s medium: purchased porcelain
object with applied paint. Mr Mutt’s many defenders celebrated him for providing ‘a
new thought for the object’, allowing the art lover to see, in a simple urinal, a ‘Buddha
of the bathroom’.20 We can imagine Ai shared this ambition of converting such an
object of pure utility into one of aesthetic or devotional contemplation. His vases are
conceptual hybrids between Duchamp and Warhol, since the ‘signature’ here is not
R. Mutt’s but the one Warhol had already appropriated from Coca-Cola. Coke was the
multinational corporation whose ‘war’ with Pepsico over the markets in China and the
USSR fuelled many a Cold War dream of untethered capitalism; it is no surprise that
conceptual appropriation artists were especially attracted to its iconography.21
Despite this, the shift from Warhol’s screen-printed mimicry of industrial replication
to Ai’s industrial logo applied by hand to visibly artisanal productions is a confounding
move. At one level, it upends the vast literature on the Duchampian readymades as
poetically diverted, industrially produced objects-become-art. Of course, that argument
in art historical literature is overstated, since the variants of Duchamp’s objects exhibited
today were mostly custom-made to order by dealers, such as Arturo Schwarz, who
worked with the artist to authorise editions throughout the 1960s. (A blueprint from that
enterprise is illustrated in Ai’s Black Cover Book.) Today such a bespoke replica might be
ordered from China itself.

97
 organised jobbers and imperial officials; some production facilities were directly
supervised by the state. Even in the Neolithic-period vases Ai collects (much older and
mostly hand-built), there is an invariance of production and consistency of style that
provides breathtaking proof of what contemporary capitalists call quality control. In this
context, Ai’s wavering and erratic Coke logo seems expressionist by comparison; and
certainly in comparison to Warhol’s.
When Warhol hired Gerard Malanga as his assistant in 1963, he knew what he
wanted: the crisp edges and invariant forms of stencilled reproduction.24 Instead of
hand-cutting a stamp or stencil, Warhol’s photographic technologies would convert the
Ai Weiwei in his studio
image ‘automatically’, without disturbing the epistemology of the print. Unlike Robert
Rauschenberg, who took to silkscreening on canvas at virtually the same moment in
1962, Warhol was not interested in the print as a way of scattering photographic images
Ai’s relationship to the thousands of years of Chinese craftsmanship that the Han around a composition. Rather, he wanted the regimented look of printing’s authority and
or Neolithic vases represent is complex. On the one hand, he sees the craft traditions the grid of mass production. The grid helped plan the positioning of the body and the
he recycles as otherwise lost or disappearing, and draws attention to these skills screen well in advance, since the black ink layer had to be screened over facial colours
with his conceptual appropriations. On the other hand, some of his work with these painted on within a cruder stencil or frisket first (see Three Marilyns, 1962, pp. 188–9).
‘readymades’ is so iconoclastic that we intuit a degree of rage directed against this Warhol’s early screened works began with the same language of repetition that
artisanal past – Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn, the photographic triptych from 1995, is had characterised the stamped and spray-stencilled ones – but, in addition to the
perhaps the most famous example, but Ai’s logo painting and whitewashing are also ubiquitous grid, allowed for overlap and misregistration effects observable even in the
iconoclasms. Iconoclasm as such is not discussed in interviews with the artist; however, scant three-times replication of Three Marilyns. In place of food products or blocks of
he has noted of Whitewash: trading stamps, the silkscreened paintings began to trade in commodified celebrities,
whose consumption operates entirely in the realm of the photographic-cinematic.
Even though it becomes suddenly hard to judge, the value of the original In these haunting silkscreened canvases, replication was no longer linked solely to
pieces remain, but under the white paint … I am interested to see the ways industrial production but to reproduction; the ‘screen tests’ would measure how much
different cultures can look at such an object differently … I am interested in reproduction, all by itself, could produce celebrity in the register of the moving image.
making some changes that would make people feel some unease. The relation By the time Ai took up Warhol as a model, such works were being theorised in
would be how to interpret objects or a cultural fragment and how judgement the context of postmodernism and French post-structuralism. We cannot assume
can be questioned. Art allows us to ask the right questions through our visual that concepts such as Baudrillard’s ‘precession of simulacra’, or Debord’s ‘society
perception or feeling. By doing that we are able to question the essential of the spectacle’, were accessible to a Chinese illegal alien working various odd
elements, our mental processes.22 jobs (laundry, gardening, frame-shop work) to survive in New York.25 But the knowing
blague of Xu Bing’s and Ai’s plagiarised review sent back to China, and the artist’s solo
Ai’s explanation aims to soften this unease. He likes the way the curves of the Coke exhibition Old Shoes – Safe Sex at Ethan Cohen’s gallery in 1988, both reveal the new
logo echo and play with the form of ancient pottery.23 When obscured by paint of appreciation for Duchamp and appropriation that postmodern theory had brought to
one colour, these vases become appreciable for their shapes alone, as with Allan a raging pitch. Labouring on his own, Ai’s assisted readymades had none of the arch
McCollum’s Asia-evoking (but entirely fabricated) Collection of Five Perfect Vehicles, perfection he would later adopt from Koons. They were humble but clever, one-to-one
1985–86 (New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York). Duchampianisms that made their point: Duchamp’s galvanised snow shovel (from In
We might imagine Ai in 1994, bending over the first of these vases in much the same Advance of the Broken Arm, 1915) became hybridised with cowhide; Duchamp’s mitred
way the potter bent over his coils of clay thousands of years ago. But the romance of a case (from 3 Standard Stoppages, 1913–14, Museum of Modern Art, New York) became a
‘village potter’ does not capture the sheer scale of either Han or Neolithic production; torqued box for an axe; and Duchamp’s cast cheek (With My Tongue in My Cheek, 1959,
the former in particular, as Ai’s works remind us, was a vast, imperially driven affair. Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris) became a portrait made out of a coat hanger, which
Just as Warhol’s blackened, poorly registered Marilyn silkscreens on canvas evoke the Ai gave the Oedipal title Hanging Man (p. 12). In One Man Shoe, 1987, the young artist
mediatic proliferation of this celebrity, Ai’s hoardings of Han dynasty vases remind us made his real point: if you were Chinese, Duchampian conceptualism had to be filtered
of imperial industry. These vessels were made to the specifications of hierarchically by a sensibility in which honest artisanal labour spoke more loudly than words.

98 99
100
Obrist: What turns you on?
Ai: The unfamiliar reality.
The condition of uneasiness.
Obrist: What turns you off?
Ai: Repetition.26

DEVOTION Ai has acknowledged being drawn to ‘art that had a certain emotional
detachment or indifference, because I myself had so much emotion in me’, and
the appropriation sculptures in his Ethan Cohen exhibition fit this model of ironic
detachment:

Released of emotion, I was trying not to think too much. So for me Dada and
Surrealism were interesting because they placed culture in a larger perspective
and so much related to what has happened in the world scientifically, culturally Ai Weiwei Lower East Side Restaurant 1988

and politically.27

Warhol also valued the emptying that came with repetition. Recall that famous
‘machine’ quotation, duly translated and reprinted in Ai’s Black Cover Book: the Buddhism-promoting, emotion-laden confessional poet (and knew Ai’s father, the
poet Ai Qing). His proximity to Ai represents an alternative perspective on Ai’s New
I think everybody should be a machine. I think everybody should like York, where passion and politics fuel the making of art and Buddhism allows enough
everybody ... And I think that’s what’s going to happen ... That’s probably distance to survive it emotionally. Ginsberg’s unstudied influence on Ai should be taken
one reason I’m using silkscreens now. I think somebody should be able to seriously, insofar as it allowed a certain torqued uptake of Warhol, abetted by Ai’s
do all my paintings for me ... The reason I’m painting this way is that I want friend Xu Bing.
to be a machine and I feel that whatever I do and do machine-like is what Before even leaving Beijing for New York, Xu Bing cited Warhol as an inspiration for
I want to do.28 his early prints, carried on as the impetus for his carving thousands of meaningless
ideograms for the magisterial Book from the Sky, 1988 (first shown at the Chinese
Perhaps most surprising is the emotional valence in Warhol’s statement. If everyone National Art Gallery in Beijing), or the hundreds of rubbings of the Great Wall for
becomes a machine, ‘everybody [will] like everybody’. Everyone ‘being’ like everyone another installation: ‘I hope that this [project] will produce a meaningless result
converts to everyone liking every being. Thus we recall that when Warhol’s iterations achieved through the expenditure of great effort. For me, this [experience] will bring
moved from commodity to celebrity, the series of car crashes and electric chairs about a rarefied plane of thought’.30 Perhaps these philosophies of repetition (as an
accompanying this conversion were organised as Death and Disasters, associated aesthetic and a mind-emptying practice) also informed Ai’s particular take on Warhol.
by Warhol, as with his films, in an emptying of affect: ‘If you look at something long When Ai conceived a number of Sichuan earthquake protest pieces, he wanted 9000
enough, I’ve discovered, the meaning goes away’.29 backpacks arranged on the facade of a Munich museum, symbolising the children who
The emptying of mind, or the capacity to achieve distance from the vexations of perished (for Remembering, 2009); for Straight, 2012, he asked that hundreds of pieces
emotion, is one understanding of Warhol’s aim in art-making, and in this context Ai’s of rebar salvaged from the devastated schools be laboriously hand-straightened.
(previous) Ugo Mulas Andy Warhol Silkscreening
photograph (opposite) of himself assuming the Dhyana Mudra meditation pose with Although the labour is not his, there is a devotional, commemorative summoning and
Campbell’s Soup Can in the Factory 1964 Allen Ginsberg in a Lower East Side restaurant is revealing. Ginsberg instantiates emptying of affect associated with such extraordinary proliferation.31

102 103
Does karma really exist
in this world? ... If it did,
retribution would have
come long ago.
Ai Weiwei32

CONCLUSION The difference between Ai Weiwei and Andy Warhol is their

incommensurate politics. The political passions of Ai simply have no analogue in
the emptied affect of Warhol, resembling rather a Ginsbergian Howl. Is this the force
of an entirely different context? Quite possibly. Warhol crafted a persona that was
studiously, intentionally empty: ‘Just tell me what you want me to say’, he would drone
to an interviewer, before turning on his own microphone and aiming it at the intrusive
journalist. It was a time of ‘cool’ media (theorised as such by Marshall McLuhan), in
which Warhol’s art chilled political themes down to zero. As activist Angela Davis once
commented about Warhol’s painting Red Race Riot, 1963 (Museum Ludwig, Cologne),
its title alone speaks to the emptying of content; this is what happens, she suggested,
when an iterated icon stands in for a complex event (here a peaceful protest met with
police brutality).33 Art history has routinely attributed a mild left liberalism to Warhol,
but overt politics are hard to find; ‘race’ proves easy to match with the drapes and
hang over the couch.
Ai has an entirely different row to hoe. Burdened by the legacy of state violence
directed against his father (and now himself), but buoyed by his mother’s celebration of
the family’s penchant for living on the edge of what the oppressive single-party state
will tolerate, he has never considered silence an option.34 (Warhol, on the other hand,
made ‘silence’ another kind of slogan in the mute Electric Chair works, 1963–71, pp. 149
& 158–9.) As Ai commented before his detention by the state in 2011, ‘I’m more fearful
than other people. Maybe that’s why I act, because I see the danger. And if you don’t
act, the danger becomes even stronger’.35 Growing up in underground holes and hovels
as a result of his father’s persecution has bred in him a resistance to fear, or perhaps
an ability to sharpen that primordial emotion into wariness and political sensitivity. ‘I’m
not really scared’, he told a filmmaker inquiring about his persecution by the Chinese
authorities. ‘But it’s scary’.36
Respect for the craftspeople whose labour Ai displays coexists with a ready rage
for the petty tyrants and obstinate greed of the party-state that rules China. His
interrogations of value are fuelled by a demotic socialism, but not the kind peddled
by the communist propagandists.37 If his sunflower seeds symbolise the humble but
unique patterning of every individual in a 100 million–plus sample, the real utopia
implied by their germination is the unleashed creativity that full reform would enable
China to achieve. Instead of being a ‘production quarter’ providing ‘servants’ to a world
addicted to China’s cheap wares and wages, Ai Weiwei would hope the country could
relax a little and enjoy the wit and conceptual production that ‘class development’, aka
FAKE, stands ready to provide.

104 Andy Warhol Silver Liz (Ferus Type) 1963; (overleaf) David McCabe David Dalton, Chuck Wein, Edie Sedgwick, Gerard Malanga, Billy Name and Larry Latreille with Andy at the Factory, Spring 1965 105
107
Ugo Mulas
Andy Warhol and Gerard
Malanga, New York 1964

108
(previous) Ai Weiwei with Coloured
Vases, 2006, in his studio, Beijing;
(right) Construction of Ai Weiwei’s
Grapes, 2011

112
 Political
and artistic
legacy in Ai
Weiwei’s art
Gao Minglu

116 (previous) Ai Weiwei Fountain of Light, 2007, in progress; (above) Ai Weiwei with Herzog & de Meuron Beijing National Stadium, 2005–08, under construction 117
118 119
‘A nation that will not
search for its own past
and not be critical of it is
a shameless nation.’
Ai Weiwei1

Ai Weiwei Tai Lake (Taihu) 1980

Since the 1990s, and particularly since 2007, Ai Weiwei has been the most important
contemporary Chinese artist not only in the art world, but also in the international
media and online. Before the 1990s, however, he was not as influential as other Chinese
artists, such as Xu Bing, Huang Yongping and Cai Guo-Qiang. Ai’s works and activities
are concerned with contemporary ideologies and the workings of culture, capital and
public media, all combined in a provocative format. In comparison with other influential
Chinese artists such as Xu Bing, whose culturally focused prints and installations are
concerned with particular materials and subjects, Ai plays a game with the whole
system, both political and artistic.
In 1979 and 1980, as one of the youngest members of the Stars group of Chinese
experimental artists, Ai participated in two Stars exhibitions in Beijing. In his early
paintings, Chinese dwellings, rivers and the sky are depicted in rough brushstrokes
and a mix of contrasting colours (above). These small-scaled watercolour landscapes
were clearly influenced by Western modernist art movements, including Impressionism,
Cubism and Brutalism. In fact, most works by the Stars artists displayed in 1979 were
non-political, even aesthetic in appearance.

(previous)
120 Ai Weiwei Study of Perspective 1995–2011 (detail) 121
 The White Cover Book also published a conceptual/performance work by Ai
created in 1995 in which he dropped a Han dynasty urn and photographed the
process (pp. 10–11). In the same year, Ai took a photograph of his middle finger
raised to Tiananmen Square; the idea was later developed into the photographic
series Study of Perspective, 1995–2011 (pp. 134–7), in which he gives his middle digit
to international icons of power. In 1994 Ai’s girlfriend Lu Qing also posed in front of
Ai Weiwei, Xu Bing, Zeng Xiaojun (editors) Core artists of the group, including Wang Keping, Bo Yun, Qu Leilei and Ai, came Tiananmen Square, just beside Mao’s portrait, lifting her skirt to expose her white
Black Cover Book 1994
from literary and revolutionary families, and this background framed the Stars’ avant- underwear (pp. 166–7). Despite the provocative ‘voice’ in these 1990s works, at this
garde mentality. On the one hand, these artists could obtain both political as well as time Ai’s art continued to employ conventional media and subjects. This would
cultural information about Western modern art more easily than most Chinese – from change in 2006 when the artist started utilising the internet and blog writing.
foreign publications circulated in intellectual circles – which stimulated their desire for In the mid 1990s, Ai and Lu Qing were considered two of the leading artists in
self-expression and individual freedom. On the other hand, their families’ experiences China’s Apartment Art movement.3 Other notable Chinese artist couples returned to
of confrontation with the government, repression by officials and the resilience Beijing after living abroad at this time, including Xu Bing and Cai Jin, Zhu Jinshi and
learned from this filled the Stars with revolutionary confidence. They knew how to play Qin Yufen, and Wang Gongxin and Lin Tianmiao. They brought with them new ideas
the game with government officials and ultimately achieved their goal of holding an that inspired Chinese artists in avant-garde circles to create unsalable, unexhibitable,
exhibition at the National Art Museum of China, Beijing. small-scaled installations, and even some ‘projects on paper’ which only existed as
After the two Stars exhibitions, in 1981 Ai quit the Beijing Film Academy and went conceptual projects in publication form. In collaboration with Feng Boyi, Ai curated the
to the United States. He studied briefly at Parsons School of Design, then transferred exhibition Fuck Off in 2000 in reaction to the Shanghai Biennale. Fuck Off continued Ai’s
to the Art Students League of New York before dropping out of art school altogether. avant-garde art stance taken in the Black Cover Book, and was staged at the same time
In New York, Ai was fascinated by Marcel Duchamp, Dadaism, Joseph Beuys and Andy as the official biennale. It featured forty-eight works made by contemporary Chinese
Warhol. In 1985 he painted three panels of Mao’s portraits (p. 146), obviously influenced avant-garde artists and made the Biennale look academic by comparison. Works such
by Warhol’s hundreds of Mao paintings and prints (pp. 145 & 156–7). Although his life in as Zhu Yu’s notorious performance Eating People, 2000, caused great controversy in
New York seemed isolated from the nationwide avant-garde ’85 Movement in China, Ai and outside the art world, and huge attention was paid internationally to the exhibition.
kept in contact with some of its artists, actors, writers and film directors, such as Xu Before 2007, Ai’s works were mostly installations, Dada and Minimalist in orientation.
Bing, Zhai Yongming, Feng Xiaogang and Jiang Wen. He also used repetition in strong patterns like so many classic Minimalist works of
In 1993 Ai returned to China to spend time with his sick father, and during this art. From 2007 onwards, however, especially after he began to launch demonstrations
decade became one of Beijing’s leading avant-garde artists. One of his great against the government, Ai has made his name as a fighter for human rights and
contributions at this time was the introduction of Western contemporary art into China. as a dissident, a political hero. He has examined student casualties of the Sichuan
In the late 1990s Ai, Hans van Dijk and Frank Uytterhaegen founded China Art Archives earthquake in 2008 and a local village head’s unexplained death in 2010. The installation
and Warehouse, one of the earliest contemporary art spaces in Beijing. Ai also worked Remembering, 2009, on the facade of the Haus der Kunst, Munich, created for his
with Xu Bing and Zeng Xiaojun to produce Black Cover Book (1994, above), White Cover retrospective show So Sorry, was based on a survey Ai conducted about the Sichuan
Book (1995) and Grey Cover Book (1997). These three publications are not only precious earthquake (pp. 124–5). In this work, 9000 colourful schoolbags were arranged into a
Chinese avant-garde art documents including important work by Zhang Huan, Ma Chinese sentence, quoted from a mother who lost a child in the disaster: ‘She lived
Liuming, Wang Jin and Song Dong, but also helped disseminate contemporary art to happily for seven years in this world’.
young generations of Chinese artists. The books translated writings on and explained From this time on, Ai has become a Beuysian artist who creates social sculptures.
the work of Marcel Duchamp, Joseph Beuys, Taiwanese artist Tehching Hsieh and Unlike Beuys’s casual, unpredictable forms of social sculpture, Ai’s work commonly takes
American artist Jeff Koons. The Black Cover Book also included a translation of Gene monumental forms composed with objects arranged in vast numbers. The numbers
Swenson’s 1963 interview with Warhol published in Art News, bringing the artist’s work reveal the labour-intensive and time-consuming nature of creating the works. The time
and ideas to Chinese audiences. Although only 3000 copies of each Cover Book were and labour, however, is always contributed by anonymous workers under Ai’s command.
produced, they spread quickly among Chinese avant-garde art circles and exerted These forms and the making process may lead one to recall the mass production in
great influence. Much like the avant-garde art activities of Chinese artists in the 1990s Mao’s revolution and Chinese industry in the age of globalisation. Of course, since
– what I refer to as fang an yishu (projects on paper) – these publications acted as Warhol, turning an artist’s studio into a factory has been a common methodology in
catalogues of exhibitions that did not exist.2 contemporary art, and one especially favoured by Chinese artists since the late 1990s.

122 123
124 Ai Weiwei Remembering, 2009, Haus der Kunst, Munich, 2009 125
 In 2007 Ai brought 1001 Chinese citizens to Kassel, Germany, for Documenta 12.
They came from different social backgrounds and ranged in age from two to seventy,
meaning their experiences of the trip were not the same, by which Ai proved that
Chinese citizens were individuals rather than simply one group. In 2010 he installed 100
million porcelain sunflower seeds in the Tate Modern, London (opposite). Sunflowers
were an iconic symbol of Mao during the Cultural Revolution, and the seeds were
handmade by craftsmen in Jingdezhen, a traditional ceramic centre. By dispersing
sunflower seeds on the museum’s ground, to be stepped on by audiences, this work
conveyed a powerful political meaning, arranged in neat Minimalist form.
Ai’s Circle of Animals exhibited in the 2010 São Paulo Biennial (opposite) drew
attention to historical and political issues, such as the Western invasion of China and
the nation’s Century of Humiliation, fake cultural relics and copyright of artworks. Later,
these animal heads were displayed in open areas throughout the world as public
sculptures, sparking controversy wherever they went. These ‘animals’ explore power
relations between China and foreigners past and present. A similar line of enquiry has
been pursued by other Chinese artists, especially Cai Guo-Qiang; for example, in the
work Borrowing Your Enemy’s Arrows, 1998 (MoMA PS1, New York).
Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn, 1995 (pp. 10–11), was included in Ai’s 2014 exhibition
According to What? at the Perez Art Museum, Miami, alongside his famous Neolithic
vases with Coca-Cola logos intended to provoke thoughts about Western values and
Chinese tradition. Painting the Coca-Cola logo on traditional pottery, which Ai has done
since the 1990s, can been seen as corresponding to the work of Chinese Political Pop
artists of the late 1980s and early 1990s, specifically Wang Guangyi’s Great Castigation:
Coca-Cola, 1990–2007. The method and approaches of China’s Political Pop movement
may be traced back to the former Soviet Union’s Sots Art of the 1970s and 1980s.
Ai’s forty-year career has coloured him as an avant-garde artist antagonistic
towards authority. As we have seen, here, his artistic approaches can be characterised
in three ways. First, he takes Duchamp, Beuys and Warhol as recourses for his
methodologies. From Duchamp he has learned how to shock his audience; from Beuys,
how to promote a social event as art; and from Warhol, how to make full use of public
media, or how to turn media itself into his work of art. The three resources refer to art,
ideology and public information respectively. Ai expertly combines them by closely
binding together Chinese political reality, its economic capital and his art. Second, he
frequently combines tradition and destruction to challenge public notions of ‘value’; for
example, by destroying Neolithic vases and porcelain vessels as symbols of hegemony
and authority. Third, he appropriates political strategies from Mao and the Communist
Party, using them in his antagonistic activities and acting as a guerrilla artist. Some of
his language, such as ‘mobilising the masses’, and methods come directly from Mao. Ai
hires labourers and craftspeople to produce his works instead of making them himself.
Masses, overpopulation and monumental size, the familiar revolutionary form applied
during Mao’s period, become the dominant language in the most famous of Ai’s works
made in recent years. He skilfully and effectively uses the Communist Party’s strategies
to fight against its authority.

126 (above) Ai Weiwei Sunflower Seeds, 2010, Tate Modern, 2010; (below) Ai Weiwei Circle of Animals (in Bronze), 2010, installation view, São Paulo Biennial, 2010 127
128 Ai Weiwei Suzhou 1979 Ai Weiwei Suzhou River in Shanghai 1979 129
130 Ai Weiwei Mao (Facing Forward) 1986 Ai Weiwei Mao (Facing Right) 1986 131
132 Ai Weiwei Fairytale: 1001 Qing Dynasty Wooden Chairs, 2007, Ai Weiwei Studio, Beijing Ai Weiwei Descending Light, 2007, installation view, Mary Boone Gallery, New York, 2007 133
134 135
136 (previous, above and opposite) Ai Weiwei Study of Perspective 1995–2011 (details) (overleaf) Ai Weiwei Circle of Animals (in Gold) 2010 137
 Readymade
disasters:
the art and
politics of
Andy Warhol
and Ai Weiwei
John J. Curley

140 Andy Warhol Most Wanted Men No. 2, John Victor G. 1964 141
142 143
‘Duchamp had the
bicycle wheel, Warhol
the image of Mao. I have
a totalitarian regime. It
is my readymade.’
Ai Weiwei

Andy Warhol Mao 1972

In 2010, Ai Weiwei recognised the importance of Chairman Mao to Andy Warhol’s long
investigation of celebrity and the cult of personality. The Chinese artist declared,
‘Duchamp had the bicycle wheel, Warhol had the image of Mao. I have a totalitarian
regime. It is my readymade’.1 The reference here to Duchamp’s notion of the readymade
points not only to Warhol and Ai’s shared artistic inheritance, but also, importantly,
to the ways both artists link this practice with political content. While Ai’s statement
suggests an expanded notion of politics and the readymade (indeed, appropriating an
entire regime), a close examination of these two artists demonstrates that both explore
found images and objects for the purposes of deconstructing the ideological function
of those forms. This similarity becomes even more urgent when we consider Warhol
and Ai’s antithetical backgrounds: capitalism and communism.

SOCIALIST REALISM AND THE SILKSCREEN About his prolific series of silkscreened
portraits of Chairman Mao, begun in 1972 (above & pp. 156–7), Warhol remarked, ‘I’ve
been reading so much about China. They’re so nutty. They don’t believe in creativity.
The only picture they ever have is of Mao Zedong. It’s great. It looks like a silkscreen’.2
In typical Warholian fashion, the artist’s words are hyperbolic and ironically deadpan.
While he dismisses the creative output of the entire country, the Mao portrait is
nevertheless ‘great’. What does Warhol mean by comparing the ubiquitous image of
Mao – found in a monumental painting looming over Tiananmen Square, as well as in
homes, factories and government buildings throughout China – to a silkscreen? It is
my contention that his words actually highlight the repressed ambiguity of this image
of Mao and, more broadly, of Socialist Realist painting, the doctrinaire style derived

(previous)
144 Ai Weiwei Trace, 2014, installation view, @Large: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz, Alcatraz Island, San Francisco, 2014 145
 black silkscreened image is called into question by the bright, painterly marks in the
background, reminiscent of the gestural abstraction of Willem de Kooning. Through
his combination of what seems to be photographic realism and abstract brushstrokes,
Warhol desublimates the profound ambiguity of the famous picture of Mao. The
benevolent image of the Chairman can make no claims to realism; it is as constructed
and subjective as an abstract painting. It is no wonder that these Pop portraits were
dropped from a Warhol exhibition’s stops in Beijing and Shanghai in 2013.8 They remain
Ai Weiwei Mao 1985
slyly subversive.
This stoical and symmetrical official portrait of Mao was part of Ai’s everyday visual
culture; for example, the same (or closely related) image would have hung in his school
from Soviet artistic practice and exported around the communist world beginning classrooms, watching over and encouraging ideological conformity in students and
in the 1930s. As we will see, Warhol’s comparison of the Chairman’s portrait to a teachers alike. Due to his personal circumstances, Ai clearly understood the violence,
silkscreen also anticipates the later concerns of Ai Weiwei. censorship and oppression hidden behind the facade of the softly contoured, fatherly
The stakes of Warhol’s comparison become clear when we compare the official portrait of Mao. The artist grew up in the extremely remote north-west Chinese
painting of Mao with one of Warhol’s early, canonical silkscreen paintings from province of Xinjiang because his father (the famous poet Ai Qing) was exiled for
1963, Tunafish Disaster (pp. 164–5). While Warhol used the silkscreen process to nonconformist and ‘rightist’ thinking, or as Chinese art expert Philip Tinari has noted,
photomechanically enlarge and replicate a found image from Newsweek onto canvas, for simply being a modernist.9 For part of this time in Xinjiang, Ai Qing was forced to
its seven pictured iterations do not have the associated clarity of press photography, perform the hard and humiliating work of cleaning communal toilets daily, which made
and comparing any two cans results in stark discrepancies. Warhol’s canvas begs the an indelible impression on his young son.10 For the budding artist, the portrait of Mao
question: which of the seven renditions of the canned good is the most ‘accurate’? In could therefore come to represent the gap between the leader’s benevolent rhetoric
this and other silkscreened canvases of the period, Warhol is confusing the perceived and the violent reality of oppressive state power. As Ai has recounted, ‘I have lived with
‘fact’ of photography and the subjective ‘fictions’ of painting, especially abstract political struggle since birth’.11
examples associated with Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and other American artists in Ai thematised this chasm between image and reality when he painted three almost
the 1950s and early 1960s.3 Photography, as Warhol suggests in Tunafish Disaster, can full-length portraits of Mao as a triptych in 1985 (opposite), after his move to New York in
approach the condition of abstract painting.4 1983. He rendered the still-revered leader (who died in 1976) as a caricature, then filled
Returning to the official, Socialist Realist picture of Mao, it too has the qualities of Mao’s outlines with the Western hallmarks of individual painterly expression: drips and
both photography and painting without explicitly appearing to be either. The hybrid spatters.12 These paintings are clearly a critique of Ai’s time in China; they attack the
quality is evident in the soft contours of the edges, especially in the fuzzy shadows legacy of Mao through the combination of a belittling Pop rendition and the violent signs
of Mao’s jacket. While Socialist Realism has never been a monolithic style across the of an aesthetic struggle. Mao’s power over the people, at least in these canvases, does
communist world, Social Realist paintings, very generally, all present an idealised, not extend to Ai. By comparison, Warhol’s many versions of Mao look downright decorous.
constructed reality, not including the unpleasant aspects of individuals or social When Ai returned to Beijing in 1993 his critiques of Mao’s image and legacy
conditions.5 In them labourers are portrayed as happy, and leaders as paternal. continued, although he became more daring in his engagement of public space. His
As an example of Socialist Realism, Mao’s image looming over Tiananmen is thus only famous photograph June 1994 (pp. 166–7) pictures Lu Qing, who would become his wife,
seemingly factual – it only looks like a photograph. As Wu Hung has argued, the giant in bustling Tiananmen Square, lifting her skirt to reveal her white underwear. No one,
painting does not even seem to be created by human hands; rather, it appears to be not even two uniformed police officers, seems to notice. The photograph presents a
an autonomous product of the natural world.6 sexualised, active body – exposing something forbidden in a public space – literally
When Warhol suggested that such portraits of Mao resemble silkscreens, he also under the stoic stare of Mao’s portrait. While the skewed composition implies a hurried
implied the inverse: that his own silkscreened paintings, such as Tunafish Disaster, snapshot, Ai nevertheless frames this photograph so that Mao’s face is unobscured
have something in common with Socialist Realism and the official image of communist and clearly visible over Lu’s shoulder. Like the 1985 triptych Mao, this photograph
China’s founder. Both employ blurry, ambiguous images derived from photography.7 attacks the Chairman’s legacy and state power, and in the words of one critic, suggests
In this context, Warhol’s own paintings of Mao expose the inherent contradictions a ‘liberation from social constraint’.13 Instead of painterly expression serving as a
of their source material – the same ubiquitous portrait of the leader. Looking at a metonymic extension of an active, questioning individual, in June 1994 we see an actual
specific example in Warhol’s massive series, the figurative certainty implied by the body dissenting in perhaps the most politically sacred space for Chinese communism.

146 147
 SOCIOPOLITICAL VIOLENCE AND POWER Warhol’s Tunafish Disaster not only blurs
the distinctions of photography and painting, but also exposes the violent underbelly
of capitalism. As American art historian and critic Thomas Crow pointed out in his
important essay ‘Saturday disasters’, the artist’s many images of car accidents,
suicides and other violent subjects (known collectively as the Death and Disasters
series) demonstrate ‘a stark, disabused, pessimistic vision of American life’. Instead of
functioning as a ‘bearer of desires’, Crow adds, the canned good depicted in Tunafish
Disaster can reveal ‘the reality of suffering and death’ under capitalism.14 Based on the
above, we can already see how Warhol and Ai use their art as a means of resistance
– whether symbolically or directly – that can reveal a more complicated reality lying Andy Warhol Electric Chair 1971
behind the blank facades of, respectively, American capitalism and Chinese communism.
Ai’s Baby Formula, 2013, predicated on melamine-tainted Chinese-made baby formula
that hospitalised thousands of infants with kidney stones and kidney failure in 2008,
performs a similar political function to Tunafish Disaster; the younger artist’s reference uses capitalist tropes to negate traditional ideas associated with high art: that it should
is only more specific. Warhol’s artistic practice, especially from the 1960s, exposes be unique, handmade and embody some kind of transcendental aura, for example. By
the dark side of capitalism; Ai’s work from the 1990s to the present reveals the violent exposing autonomous individuality as a mythology, Warhol uses the discourse of art to
oppression and disregard for individual needs and desires in contemporary China. reveal the repressive logic of capitalism, which is also predicated on subjective choice.18
Furthermore, as charted in Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei, both Warhol and Ai have His many silkscreens of car accidents, for instance, transform a primary emblem of
expansive views of art and art-making. Going far beyond traditional notions of painting American freedom and individualism into an instrument of violent death.19
and sculpture, their respective practices encompass interviews, writings on various While an exploration of Warhol’s extensive activities in this realm is outside the
platforms, publication ventures, photographs, social interventions and even their public scope of this essay, two specific aspects might be addressed here: first, many of
personas. As such, both have been called performance artists, whose entire public life his works emphasise what we might call the frictions of capitalism. Commodities, as
becomes subsumed into a total work of art, or gesamtkunstwerk.15 I want to suggest Roland Barthes implied when discussing the aura surrounding a new automobile in
that the key difference between them in this regard – Warhol’s passivity and uncritical 1957, seem to have ‘fallen from the sky’ fully formed.20 Of course, this is not the case:
‘liking’ of things versus Ai’s critical directness – derives from their differing political consumer objects are part of an extensive network of production and exchange. In
contexts. Both are playing within and exposing the contradictions of their respective the early 1960s, Warhol made and exhibited an extensive series of wooden sculptures
systems. Put simply, Warhol performs the role of the enthusiastic and anesthetised that faithfully replicate the cardboard boxes in which common grocery products
consumer within capitalism, and Ai the informed political activist, which is constituent are shipped. Whether boxes for Heinz ketchup (then made in Warhol’s hometown
with the rhetoric of communism. The role played by art within each system emphasises of Pittsburgh), Campbell’s tomato juice, Del Monte canned fruit or Brillo scrubbing
this difference. In capitalist countries art is considered useless and a luxury; that is, pads (p. 20), such works transform the gallery into something approaching a grocery
without explicit function – its functionality is precisely its excess (in service of class storeroom. These sculptures are not representations of pristine goods in a shop
distinction, cultural capital, etc.). Traditionally under communism, art must serve a window, but subtle reminders of labour and mass production – precisely the notions
productive social purpose, usually in terms of its didacticism. By this logic, Warhol and that advertising attempts to dispel. As critics on the left argued forcefully in the 1930s
Ai each replicate their ideological surroundings as a means to critique ideology itself. and 1940s (as well as Karl Marx and others in the nineteenth century), capitalism
depends upon distraction from its own labour.21 Warhol shows us, in an art gallery, the
WARHOL’S DISASTERS OF CAPITALISM In 1975, Warhol wrote, ‘[M]aking money is art and state in which products leave the factory – the transitional moment when they turn
working is art and good business is the best art’.16 To understand his attitude in the 1970s, from labour into the abstraction of a commodity.
it is important to familiarise ourselves with Warhol’s successful commercial art practice Second, Warhol’s works, as suggested earlier in regards to Tunafish Disaster,
in New York in the 1950s. During this decade, he completed illustrations for numerous reconfigure commodities as objects implicated in bodily harm and death, rather than
advertisers, most famously for the upscale shoe company I. Miller. As we see in a sketch distracting from such notions. Going beyond this, what is remarkable about his so-
for one of these illustrations, Warhol’s ads peddled the refinement and elegance of called Death and Disaster series is the way Warhol transforms subjects of violence into
high-fashion footwear as a means to stoke consumer desire.17 Then, once he becomes images that are distractions themselves. This becomes clear in the artist’s large series
a ‘fine’ artist, Warhol inserts the logic of commercial art into his early paintings. He thus of Electric Chair paintings and prints, made between 1963 and 1971 (above & pp. 158–9).

148 149
 In Warhol’s hands this instrument of state execution – indeed, it is the same chair that
executed Julius and Ethel Rosenberg – is subject to various renditions in bright and
playful colours.22 As Warhol noted: ‘You’d be surprised at how many people want to hang
an electric chair on [sic] the living room. Specially [sic] if the background color matches
the drapes’.23 As is clear from other silkscreened paintings of Marilyn Monroe (begun
in the immediate aftermath of her death in 1962) (pp. 188–9) or his brightly coloured
series Flash – November 22, 1963, 1968, which reproduces well-known images from the
assassination of President Kennedy, Warhol specialises in images that transmute the
reality of American death into spectacle. The fact that his painting Silver Car Crash
(Double Disaster), 1963, sold for $105 million in 2013 only emphasises this transformation
of violence into capital.
Warhol’s quote about coordinating the colours of electric chairs and domestic
drapes also suggests another way the artist enabled spectators to not process images
of violence in his paintings. In his Death and Disaster series, Warhol would often serially
replicate troubling images so that their quality as realistic photographs – with a sense
of depth, including foreground and background – was negated by their repetition in a
grid. In Red Explosion, 1963 and its companion work Atomic Bomb: Red Explosion, 1965
(opposite), the repetitive patterning of the atomic mushroom cloud transforms a legible
sign of the apocalypse, with figure and ground, into something knowingly flat, like
wallpaper design.
That Warhol actually made political wallpaper in 1974, with a crudely drawn image
of the Washington Monument, makes such thinking explicit.24 Seen on an entire wall,
with the individual images staggered, it becomes difficult for viewers to discern the
American obelisk and symbol of authority. By neutralising the perspectival power of
the vertical structure through repetition, Warhol symbolically castrates Washington’s
phallic monument in a gesture appropriate in the aftermath of the Vietnam War and in
the midst of Watergate. Warhol’s work radically enacts, and thus exposes, the uncritical
mindset that accepts American power. In a sense, his works reveal the ways the
‘invisible hand’ of capitalism draws a curtain across realities of class and power, hiding
them from view. Similar to Guy Debord’s important theories of spectacle from 1967,
Warhol replicates the manner in which individuals consume images of their own death
and political impotence as entertainment and distraction.25 By placing his sculptures of
shipping boxes and silkscreened paintings in a gallery, Warhol can, if only symbolically
and momentarily, disrupt the frictionless flows of capitalism.

AI WEIWEI’S CULTURAL REVOLUTION Ai lived in China from his birth in 1957 until 1981
(returning again in 1993) and therefore came of age during the Cultural Revolution,
which lasted from May 1966 until 1976.26 During this period, known as the ‘the years
of chaos’, Mao and others (especially his wife Jiang Qing) made a concerted effort
to reignite faith in communism through violent purges of people, ideas and objects
deemed ‘rightist’, as well as attempts to inspire proletarian unity.27 In the context of
this essay, we will consider two general aspects of the Cultural Revolution in relation
to Ai’s later conception of art: its destruction of the past for political purposes, and

150 Andy Warhol Atomic Bomb: Red Explosion 1965 151

 its concerted attempt to rid the country of artistic elitism. If Warhol took the logic of
capitalism to absurd ends to expose its underlying violence, Ai might be said to have
embraced a communist aesthetic – specifically, the logic of the Cultural Revolution –
as a means to critique contemporary China and challenge it to live up to the utopian
Ai Weiwei Straight, 2012, Ai Weiwei Studio, Beijing
aspects of Mao’s rhetoric. Political science academic Christian Sorace has recently
identified Ai as ‘China’s last Communist’, arguing that he ‘continues state discourse in
a subversively orthodox manner by enacting its own failed promises as the material
for his own discursive struggle’.28 Ai’s struggle is to highlight the continued Chinese
oppression of individual freedom and expression. In terms of art, the Cultural Revolution also mandated a move away from
An important thrust of the Cultural Revolution was to destroy what was labelled traditional mediums and elites as a way to realise its full political potential.34 As such,
the ‘Four Olds’ – old ideas, old culture, old customs and old habits – as a means to artists produced works with clear, propagandistic messages, often in reproducible
liquidate forces seen to be holding back Mao’s permanent revolution.29 As a result, mediums. Communal strategies for art-making were also politically expedient, as they
especially in the early years of the Cultural Revolution, Mao’s Red Guards destroyed deemphasised the individualised, bourgeois work of art. To art insiders, works such
countless cultural works from China’s long history, including books, art, architecture as Straight, 2012 (above) – in which the artist sourced twisted rebar from the sites of
and other artefacts. For example, objects and architecture associated with Confucius schools destroyed by the massive Sichuan earthquake in 2008, then hired a team of
were deemed rightist and destroyed. Ai’s father was further vilified and humiliated labourers to straighten these bars manually, using only hammers and other simple
during the Cultural Revolution.30 The ideologically motivated destruction and tools35 – clearly mimic Minimal and Conceptual Art; however, the Cultural Revolution
degradation of art certainly made its mark on the young Ai and, as this exhibition was perhaps a more fundamental influence on Ai, as it impressed upon him the need
makes apparent, he never forgot these tactics. to clearly communicate political messages in works of art. His directness springs from
It is with this in mind that we need to reconsider Ai’s controversial iconoclastic a utopian desire that is at least partially Maoist in form, if not in content.36
work Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn, 1995 (pp. 10–11), as a re-enactment, albeit in a very In a recent critique, Jed Perl labelled Ai a ‘terrible artist’, who makes derivative
different context, of the cultural violence associated the Cultural Revolution.31 However, ‘political kitsch’ that lacks formal subtlety.37 But this, arguably, is part of Ai’s project.
Ai is not so much endorsing it as exposing the continued prevalence of ‘destruction’ From the perspective of communism, and especially the Cultural Revolution, art was
in contemporary China. Although explicit iconoclastic violence in China subsided predicated upon its direct legibility. For instance, Names of the Student Earthquake
after 1976, government power – even under China’s mixed economy – still relies on Victims Found by the Citizens’ Investigation, 2008–11, is hard to misinterpret. As the
destruction, whether against ideas, artefacts or individuals. Ai’s Coloured Vases, since work’s title implies, it is a chart containing more than 5000 names of school children
2006, expands upon this idea by coating the surfaces of ancient vessels with industrial who died in the earthquake. Because Chinese officials suppressed this information
paints (pp. 8–9). Not unlike Warhol’s series of brightly coloured images of death, this as a means to stifle government criticism, Ai and a team of volunteer researchers
series of works distracts viewers from Ai’s own act of iconoclastic violence through uncovered the names and details of many of these young victims. Similarly, the video
spectacular colours that partly transform the pots into design objects. work 4851, 2009, presents the names of child victims of the earthquake, scrolling in
If the Cultural Revolution as well as China’s pivot toward capitalist markets in the the style of film credits (pp. 14–15).
years since both depended upon selective erasures of the past, then Ai’s iconoclastic Although these two works also derive from Conceptual Art, especially the
works can remind us, more broadly speaking, of the long processes of history. As politically charged text pieces of German artist Hans Haacke, crucially, viewers
postmodernism taught us (and Ai, especially when he was in New York in the 1980s), any do not need to recognise the art references in order to understand Ai’s political
act of construction is simultaneously an act of destruction. Ai’s distancing of himself message. The same clarity is evident in S.A.C.R.E.D., 2011–13, consisting of maquettes
from his involvement in the design and construction of Beijing’s Olympic stadium (the of Ai’s prison cell where he was held for eighty-one days (p. 30, 155 & 160–3), as
so-called ‘Bird’s Nest’) is instructive in this regard. In the days before the Olympics’ well as in Brain Inflation, 2009, an MRI scan of the artist’s brain following a cerebral
Opening Ceremony in 2008, Ai published a column titled ‘Why I’ll stay away from the haemorrhage caused by his assault by a Chinese police officer. This latter work
Opening Ceremony of the Olympics’, and later called the building a ‘fake smile’ that becomes more powerful when you consider the popular bourgeois cliché of art: that
merely covers up the troubling aspects of an oppressive regime.32 That a reported 1.5 it embodies the translation of subjective ideas into external form, in the manner of
million Beijing residents were removed from their homes due to building projects for the expressionist paintings. By using a medical image of his own brain as evidence of
Games only furthers the connection between Ai’s destructive acts and the construction state violence, Ai implies that art should not express an individual’s psyche but reveal
associated with China’s astounding economic growth of the past twenty years.33 some kind of external, social truth.

152 153
Police at a pro-Tibet demonstration near the Beijing National Stadium, August, 2008

Ai’s appropriation of two aspects of art under the Cultural Revolution – destruction
of artistic tradition, as well as legibility and popularity – come together in what may
be his best known work: Study of Perspective, 1995–2011 (pp. 134–7). In this series, Ai
photographed himself giving the middle finger to various symbols of power around
the world, including the White House, Tiananmen Square and the Reichstag. While not
literally destructive, these photographs are full of iconoclastic fury against cultural
and political landmarks. And since these images incorporate a near-universal sign of
disrespect, directed against centres of power and prestige, they are easily understood.
They say clearly: screw authority.38

STUDIES IN PERSPECTIVE: WARHOL AND AI By way of conclusion, it is interesting to

consider what might constitute the formal inverse of Ai’s Study of Perspective series:
photographs of authority figures blocking camera lenses at moments when states
exercise oppressive power; for example, at protests (above). Instead of the flat palm of
a government agent preventing a camera from capturing democracy in action, Ai gives
us his long arm protruding into depth, expressing personal and political dissatisfaction.
In the best of his work we see, whether literally or figuratively, the individual figure –
often the artist himself – standing out from the ground of faceless power. The name of
this series, Study of Perspective, is apt because it equates the traditional mechanism
for rendering convincing space in painting with political autonomy.
In much of Warhol’s work, we notice something different: the disappearance and
flattening of the individual within industrial capitalism. His project is predicated upon
filtering subjectivity through culture, technology and other mediating factors. This is
clear in his serialised and lifeless Marilyns, his portraits of Campbell’s soup cans (p. 18)
and numerous other works. Any variations in Tunafish Disaster are not connected to
Warhol as a subject, but to the machine of the silkscreen. He even transformed Mao into
a media representation. As earlier outlined, the bright, gestural brushstrokes in Warhol’s
Mao portraits should be conceived in opposition to the figure of the Chairman; the
freedom of Warhol’s painterly expression demonstrates the constructed mythology of
the oppressive dictator. However, might we also perceive these two formal components
as equivalent? Does the mythology associated with freedom, individuality and gestural
painting – which had been discredited in Western art by 1972 – also lead to violence?
If Warhol’s work questions the utopian notions associated with individual freedom
and capitalism, what does this say about Ai’s hopes for an alternative to Chinese
communism and its mixed economy? Is American-style capitalism the answer?
As history has repeatedly shown, one person’s dreams readily transform into another
person’s nightmares. While different in their aims and motivations, Warhol and Ai’s
works of art, when viewed in tandem, expose something that goes beyond their
specific politics: the violence of state power, whatever its ideology.

154 Ai Weiwei S.A.C.R.E.D. Maquettes 2011–13 155

156 Andy Warhol Mao 1972 Andy Warhol Mao 1972 157
Andy Warhol Electric Chair 1967

159
160 (above and opposite) Ai Weiwei S.A.C.R.E.D. Maquettes 2011–13 (details) (overleaf) Ai Weiwei S.A.C.R.E.D. 2011–13 (detail) 161
Andy Warhol Tunafish Disaster 1963

164
Ai Weiwei June 1994 1994

167
Andy Warhol Gun 1981–82

168
Andy Warhol Hammer and Sickle 1976

171
 The art in
being public
Anna Poletti

172 Ai Weiwei Surveillance Camera 2010 173

174 175
‘It feels so strange to think
that someone is spending
their whole time thinking
about you.’
Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol Joan Collins 1985

When I was little I used to listen to The Singing Lady on the radio all the
time while I was in bed coloring. Then in 1972 I was at a party in New York
and I was introduced to a woman and they said, ‘She used to be The Singing
Lady on the radio.’ I was incredulous. I could hardly believe that I was really
meeting her, because I never dreamed that I would ever meet her. I’d just
assumed there was no chance at all. When you meet someone you never
dreamed you’d meet, you’re taken by surprise, so you haven’t made up any
fantasies and you’re not let down. Andy Warhol1

It is a well-worn cliché to say that Andy Warhol was ahead of his time. Yet when the
field of media studies began, Warhol was already an accomplished observer and
participant in the mass media. In 1956, two academics published a foundational
article in the study of media, titled ‘Mass communication and parasocial interaction:
observations on intimacy at a distance’.2 When Donald Horton and R. Richard Wohl
proposed their theory of mediated relationships, Warhol was already schooled in this
intimacy. As a child, Andrew Warhola wrote to movie stars asking for autographed
photographs, listened to the radio religiously during a period of childhood illness,
and loved going to the movies.3 By the 1950s, the powerful interplay between figures
in the mass media and a personal experience of the social world that the media
conjured was already deeply familiar, and important, to Warhol.
Horton and Wohl were interested in the role ‘the new mass media’ played in the
lives of audience members. It entered the audience’s experience of social life, they
argued, by providing ‘an illusion of face-to-face relationship with the performer’.4
This face-to-face encounter produced a feeling of intimacy and created a new

176
(previous) Ai Weiwei Leg Gun 2014 (detail) 177
 kind of relationship. Horton and Wohl named it a parasocial relationship: one that
felt intimate, as if the media personality was someone the audience member knew
personally. The techniques used to encourage this connection centred around
mirroring the cues of face-to-face social interaction: the performer ‘faces the
spectator, uses the mode of direct address, talks as if he were [sic] conversing
personally and privately’.5
This description of the emerging media landscape of the 1950s is still strikingly
familiar, and the techniques used to encourage us to feel we know public figures Andy Warhol Room Service Tray 1983 Ai Weiwei’s cake in the form of a Chinese passport, @aiww, Instagram, 2015

have only become more ubiquitous (think of politicians’ use of social media, for
example). Horton and Wohl’s theory also describes common features of life writing –
first-person address, the revelation of intimate details, voyeurism – and the way
many of us use social media. The shift from mid twentieth-century ‘mass media’ to
twenty-first century ‘social media’ is powerfully evident in their concept of parasocial In these short paragraphs Warhol teases out what Horton and Wohl were trying
relations. Warhol’s expertise and understanding of the social function of media was to pinpoint with the term ‘parasocial relations’. He reflects on the different types of
ahead of early scholarly attempts to understand it. His use of autobiography and the extra-social relationships that occur – from the ‘innocent’ fandom Andrew Warhola felt
archive demonstrated how an artist could work with media–audience relations to for The Singing Lady who sat beside him in his sickbed (which was apparently ‘free
shape the historical record and respond to the professional requirement that an artist of fantasy’), to the abnormal, obsessive attention of the fan who may try to create (or
be available to the public. Ai Weiwei has furthered Warhol’s early experiments in his recreate) a scene of violence. Warhol maps the attractiveness intrinsic to the attention
use of online forms. we give mediated personalities, and how it moves between the different meanings of
the prefix ‘para’.7 He was also interested in how this kind of attention could be made to
PAYING ATTENTION By 1956 Warhol already knew the kind of looking, thinking and pay: how celebrity itself could become a means of making money.
feeling that produces a strong sense of connection with people in the media. His Of course, while writing about these kinds of interactions Warhol is at the same
iconic and oft-repeated statements about fame demonstrate his interest in this time staging an intimate interaction with us. He uses the first person and talks as if
connection, and how it can be invited through the combination of specific media he were speaking ‘personally and privately’ (‘When I was little’ he tells us, informally
forms and gestures. When he published The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to and casually, rather than ‘In my childhood’ in a more formal autobiographical tone).
B and Back Again) in 1975, Warhol was a leading theorist of media and intimacy. This intimate staging can also be found in his use of the Polaroid, a form of instant
Continuing the story that opens this essay, he reflects on his position on both sides photography that is a precursor to the instantaneous digital photography of Instagram,
of the media equation, as both giver and receiver of intimate attention, and writes: a social media platform used prolifically by Ai Weiwei.
Through a range of autobiographical forms and gestures, Warhol and Ai invite
Some people spend their whole lives thinking about one particular famous us to become invested in their personalities and lives. Yet they also continually
person. They pick one person who’s famous, and they dwell on him or her. challenge us to critically reflect on what we can know about someone when we
They devote almost their entire consciousness to thinking about this person encounter them through their appearances in media, and through their art. As
they’ve never even met, or maybe met once. If you ask any famous person individuals whose identities are circumscribed by the state and the art world, they
about the kind of mail they get, you’ll find that almost every one of them has create autobiographical work to disrupt and reposition understandings of their
at least one person who’s obsessed with them and writes constantly. It feels identities that are beyond their control.
so strange to think that someone is spending their whole time thinking about
you. Nutty people are always writing me. I always think I must be on some ‘QUEER’ AND ‘DISSIDENT’: AUTOBIOGRAPHY IN THE CONTEXT OF SURVEILLANCE
nutty mailing list. AND CRIMINALISATION Both Warhol and Ai were born into criminalised identities. As
I always worry that when nutty people do something, they’ll do the same the son of the poet Ai Qing, who was denounced by the Communist Party of China,
thing again a few years later without ever remembering that they’ve done it Ai was sent with his family to a labour camp when he was one year old. Warhol,
before – and they’ll think it’s a whole new thing they’re doing. I was shot in born a homosexual in late 1920s America, lived most of his life in a legal system
1968, so that was the 1968 version. But then I have to think, ‘Will someone that criminalised consensual sex between men. (Sexual acts between men were
want to do a 1970s remake of shooting me?’ So that’s another kind of fan.6 not decriminalised in the state of New York until 1980, seven years before Warhol’s

178 179
Christopher Makos Photographing a Nude for His Torso Series 1977

death.) Both artists have lived under conditions of state surveillance: Ai continues to
document on Instagram and other media the attention paid to him by the Chinese
government; Warhol was put under FBI surveillance under suspicion of producing and
transporting obscene material (his films) in 1968.
Life writing and self-representation have long been means for those whose
identities are marginalised (or criminalised) to re-forge the tools – language and
media – available to speak about who they are. As American philosopher and gender
theorist Judith Butler has argued, being recognised as a person happens through
interactions with other people in the social field. Yet the ways we present and speak
about ourselves precede us – they exist in our cultural contexts before we arrive
on the scene – and each of us must draw on and adapt them to our use. And so
a struggle ensues between the desire to be recognised for who we are – to enter
the social field with some semblance of authenticity – and the ways available to
talk about our identity and life.8 The criminalisation of sexuality and opinion are two
striking examples of how an individual’s identity can be predetermined by discourses
they cannot ignore. In the case of Warhol and Ai, preceding discourses marginalised
and criminalised important parts of their identities and life stories: their sexual and
familial identities placed them in positions vulnerable to marginalisation, violence
and exile.
Neither artist, however, is interested in presenting a ‘true’ version of himself in
isolation. In their use of instant photography, life writing genres such as blogging and
the diary, and in their work as publishers, Warhol and Ai want to represent their own
social fields: to place the ‘deviant’ and ‘dissident’ identities assigned to them by the
state into a larger context. In these areas of their practice, Warhol and Ai invite us
into an intimate relationship with them and the world they inhabit in order to disrupt
the legal framework around their identities that isolates them as individual cases
of deviance and genius. By documenting the communities in which they live, the
artists insist upon the relational and shared nature of their identities. This interplay
between self-representation and self-documentation, and the active ‘assemblage of
ephemeral social atmospheres’,9 enables both artists to redirect the individualising
gaze of the state that condemns them, and counter it with the attention given to
them by those who engage with them through their art. Their use of this relationship
to leverage against state surveillance is critical: Warhol and Ai engage specific media
forms to invite intimate attention and critically reflect upon that attention.10 By making
themselves publicly available, they also seek to make visible the communities of
which they are a part.

MAKING PUBLICS: PUTTING LIFE IN CONTEXT When we participate in a public,

something happens to us. Something about our experience of being in the world is
made newly available. We feel things – recognition, identification and that the life
we live is shared by others – and it changes how we think about the world and our
place in it. Making work that speaks to a public is different to producing work for an
audience. An audience stands outside the world the artist makes, looking in. A work

181
 that addresses a public follows us home, or reaches us in our home, and changes
how we think about the world, our place in it and its possibilities. As American critic
and theorist Michael Warner has said, when an artist addresses a public they engage
in ‘poetic world-making’.11 A public can be addressed by an artist, but it is we who
make it a public by responding to what is on offer.12
In the careers of Warhol and Ai, acting as a publisher and producer is an important
activity for making publics. Both artists have made public archives (photographic and
textual) that record the presence and work of others. Both have created publics for
avant-garde artists of own their time. Shortly after his return to China, Ai set about
making a public interested in the contemporary Chinese avant-garde art through the
publication of the Black Cover Book in 1994 (p. 122), White Cover Book in 1995, and
Grey Cover Book in 1997, in collaboration with Xu Bing and Zeng Xiaojun. In his roles
as publisher of Interview and producer of The Exploding Plastic Inevitable, Warhol also
helped conjure publics invested in avant-garde cultural practice.
Both artists use publishing as a means to create audiences for the work of
other artists, and to shape cultural history. Working as a publisher or producer is a
speculative practice that makes publics in the sense that the publications, in the
words of Michael Warner, go ‘out in search of confirmation that such a public exists …
Run it up the flagpole and see who salutes. Put on a show, and see who shows
up’.13 When artists work as publishers their aim is to intervene in history by making
an archive of historical documents, rather than by producing aesthetic objects
associated with themselves as individuals. As a publisher or producer, one aim is to
document and therefore bring into being a world that may then function as context
for the artist themselves. In conjunction with the site- and time-specific activities
undertaken in Ai’s studio FAKE and Warhol’s Factory, publishing creates an archive
that contextualises their own work.14
Making publics is often a consciously political act. When, at the invitation of the
Chinese blogging platform Sina, Ai started his blog in 2006, he took up a medium that
had already made waves as a platform for citizen journalism and life writing. As a form,
the blog echoed the intimate life-writing mode of the diary, with entries organised
by date, and had been used by a range of writers to share their everyday life with
strangers. It had also proven to be an effective form of writing and publishing personal
stories from what we could call the coalface of history. On blog platforms, individuals
caught up in political events could speak back to political power and represent their
experiences on their own terms. Three years before Ai began his blog, a Baghdad
resident writing under the pseudonym ‘Salam Pax’ had started the blog Where is Raed?
and presented life writing from the front line of the United States invasion of Iraq. Like
Ai, Pax had an interest in architecture, and some of his most moving posts documented
the destruction of much-loved buildings and neighbourhoods in the city. Like the diary
before it, the blog provided a platform for the daily ritual of writing and recording life
(above, l to r) Andy Warhol Diana Ross 1981, John Waters n.d., from an individual perspective. Such activities are political precisely because they have
Grace Jones 1984; (centre, l to r) Jean-Michel Basquiat 1982,
Keith Haring 1986, Muhammad Ali 1977; (below, l to r) Robert
the potential to harness the attention and feeling of a (large) audience and disrupt the
Mapplethorpe 1983, Farrah Fawcett 1979, Pelé 1977 official version of history.

182 183
Ai Weiwei With Flowers 2013–15

Making publics is also a way for an artist to situate and document identities In his use of the Polaroid, the tape recorder and the life-writing genres of memoir
as relational. Publishing and producing is a means of establishing an identity and (POPism: The Warhol Sixties, 1980) and the diary, Warhol was clearly a proto–social
practice in dialogue with others. Warhol powerfully extended this function with his media artist. His intense interest in the way our social drive and attention to each
Time Capsules, 1974–87 (pp. 244–5), more than 600 boxes of material that record other could be magnified and redirected through specific media was unprecedented.
his connection to thousands of people through the collection of correspondence, Being public – both in public on the streets of New York, and present in the mass
exhibition announcements, gifts and works of art. In Ai’s Instagram feed he records his media – was a primary site of artistic practice for him. Since Warhol’s death we have
interactions with a wide range of people through selfies and casual snapshots of meals, transitioned from a ‘mass’ to a ‘social’ media environment, and Ai continues the
walks and conversations. By taking up the position of publisher and archivist, Warhol experiment by taking up newer forms.
and Ai blur where their practices end and the work of others begins, in a powerful Looking at Warhol’s and Ai’s use of instant photography – of the Polaroid and
strategy for diffusing and resisting the individualising view of state discourse. It is also Instagram – we can see a focused and deliberate use of the gestures of intimacy to
a means of responding to the requirement to perform their identity as artists. stage for us a moment in their ‘private’ lives. Writing about Jacques Derrida’s theory
of photography, Gerhard Richter suggests ‘we may think of the photographic image
BEING PUBLIC: THE ARTIST AS CELEBRITY Both Warhol and Ai use life writing and as a technically mediated moment of witnessing, in which the inscription with light
photography to stage an intimate encounter with the life of the artist; ‘staged’ in the cannot be separated from an act of bearing witness’.15 With instant photography
sense that neither engages naively with the autobiographical. Warhol and Ai turn this act of bearing witness is refined by the gestures of intimacy and immediacy. It
the need to have a public identity that comes with artistic success into a space for is the combination of intimacy, immediacy and witnessing afforded by instant digital
artistic practice. Both explore the art of being public by using a range of genres photography, video and the blog that Ai has used so effectively in his social activism.
and mediums to make us feel we know them intimately, yet continually reshape and From memorialising on his blog the children who died in the Sichuan earthquakes as a
resituate what we think we gain from the relationship. result of poor building standards, to posting a version of the viral media hit ‘Gangnam

184 185
 Style’ to critique the Chinese government’s censorship practices,16 Ai has used social
media forms and autobiographical gestures to raise and maintain awareness of
political issues in China. Every morning for 600 days between 2013 and 2015 Ai placed
a bouquet of fresh flowers at his studio gate to protest travel restrictions placed on him
by the state, documenting them on Instagram using the hashtag #FlowersForFreedom.17
Social media was also used heavily to maintain pressure on the Chinese government
during Ai’s detention in 2011.
Unlike the formal posing of studio photography, instant photographic forms work
in the register of intimacy: the artist often ‘faces the spectator, uses the mode of
direct address [looking out through the lens]’, and records the settings – parties,
studios, dinners, walks – where we imagine they converse ‘personally and privately’.18
Looking at Warhol’s Polaroids (pp. 183 & 200–1) and Ai’s Instagram feed, we are
placed in a para-position. Viewing intimate snapshots from the artists’ lives, we
are parallel to those lives. We are also invited to think of ourselves as auxiliary to
their experience – allies, perhaps, in their activities, though we only look and do not
participate. What kind of feelings does this produce in us? How willingly do we take
up the invitation to engage in this kind of relationship?
In my time researching Warhol, I have become aware that everyone who is familiar
with his work has their own version of Andy. Wayne Kostenbaum opens his 2001
biography of the artist by enumerating the features of ‘his’ Warhol, whom he calls
‘Andy Paperbag’:

In imaginary conversations with him, as I try to reconstruct his life, I

greet him as ‘Andy Paperbag’ – Andy, my bag lady, a sack over his head,
concealing the features his disliked; Andy, stuffing a world’s refuse into
tatty woebegone containers.19

Writing on his blog, Ai offers his version of Warhol as someone ‘obsessed with
imaginary value’.20 Perhaps this means the value of our imagination and attention;
even people with a peripheral interest in Warhol feel like they know something about
him. Ai’s work in autobiographical genres and gestures may yet produce the same
legacy, harnessing our attention by staging intimate encounters with his life and work
so that some of us have our own ‘Weiwei’. The and comments appearing on his
Instagram feed suggest this process has already begun.

186 Ai Weiwei Selfies, @aiww, Instagram, 2014–15 187

188 Andy Warhol Three Marilyns 1962 189
190 Andy Warhol Dolly Parton 1985 Andy Warhol Debbie Harry 1980 191
192 Andy Warhol Jackie 1964 Andy Warhol Jackie 1964 193
194 Ai Weiwei Leg Gun 2014 195
198 (previous) Ai Weiwei Caonima Style 2012 (still); Andy Warhol Unidentified Photographers c. 1981 Ai Weiwei in hospital for an emergency brain surgery after his beating in Chengdu two months prior, Munich, 2009 199
 (above, l to r) Andy Warhol Dennis Hopper 1977, Divine 1974, Andy Warhol n.d.; (centre, l to r) Liza Minnelli 1977, (above, l to r) Andy Warhol Jerry Hall 1984, William S. Burroughs 1980, Diana Vreeland 1973; (centre, l to r) Jimmy Carter 1976, Stevie Wonder n.d., Mick Jagger 1975; (below, l to r) Georgia
200 Sylvester Stallone 1980, Dolly Parton 1985; (below, l to r) Max Ernst 1974, Robert Rauschenberg 1981, Nico n.d. O’Keeffe 1980, Truman Capote 1977, John Lennon and Yoko Ono 1971; (overleaf) Ai Weiwei Trace, 2014, installation view, @Large: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz, Alcatraz Island, San Francisco, 2014 201
 Empire
and eternal
peace
Kathryn Weir

204 Andy Warhol Elvis 1963 205

206 207
‘Nobody can avoid the
signatures of the time …’
Ai Weiwei

Ai Weiwei Chang’an Boulevard 2004 (still)

Chang’an Jie, or the Avenue of Eternal Peace, traverses Beijing on an east–west

axis through the political centre of the city at Tiananmen Square. In 2004 Ai Weiwei
completed a video work entitled Chang’an Boulevard (above), recorded along a length
of around 43 kilometres of the avenue, the section within Beijing’s Sixth Ring Road.
The work was based on a simple decision to take one minute of video every 50 metres,
and was filmed by a friend’s son. Ai has stated:

I think that surprisingly enough when I started to make it, I did not know what
it would be. It’s not based on very sophisticated thinking, more on an attitude
than on careful planning.1

There were no technical requirements, and Ai’s instructions were to simply press
the button, wait for one minute, turn the camera off, and move on 50 metres to repeat,
with the idea that ‘whatever happens in front of the lens is fine’.2 The shooting took
place in winter and stretched for months; the final video work is more than ten hours in
duration and includes 608 minute-long shots capturing the urban fringe, commercial,
political and industrial zones in a cross-section of Beijing.
A strong resonance between the working methods of Ai Weiwei and Andy Warhol
is found in their attempts to distance themselves from authorial style and originality.
Strategies employed range from the presentation of readymades, to the use of
photographic processes and repetition, to delegated production. Each artist also

(previous)
208 Ai Weiwei Beijing: The Second Ring 2005 (still) 209
 While Ai refers to the randomness of the material, this should be understood in
terms of the nature of the footage collected in accordance with arbitrary rules. When Ai
selected the Second and Third rings as subjects for filming, it was partly to draw attention
to China’s fast urban development and transformations, and was not arbitrary. He turned
to the subject of the fast-changing city to express dismay at the disappearance of old
hutong neighbourhoods and other architectural heritage, accompanied by the massive
displacement of people, to make way for new developments. A series of photographs
Ai Weiwei Beijing: The Third Ring 2005 (still) initiated a couple of years earlier, Provisional Landscapes, 2002–08, show urban sites
where large-scale demolitions occurred, creating a vast temporary void before new
construction begins.7 Similarly, the choice to film Chang’an Jie calls up that avenue’s
variously experiments with minimising artistic intention, making arbitrary choices to relationship with the political nerve centre of China, Tiananmen Square, through which it
create very basic parameters that set in motion the production of a work, after which carries military parades and other official processions. Ai comments:
they can withdraw from the creative process. Ai commented in 2006:
Nobody can avoid the signatures of the time, even if you’re trying to. The only
I started thinking that in order to make myself feel a work is more interesting, difference is that these works bear their own nature in addition to my initial
I couldn’t be too involved in it. In this way I can always be surprised by the result.3 input ... The reasons why the Second Ring Road and the Third Ring Road were
built are very different, yet it looks as if they were built for me, so I could make
The structuring decisions about how a work will be produced often involve rigid or these videos.8
machine-like processes. In 2005 Ai made the videos Beijing: The Second Ring (p. 221)
and Beijing: The Third Ring (above), each consisting of one-minute shots taken in either The first of Ai’s video works of this period, Beijing 2003, 2003, arose when he was
direction from every overpass across the Second and Third ring roads of the city. invited to teach at Tsinghua University’s Academy of Arts and Design and accepted on
Ai explains the idea behind the works: the proviso that the graduate course could take place in a bus on the road, instead of
being formally taught in a classroom. With a dozen students on board, each day the bus
It’s very boring and not an exciting thing to do, but nevertheless it records the traversed one part of the city, travelling along all the streets in a designated sector,
condition at the time, it’s very much like a witness passing through: what he with a camera mounted in the front of the vehicle. After sixteen days the group had
would see, his eye, anybody’s eye. There is no artistic or aesthetic value, not been down every street within the Fourth Ring Road and produced 150 hours of video
much judgment there. It’s a very, very simple situation; it’s very much like a (as well as 1719 still images, one taken every five minutes). Ai said of the project:
monitor actually.4
It shows how big, how impossible, how crazy this city is, or how meaningless at
The other constraint placed on the production of these works was meteorological: the same time, because our proportion, our sense of time, and also our visual
the thirty-three bridges of the Second Ring Road were filmed only on cloudy days and contact with the city is really limited by where we are and which direction we go.9
the fifty-five bridges of the Third Ring on sunny days, with the effect that the works are
distinguishable at a glance despite the uniformity of the subject matter of car traffic The still images were published as the book Beijing 10/2003 (2004), and Ai stated that the
viewed from above. Ai underlines how this simple decision and minimal effort were sum of the whole process became the meaning of the work’.10
enough to create a project that ‘already displays a very strong character’.5 Ai’s four films of Beijing completed from 2003 to 2005 were not conceived as
The artist was not present during the filming of the videos of Chang’an Jie and the documents of the city, but rather as each constituting an apparatus for capturing
ring roads, and viewed the footage only for minor technical discussions. The editing was fragments of the concrete world – small pieces which carry an essential flavour that slips
also outsourced to professional editors. He states: under the guard of intentional representation. He speaks of these fragments as having
only a momentary truth, but nevertheless constituting the only possible access to reality:
These three videos are conceptual, they are not pursuing any visual effect …
But certainly they make a strong visual impact: this strict, rational, even illogical You have a nation with two thousand years of feudalism, fifty years of communism,
behaviour is so precisely disciplined and it works in tandem with the randomness and then thirty years of materialism and capitalism. You can see the fifty-five sky
of the subjects.6 bridges on the Third Ring Road, or the thirty-three bridges along the Second

210 211
212 Andy Warhol Empire 1964 (stills) 213
 Empire, 1964 (pp. 212–13), Warhol’s film of the iconic building that is once again,
after the 11 September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centre, one of the tallest
buildings in New York, is perhaps his most radical filmic work. It was made at a key
moment in Warhol’s experimentation with the creative process, shortly after he moved
to film as a primary medium and less than two years after starting to experiment with
screen-printing on canvas. Warhol, like Ai when making his conceptual video works,
was not sure what the result would be. On the evening of Saturday 25 July 1964, he
and a group of friends made their way to the Time-Life Building at 50th Street and
Avenue of the Americas. They went up to the 44th floor to the offices of the Rockefeller
Foundation, where Vice-President Henry Romney met them and led the way to his
office and its clear view of the Empire State Building sixteen blocks to the south. While
chatting with Romney they unpacked a tripod, film stock and a 16-millimetre camera in
preparation to shoot. The group included Gerard Malanga, Jonas Mekas (who would
operate the camera), Marie Menken and John Palmer. According to Malanga:

It was John Palmer who came up with the idea for Empire. John, Jonas
Mekas and I changed the reels for Andy. He barely touched the camera
during the whole time it was being made. He wanted the machine to make
the art for him.13

Andy Warhol Sleep 1963 (still) The camera rolled from 8 pm, as the natural light faded to darkness and the Empire
State was illuminated, to just after 2.30 am, recording a stationary shot of the building
on ten 100-foot reels of film. The footage, exposed at twenty-four frames per second,
was later shown at sixteen frames per second, allowing Warhol to extend the duration
Ring Road. Chang’an Avenue … as the axis between the East Sixth Ring Road to just over eight hours and present the final work as a film of the Empire State shot
and the West Sixth Ring Road, somehow captures the current condition in such over a whole night. As in his film of the previous year, Sleep, 1963 (opposite) – showing
a realistic way: motionless, non-judgmental, and very objective, and at the same Warhol’s friend John Giorno sleeping for five hours and twenty minutes (although
time absurd, crazy, and nonsensical. We cannot identify its history, or even originally intended to last eight hours, corresponding with a night’s duration) – the
make a simple guess at what it might be – that’s impossible. History is always process of how the film was realised and even its final form were less important than
the missing part of the puzzle in everything we do. I think that they only have a conveying the idea, in this case of watching someone for a night’s sleep.
momentary truth, that’s the fragment: these momentary pieces.11 Art historian Patrick de Haas has noted, ‘What interests Warhol in the machine is
less its transformative capacity than the possibilities it offers to the artist to withdraw
The conceptual films are experiments that play on a contrast between the from the “creative process” and more particularly to get rid of any intentionality: to
structured approach employed to obtain the footage and the apparently arbitrary paint and film like a machine’.14 Anyone could work the camera, and once the rules of
content. Of the larger frame for the works, the city of Beijing, Ai says: the game were established and filming was underway, Warhol affected indifference
to what happened in front of the lens. The end of the film roll often decided the
It’s a big monster, gigantic and with its own motives; either political or economic; conclusion of the film session. He was also uninterested in the technical aspects of
folly or love; happiness and sadness, everything is entangled together. Tragedy, the image and accepted mistakes as interesting incidents in the production process.
history, ideology, stupidity, and wrongdoing: everything is in here, and it’s a big, Similarly, Ai delegated filming and established an arbitrary length of one minute per
big monster to me. I think that by being here we can feel each other, but at the shot for three of his four conceptual videos, while the first, Beijing 2003, consists of a
same time, just by being here, you also have a respect for the city. You can only traveling shot of 150 hours of footage produced by a camera fixed to a moving vehicle.
guess what is going to happen, and whatever happens will always surprise you. Like Warhol’s early films, these works experiment with ways of creating ‘readymade’
This is also very interesting.12 footage, similar to that produced by a surveillance camera.

214 215
 The year before making Empire, Warhol gave an interview to G. R. Swenson for Art Empire and Sleep function well as looped video projections within the museum, and this
News in which he suggested that originality and ‘signature’ style were increasingly is the way the works are most often shown today. Viewers may stay and watch or simply
unimportant: register the concept and move on.
Empire regularly featured at Warhol’s Exploding Plastic Inevitable events, alongside
I think that would be so great, to be able to change styles. And I think that’s other films, live music and coloured filters, lending its iconic power to the constellation.
what’s going to happen, that’s going to be the whole new scene. That’s The Empire State Building is not only an icon but also something of a New York cliché,
probably one reason I’m using silk-screens now. I think somebody should be infinitely replicated and reworked; more than a star, it is a pop-cultural readymade. A
able to do all my paintings for me ... I think it would be so great if more people symbol of modernity and technological progress when it was constructed, the building
took up silk-screens so that no one would know whether my picture was mine got the internet-meme treatment avant la lettre after its supporting role to the giant
or somebody else’s.15 gorilla in King Kong (1933). Warhol, who always carefully choreographed his photographic
appearances, let himself be snapped by David McCabe in front of the big city landmark
In the same interview, Warhol seems to presciently announce the coming large-scale with Marisol (p. 218) and in another shot with a flamboyant Edie Sedgwick posing in a
production of images by the (social media) masses: pantsuit. The Empire State Building connotes an entire worldview (although before 11
September 2001 the World Trade Centre had taken its place as the privileged symbol
All these people who aren’t very good should be really good. Everybody is too of American modernity).
good now, really. Like, how many actors are there? There are millions of actors. For its part, Tiananmen Square is forever linked to the image of a lone figure with
They’re all pretty good. And how many painters are there? Millions of painters shopping bags stopping a line of government tanks advancing along the Avenue of
and all pretty good. How can you say one style is better than another? You Eternal Peace.19 When Ai returned to Beijing in 1993 after twelve years in the United
ought to be able to be an Abstract Expressionist next week, or a Pop artist, or States, four years had passed since the 4 June massacre of student pro-democracy
a realist, without feeling that you’ve given up something. I think the artists who demonstrators in the square. The following summer he staged a photo at that landmark
aren’t very good should become like everybody else so that people would like site on the anniversary of the students’ deaths, featuring his girlfriend, artist Lu Qing.
things that aren’t very good. It’s already happening.16 She leans against the railing, Mao’s image visible in the background, and raises her
skirt with a half-smile, exposing her underwear and defying the square’s heritage of
Looking beyond recognisable styles linked to individuals or periods, Warhol offers violent coercion to conform. Two soldiers pass behind, oblivious (pp. 166–7). As well
an intimation of what would come to define artistic practice at the turn of the century, as commemorating the students’ actions in 1989, the image seems to point forward
the primacy of the idea and the malleability of the form chosen to best express it. The to more than a decade later and Ai’s response to Chinese government surveillance.
examples he offers of actors and painters convey his intuition that the then-emerging His strategy has been one of massive self-exposure through social media, including
production of images by everybody (undermining the special status of painters or his blog (2005–09, before his account was deleted), Twitter and Instagram. Exceeding
artists) passes through self-presentation (as in acting). the possibilities of state scrutiny, the artist declared that he had no secrets, thereby
This is resonant with what theorist Boris Groys in his collection of essays Going undermining the government’s power to spy.20
Public (2010) characterises as the move from mass consumption to mass production, Groys describes a similar mechanism as one of the defining contradictions of the
where a broad public came to use the digital and online means of the production current period: in the context of escalating state surveillance and Big Data, social media
and distribution of images in the same ways as artists. He points to how the relatively users choose to respond through self-exposure. He calls this ‘radicalised exposure that
easy access to digital cameras combined with the global distribution platform of the transgresses the limits of social control’ and suggests that the figure of the artist manifests
internet has altered the statistical relationship between producers and consumers of the inner contradictions of becoming a subject today, through self-conscious self-exposure:
images, stating that clearly today ‘more people are interested in image production
than image contemplation’.17 I would argue that it is this radicalised subjectivation through acute self-exposure
Very few viewers see all of Empire, and even Warhol seemed less interested in that is practiced by contemporary art. In this way exposure and subjectivation cease
viewers having a marathon, durational experience than in them appreciating the idea; to be means of social control. Instead, self-exposure presupposes some degree of
‘The Empire State Building is a star!’, he is reported to have exclaimed during the sovereignty over one’s own process of subjectivation. The arts of modernity have
filming.18 Like Sleep, Empire could be described as a film that you do not need to watch; shown us different techniques of self-exposure ... But contemporary art confronts us
indeed, Dutch artist duo Bik Van der Pol’s work entitled Sleep with Me, 1997, involves with even more nuanced strategies of self-subjectivation, which of necessity situate
installing beds for the public in a gallery space where Warhol’s film screens overnight. the artist in a contemporary political field.21

216 217
 According to Groys, an artistic approach to the activity of online self-presentation
is necessarily self-conscious and also uncertain; belief in the social role of the artist
also brings with it ‘a deep scepticism concerning the effectiveness of that role’.22 Within
the broad field of self-presentation on the internet today, he suggests that artists are
distinguished by a radical curiosity and transparency about their own position.
Groys maintains it was the radical clarifications made by conceptual art of the 1960s
and 1970s that allowed the emergence and mass popularisation of the particular forms
of social media postings we now see of photos, videos and texts, indistinguishable
from post-conceptual art:

Without the artistic reductions effected by these artists, the emergence of the
aesthetics of these social networks would be impossible, and they could not be
opened to a mass democratic public to the same degree. These networks are
characterised by the mass production and placement of weak signs with low
visibility – instead of the mass contemplation of strong signs with high visibility,
as was the case during the twentieth century.23

He further observes that we are witnessing the fragmentation of mass consumer and
spectator culture as conceived by commercial and political interests (described last
century by political philosopher Theodor Adorno in regard to the culture industry,
and writer Guy Debord in terms of the society of the spectacle). We still have stars,
Groys notes, but they do not shine as brightly. Today everyone writes text and posts
images, even if few people will view them. The twentieth-century relationship between
producers and spectators is inverted. Where previously the elected few produced for
millions, today millions of producers create images and text for a spectator who no
longer has time to view or read them.24
In his time, Warhol consistently engaged with self-documentation through
photography and film, as well as by recording his telephone conversations and
conserving in time capsules ephemera related to his life. Ai has also suggested that, in
The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again) (1975), Warhol developed
a style of communication and self-presentation that was a precursor to Twitter.25 It is
in this arena that we can identify the fundamental conceptual importance of Warhol
today, and it is here also that another deep resonance can be found in Ai’s approach
to art. Beyond Marcel Duchamp’s opening of the art object to the readymade, Warhol
introduced a radical change in the understanding of what activities, experiences and
relationships may form part of an art practice, ushering in the current era of art as
primarily a social practice.

David McCabe Marisol and Andy Warhol in Front of the Empire State Building 1965 219
220 (above) Ai Weiwei Beijing 2003 2003 (still); (below) Ai Weiwei Beijing: The Third Ring 2005 (still) (above) Ai Weiwei Beijing: The Second Ring 2005 (still); (below) Ai Weiwei Chang’an Boulevard 2004 (still) 221
(previous) Ai Weiwei 258 Fake 2011, installation view,
Brooklyn Museum, 2014; (right) Andy Warhol Screen
Test: Lou Reed (Coke) 1966 (still)

224
226 (above) Andy Warhol Screen Test: Allen Ginsberg 1966 (still); (below) Andy Warhol Screen Test: Edie Sedgwick 1965 (still) (above) Andy Warhol Screen Test: Jane Holzer 1964 (still); (below) Andy Warhol Screen Test: Billy Linich 1964 (still) 227
Andy Warhol Screen Test: Nico 1966 (still)

229
230 Andy Warhol Blow Job 1964 (still) Billy Name The Velvet Underground and Nico at the Dom 1966 231
 The
collecting
habit
Larry Warsh

232 Andy Warhol’s Time Capsule 44 1973 233

234 235
‘To keep the future in
touch with the past.’
Andy Warhol1

Andy Warhol You’re In 1967

Andy Warhol and Ai Weiwei are two celebrated international artists whose work has
profoundly influenced the course of art history in the twentieth century and beyond.
Both are widely admired for a dynamic repertoire of distinct cultural roles – artist,
designer, photographer, filmmaker, arbiter of style and cultural icon. Warhol and Ai have
each established an uncommon understanding of what art can do in the international
sphere; both could be considered ‘ahead of their time’ and simultaneously in sync with
the cultural spirit of their age.
What most people do not know about, however, is Warhol’s and Ai’s devoted
collecting of art. During his lifetime, Warhol regularly frequented flea markets, antique
stores and junk shops on the East Coast to scour for special treasures, while Ai has
been a considerable collector of Chinese antiquities for many years. Although Warhol
is remembered as the notorious king of pop culture, after his death in 1987 he was
revealed as one of the most acquisitive and cosmopolitan collectors of his generation.
When Sotheby’s took over Warhol’s estate they discovered that his home was brimming
with objects spanning more than thirty years of dedicated and habitual collecting
(they eventually offered more than 10,000 individual objects as part of their special
Warhol auction). Warhol’s associates have commented that his love of collecting and
his collection was as much a focus of his time and energy as his preoccupation with
art-making.

(previous) Ai Weiwei Fairytale: 1001 Qing Dynasty Wooden Chairs, 2007, Ai Weiwei Studio, Beijing
236 237
 Although the art of collecting has a long cultural history, examples of modern
collectors such as Warhol and Ai and contemporary collections of art shed new light
on the phenomenon. How do we define the psyche of the collector? What are the
psychological dimensions of forming a collection? What drives the need for such
profuse possession? These questions highlight the complexity of ‘the collecting habit’ –
the passion to assemble objects that hold a certain imaginative power for the collector.
Collecting itself suggests a certain ‘affected’ behaviour; the act of collecting
involves calculation, seeking, locating, acquiring, organising, cataloguing, displaying,
storing and, above all, maintaining an ineffable fervour for objects. In some cases
collecting can be viewed as a behavioural problem – such as indiscriminate hoarding –
or the result of a certain deprivation or other psychological impoverishment. For other
individuals collecting objects may be a symbolic way of asserting mastery over them.
In either case, the nature of collecting is both a practice and a fascination.
To be concurrently a collector and an artist affords a curious understanding into
the spirit of collecting. The connection between an artist and his or her collection
reveals obvious distinctions of place, culture and epoch while simultaneously disclosing
insight into the behaviourism of the collecting habit. The artist relates to materials and
objective forms as a creator; the collector relates to these same concepts as a covetous
possessor. The collecting proclivity within the heart of the artist can be a catalyst to
create and vice versa, and the act of collecting has direct and indirect influences on
the artist’s oeuvre by becoming an extension of his or her work. It would seem that
Ai Weiwei Neolithic Pottery with Coca-Cola Logo 2007
collecting unlocks a certain inventive direction while also inspiring the artistic process.
This unique intersection between the collecting habit and artistic creation illuminates
the particular psychology of the occasional artist-collector.
While Warhol and Ai have each contributed to a distinct era in history – Warhol from
the 1960s to the early 1980s, and Ai as a contemporary figure in the global arenas of wiped out by a modern consumer society looking for novel excitements. Yet both
art and politics – their combined talent for art creation and art collecting demonstrates artists’ sophisticated works reveal a fascination with repetition and repetitive modes
an unparalleled devotion to aesthetic virtue in its many manifestations. Warhol excelled of manufacture associated with, perhaps, the act of accumulation that is itself the
at his individual praxis in the studio; he also maintained a strong engagement with collecting habit.
collecting. Ai, too, has risen up as a force in the art world by way of his conceptual For Ai, the art of collecting continually informs his methods of making art. He is
installations and ongoing disputes with Chinese authorities; in the meantime his fuelled by a passion to acquire traditional Chinese objects that eventually morph into
private collection of rare Chinese antiquities might be among the most distinguished uncommon works which resonate with his personal convictions concerning Chinese
of any collector in the world. Warhol’s collecting habit and desire to accumulate seems society, cultural traditions and modern issues, such as freedom of expression. His work
conspicuously related to his tremendous ability to court attention and social energy – Handcuffs, 2012, is one such example: Ai is able to diffuse an otherwise contentious
he was a veritable collector of people. In recent years Ai has also become a kind of object and transform it into a beautiful yet benign symbol of defiance. His use of
international celebrity who courts considerable fame for this outspoken dissidence. traditional Chinese materials, such as stone, porcelain, wood and jade, is directly related
Warhol and Ai have indulged specific collecting proclivities that seem to mirror to the breadth of his collection of Chinese antiques. Oftentimes objects in Ai’s personal
their times. Warhol sought to collect in diverse areas, including Art Deco, nineteenth- collection are repurposed to become his work of art.
century Americana, American folk art, Native American art, costume jewellery and Ai has commented that for him, collecting is a never-ending form of discovery and
other vestiges of an evolving society, such as Hollywood and other miscellaneous a reflection of his personal narrative. He has also remarked that, like everyone else,
advertising memorabilia, in what might have been a nostalgic attempt to capture he is traveller on the road of life; however, he is a traveller who carries a lot of stuff.
dissolving cultural icons. Ai has been collecting antiques and physical remnants of During the 1980s when he was a young artist living on the Lower East Side of New York
China’s past, Qing dynasty furniture and temples, for example, which are being swiftly City, one of its grittiest neighbourhoods at the time, Ai admired the homeless people of

238 239
Ai Weiwei in his studio, Beijing, 2013

the area, those wandering souls who kept all of their life belongings in bundled
plastic bags. He observed that these people seemed somehow satisfied, with a
sense of home and of belonging. Their desire to acquire and keep random objects,
even in abject circumstances, reminded him of this basic human desire to possess.
He saw this desire to possess as a kind of parallel to life, as a kind of rationality in
the face of difficult conditions. Perhaps that is one of the motivations of the artist-
collector, to compile collections that translate into some form of grounding that
creates a sense of the familiar.
Where Warhol proliferated the notion that an ordinary object, such as a can of
soup, may be transformed into an illustrious work of art, Ai has demonstrated that
even revered objects such as ancient Chinese urns can be equally transposed into
lurid, decorative works that question the so-called sacred. Where Warhol amassed
a major collection of early nineteenth-century American furniture that remained
separate from the colourful style of his work in the studio, Ai in turn has been creating
striking examples of modern readymade sculptures using ancient Chinese furniture
for many years. This may illustrate the way in which artist-collectors such as Warhol
and Ai confess the nature of their collecting in relation to their art. In other words,
whether a clandestine infatuation with collecting (Warhol) or an overt display of works
from a collection (Ai), these examples of collecting habit reveal that the appropriation
of a cultural or historical past can simultaneously be a performative gesture with
contemporary relevance.
The multifaceted and repetitive nature of Warhol’s and Ai’s work reflects the
complex nature of collecting itself. The collecting habit is a capricious passion
because the collector is always seeking the next collecting category. The act of
collecting is not a trend or a fashion statement; it is an appetite for consumption
that is intimately related to human motivation, stimulation, fulfilment and conquest.
The impulse to collect is a combination of meditated desire and compulsive drive.
Although the insatiable feeling that is the collecting habit is intensely personal and
often indescribable, it can be understood simply as a thrilling affliction. By way of their
unparalleled collecting habits and artistic creativity, both Andy Warhol and Ai Weiwei
have changed the course of art history as artist-collectors.

240 Ai Weiwei Map of China 2008 241

242 Collectibles from Warhol’s collection (above) Ai Weiwei Colour Test 2006 (detail); (overleaf) Andy Warhol’s Time Capsules 243
244 245
246 Ai Weiwei I.O.U. Wallpaper 2011–13 (details) 247
248 Andy Warhol Myths: Mickey Mouse 1981 Andy Warhol Myths: The Witch 1981 249
250 Ai Weiwei Door God 2014 Andy Warhol Myths: Uncle Sam 1981 251
252 Ai Weiwei Circle of Animals (in Gold) 2010 (details) (overleaf, left to right) Ai Weiwei Finger 2015 (detail) and Ai Weiwei Golden Age 2015 (detail) 253
254 255
 Meeooaaww-
AW-AWW
Matt Wrbican

256 Edward Wallowitch Andy Warhol Holding Kitten 1957 257

258 259
‘I never met an animal I
didn’t like.’
Andy Warhol

Ai Weiwei’s cats, @aiww, Instagram, c. 2013–15

Even when domesticated, the cat embodies freedom. Cats generally do as they wish,
not as instructed.1 In attitude and behaviour, they are the opposite of dogs, which are
widely considered ‘man’s best friend’. Contrarily, a cat can be very close to a human,
but almost always on its own terms; the English-language expression ‘like herding cats’
encapsulates the feline’s autonomy. Cats, while usually quiet, also possess a wider
range of vocalisations – spitting, hissing, purring, chirping and more – than their canine
counterparts. Their expressive use of these sounds (as many as 100, according to
some sources) indicates their complex desires.

260
(previous) Cats in Ai Weiwei’s studio, Caochangdi, Beijing, 2005 261
Andy Warhol Wild Raspberries from Time Capsule 12 1959 Many of the most celebrated modern Western artists were closely associated with Andy Warhol Cat seated on blanket (possibly Hester) 1955–59

cats, as can be seen in photographs of Jean Cocteau, Gustav Klimt, Frida Kahlo, Henri
Matisse and Pablo Picasso. At points in their lives, both Andy Warhol and Ai Weiwei have
lived with an abundance of cats. Warhol is alleged to have had as many as twenty-five
cats in his home at once, while Ai’s studio (FAKE) harbours a reported forty felines.2 The
small, furry animals are a frequent subject for both artists, including numerous postings
to Ai’s social media feeds (p. 261). Cats have appeared in art since the time of ancient
Egypt; perhaps most frequently in the nineteenth-century Art Nouveau work of Théophile-
Alexandre Steinlen. One of the most unusual works of art with a cat is by the Belgian
artist Marcel Broodthaers, who recorded his Interview with a Cat in 1970.3

WARHOL AND CATS In the 1950s, when Warhol was working as a commercial artist in
New York, he was surrounded by a clowder of Siamese cats. Somehow reminiscent of the
fossilised remains of dinosaurs, their paw prints were literally left on some of his works of
art, including the cover of a copy of Wild Raspberries, the artist’s cookbook parody of 1959
made with his friend Suzie Frankfurt (above).4 Having scampered about upon Warhol’s art,
these furry creatures left their mark much more profoundly on the artist himself.
It is difficult to pinpoint exactly when the Siamese first entered Warhol’s life, but he
Andy Warhol Postcard (to Truman Capote and Mrs. Capote) from Time Capsule 55 1950s
made reference to live-in felines as early as 1951 or 1952. A postcard Warhol addressed
to Truman Capote, but failed to mail, is signed ‘me and my cat’ (opposite) and cards
sent to and from his friend Tommy Jackson reference cats and ‘pussies’.5 Old bios for
Warhol published in the magazine Interiors track the expansion of his cat colony: eight business should have boomed, but his model failed. According to his friends, the cats
in 1953 and ten in 1954.6 With one exception, all of Warhol’s Siamese cats were named became inbred and were notorious for bad behaviour, crushing the plan for extra
Sam, foreshadowing his reliance on repetition in his later Pop work. One wonders if income. Warhol’s home was so overrun with cats that he had to give them away. The
Warhol was actually thinking of his cats when he created the Cow wallpaper, 1966, or animals themselves, however, gained identities in the process: painter Philip Pearlstein
Ethel Scull Thirty-Six Times, 1963 (Metropolitan Museum of Art and Whitney Museum of and his wife Dorothy Cantor renamed their pair Cimabue and Sassetta,8 while author
American Art, New York). The uniquely named Hester seems to have been the matriarch Ralph T. Ward (himself known as Corky) had Sweetie.
of Warhol’s brood (opposite). In a letter postmarked 24 February 1956, Warhol’s commercial art assistant Nathan
The Siamese breed was peaking in popularity in the United States at the time, so Gluck reported, ‘Andy’s cat is expecting [kittens] in about 6 weeks’, and indicated the
it seems that he kept them in order to start a breeding business on the side. Siamese kittens would be available for US$10 (about AU$110 in 2015), but could be free, as well.
cats are distinctively beautiful; they are also considered among the most intelligent Gluck signed the letter from himself, his partner Clint Hamilton, and ‘Patachou, Brioche,
and vocal of cat breeds. Even Hollywood (a frequent bellwether for Warhol’s creative and Truffle’, whom we can only guess were three cats, potentially among Hester’s
efforts) jumped on the bandwagon: in the 1958 film Bell, Book and Candle, Kim Novak’s numerous offspring.9 Gluck also noted that Warhol’s cats were ‘highly neurotic and
character (the beguiling modern witch Gillian Holroyd) was given a ‘familiar’ in the inbred’.10 An undated letter to Hester (from the cats of Warhol’s friends), commenting
form of a Siamese cat named Pyewacket.7 This considered, Warhol’s cat breeding on her pregnancy, has recently been discovered among Warhol’s papers.

262 263
 The Barrison Sisters in their song and dance Do You See My Pussy? c. 1890s

In the midst of this, in 1954, Warhol created and self-published a small book of
seventeen of his hand-coloured lithographs misleadingly and mischievously titled
25 Cats Name Sam and One Blue Pussy (opposite). Warhol attributed the bawdy title
and all of the mostly repetitive text to his friend, the production designer Charles
Lisanby. Though the number in the title exaggerates the contents (there are eighteen
cats, with one print showing a kitten snuggled beside its mother), the very last cat
image in the book is usually painted a brilliantly saturated blue, in keeping with its
deadpan, descriptive text.11
Much of Warhol’s visual art was dependent on images he found in popular media,
such as books, current periodicals and the picture collection of the New York Public
Library, meaning many of his sources were relics of popular culture from the more-
distant past. While the twenty-five cats in the title of Warhol and Lisanby’s book seem
to refer to those felines living with Warhol at the time, the visual sources appear to
be at least two earlier books. One of these has been known for several decades,
identified by Warhol’s assistant Nathan Gluck: All Kinds of Cats by Walter Chandoha
(1952). In 2014, a second book was discovered as a potential source, Sam by Edward
Quigley and John Crawford (1937); while several photos in it clearly make this book a
likely candidate, its very title seems to clinch the deal. However, there is no record of
either of these books in Warhol’s estate or his archives.12
In 1955 or 1956 (Warhol’s record-keeping is notoriously slipshod), the double
meaning of the word ‘pussy’ reappeared in one of his self-published books, In the
Bottom of My Garden. This volume was known to Warhol’s friends as ‘the fairy book’,
partly because its title derived from the poem ‘There are Fairies at the Bottom of Our
Garden’ by Rose Fyleman (1917), which was adapted into a popular song in the 1930s
by entertainer Beatrice Lillie, whose performance inspired a stage revival in the 1950s.
Lillie’s campy delivery of the lyrics also included double meanings, and was a hit with
the then-illegal gay male subculture of which Warhol was part.13 The slang expression
‘fairy’ was a common term for a gay man at that time, and Warhol’s book knowingly
embraces that fact.14 Half of the images in Warhol’s In the Bottom of My Garden depict
fanciful floral creatures based on the masterful illustrations in J. J. Grandville’s book
Les Fleurs Animées (The Flowers Personified) (1847), while the other half show chubby
cherubs cavorting in poses based on Jacques Stella’s images first published in Les
Jeux et Plaisirs de l’Enfance (Games and Pleasures of Childhood) (1657).

264 Andy Warhol Cat Collage (from 25 Cats Name Sam and One Blue Pussy) c. 1954 265
 One illustration in Warhol’s ‘fairy book’ stands out from the others both for its
content and because it is one of only two that include text (the author is not credited).
This image has roots in an immensely popular earlier stage work (c. 1890–1910) by two
risqué Vaudeville acts, the Barrison Sisters and the Machinson Sisters. Warhol’s drawing
of the young woman wearing a bell-like nightcap reveals his source as the Barrisons.
She holds a small cat below her belly, and the drawing is captioned with the phrase
from the Barrisons’s routine, ‘Do you see my little pussy?’. In their heyday, the sisters
were known as ‘The Wickedest Girls in the World’.
In stark contrast, during this same time Warhol illustrated stories in six volumes of
the series Best in Children’s Books (forty-two collections published by Doubleday from
1957 to 1961). Three of these include his line drawings of cats: ‘The Little Red Hen’, ‘The
Magic Porridge Pot’, and ‘Sophocles the Hyena’ (opposite). These are entirely unlike
the drawings in Warhol’s previously mentioned artist’s books, which were created using
his blotted-line technique, the bread-and-butter style for his advertising work; instead,
the drawings for children’s books resemble those found in comics or cartoons. The
Doubleday publications mark a transition between Warhol’s charming work of the 1950s
and his pop-culture derived images of the 1960s. They also date to the time of a tragic
event that had a profound, though often ignored, effect on Warhol’s psyche.
The last of Warhol’s self-published artist’s books from the 1950s period,15 titled Holy
Cats by Andy Warhol’s Mother, was released in 1960.16 This book consists of pen-and-ink
drawings of cats in a genuinely naive style by Warhol’s mother, Julia Warhola, with a simple
narrative text in her unique handwriting. It also includes a dedication: ‘This little book is
for my little Hester who left for pussy heaven’ (opposite). While this may be mildly comical
to us, for Warhol and his mother it was in fact a statement of great trauma; twenty years
afterwards, Warhol not only referred to it in his Diaries, but also described the moment
and its importance in far more detail than is characteristic for that book. Regarding the
opening of Jamie Wyeth’s exhibition in Philadelphia, in September 1980, Warhol wrote:

I saw Bettie Barnes, who let my cat die. It’s a man. B-E-T-T-I-E. I once gave him
a kitten and the kitten was crying and I thought it wanted its mother so I gave
him the mother. We had two cats left, my mother and I had given away twenty-
five already. This was the early sixties. And after I gave him the mother he took
her to be spayed and she died under the knife. My darling Hester. She went to
pussy heaven. And I’ve felt guilty ever since. That’s how we should have started
POPism. That’s when I gave up caring. I don’t want to think about it. If I had had
her spayed myself, I just know she would have lived, but he let her die.17

This rare confession by Warhol is astonishing, and has been a focus of attention
for Warhol’s biographer Wayne Koestenbaum18 and, more recently, for scholar Anthony
Grudin.19 Warhol’s observation that his then recently published memoir of the 1960s,
(clockwise from left) Andy Warhol (illustrator) ‘The Little POPism: The Warhol Sixties,20 should have opened with the tragedy is also insightful. In
Red Hen’ in Best in Children’s Books, 1958, p. 77 and p. 84;
‘Sophocles the Hyena’ in Best in Children’s Books, 1960, p. 85;
saying, ‘That’s when I gave up caring’, Warhol connects his much-discussed desire to
Julia Warhola Holy Cats by Andy Warhol’s Mother 1960 (detail) ‘be a machine’21 to the loss of his beloved feline, ‘My darling Hester’.

266 267
 Warhol’s celebrated Silver Factory (operative from 1964 to 1967 on the fourth floor of
231 East 47th Street) had several resident cats, although ‘Factory foreman’ Billy Name
seems to have been their caretaker. The names of two of the animals – White Pussy and
Black Lace – mirror their fur colour, but once again emphasise human sexuality. White
Pussy happily lounged among four human co-stars, and was boldly ‘introduced’ on the
poster for the premiere of Warhol’s film Harlot (1964, opposite).
Other than his video work with the rock band Curiosity Killed the Cat in 1986, the next
appearance of cats in Warhol’s work was also the very last: his series of paintings Dogs
and Cats, commissioned by London art dealer James Mayor in 1976. In his book America
Andy Warhol Harlot 1964 (still)
(1985), Warhol wrote, ‘I never met an animal I didn’t like’. He also noted that pets can
provide the perfect family, such as those presented in television shows: ‘You can get a
cat that calls to you every morning when you go out the door, just like a TV mother’.25
The paintings were all intended as portraits of the pets of friends and acquaintances
(including a cat named Broadway), but several of them are in fact modelled on mounted
taxidermies and are therefore, in a sense, fakes.

AI AND CATS It seems no accident that Ai Weiwei, an internationally renowned artist

stripped of his Chinese passport from 2011–15, surrounds himself with twenty to thirty
cats, many of them former strays to whom he’s given a very comfortable home in his
studio.26 Speaking about them, Ai says, ‘I love them and the people in this office all love
these cats’. Just like Warhol’s Hester, most of Ai’s cats are not neutered. He says, ‘I didn’t
choose them, they chose me’. The cat’s essential characteristic of individual freedom is
magnified in comparison to the restrictions placed on Ai, and the larger issues to which
he draws our attention: absences of freedom, justice and responsibility. ‘They’re very
independent. They [broke] several of my artworks. It’s [sic] very costly, these cats, but we
cannot function [without them].’27
Andy Warhol Flyer (Andy Warhol Presents Mario
Montez as Harlot) from Time Capsule 17 1965 There are several other events that could have sparked his wish to avoid emotions The cats and dogs in my home enjoy a high status; they seem more like the lords
and create art en masse. These include the absence of a permanent life partner, of the manor than I do. The poses they strike in the courtyard often inspire more
and the rejection he experienced when trying to join the avant-garde cooperative joy in me than the house itself. Their self-important positions seem to be saying,
Tanager Gallery in the mid 1950s (in which several of Warhol’s old college friends held ‘This is my territory,’ and that makes me happy. However, I’ve never designed a
membership).22 Another could be Warhol’s interest in the artist Marcel Duchamp, whose special space for them. I can’t think like an animal, which is part of the reason why
invention of the readymade form of art relied to an extent on the absence of emotion. I respect them; it’s impossible for me to enter into their realm. All I can do is open
Yet Warhol declares it was the death of his sweet little kitty cat, with the antiquated the entire home to them, observe, and at last discover that they actually like it
and unfashionable name Hester, which pushed him over the edge.23 The loss of feline here or there. They’re impossible to predict.28
companionship made him give up ‘caring’, or, in other words, he stopped having
emotions; Hester may have been THE significant other in his life. While perhaps only a coincidence, the cat is absent from figures of the Chinese
Warhol was known for his extreme reaction to Hester’s death24 and he did not have zodiac depicted in Ai’s Circle of Animals (in Gold), 2010 (pp. 252–3). There are several
a pet again until the mid 1970s, when he acquired a pair of dachshunds named Amos versions of the ancient origins of this zodiac. According to one, the animals were
and Archie. After Hester, the cats that appear in Warhol’s work usually belong to others. summoned by the Jade Emperor to a meeting, stating he would name each year
For example, in his film Eat, shot in February 1964 (soon after his ‘machine’ quotation according to the order in which the animals arrived; in another, Cat drowns after making
was published), the artist Robert Indiana languorously nibbles a single mushroom for a pact with Rat, which is the reason cats chase rats, in eternal revenge. There are many
half an hour, while his cat Particci occasionally perches on his shoulder. other cat myths in China, unrelated to the zodiac. One states that soon after the gods

268 269
 Ai Weiwei and cats in studio, Beijing, 2005 Ai Weiwei and cats in studio, Beijing, 2006

created the Earth, the goddess Li Shou, herself a cat, was made its overseer, and she Just as Warhol could never forgive or forget the death of his dear Hester, in a
and all of her fellow cats were given the ability to speak. Soon it became clear Li Shou 2007 blog post titled ‘Eternally lost confidence’, Ai recorded his profound reaction to
was not up to the task, as she kept falling asleep. The gods asked her to choose her the suffering of cats witnessed during a rescue mission in Tianjin. Here he declares a
successor, and she picked humans, who were then given the power of speech at the society that permits abuse of harmless creatures is inhumane, and condemns it with
expense of cats.29 powerful words:
In the 2012 documentary film Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, the many cats of FAKE are
seen lounging and patrolling the studio. In a widely known scene, one cat (Tian Tian) After passing many roundabouts, we arrived at the warehouse door, one among
is captured demonstrating his unusual ability to open a door. The artist asks: a long row of doors in a warehouse district. Fanning open the two steel doors,
I was treated to one of the most miserable sights in my life: more than four
Where did this intelligence come from? All the other cats watch us open the door. hundred cats were scattered in groups and heaped into various corners of this
So I was thinking, if I never met this cat that can open doors, I wouldn’t know cats one-hundred-plus-square-meter warehouse floor: groups of thirty or fifty nested
could open doors. Cats can open the door, but only men can close it.30 together in piles, behind the door planks, or the idle kitchen cupboards, and they
emitted hungry and terrified moans. More cats were hiding in the roof beams
Ai’s observation can be read as a critique of humans’ misuse of power. Perhaps it is in fear, or in the spaces between the walls and support beams. There were cat
time for us to hand back the reins of power – and the power of speech – to Li Shou? breeds from the entire world over, a variety of colors, patterns, ages, and it was
Ai claims that each time he gives an interview at his studio, one particular cat, Lai obvious many of these cats had once been loved by owners, for a few of them
Lai, is always present: ‘He’s never missed a word’.31 Does this cat possess a vestigial tried to slide their way over, rubbing their heads on our legs in hope they might
understanding of the long-lost ability to speak? win some of that former love and protection. The primary similarity between them
Because Ai lives with so many cats, and has posted numerous photographs of them was a look of unconcealable terror in their eyes. They had lost faith in humans …
online, it is only fitting the animals also appear in his writing. In these three excerpts What is the relationship between 430 abused and injured cats, twenty
from his blog, the animal is invoked as a poetic metaphor or simile: volunteers, Tianjin’s Bird and Flower market, police misconduct, millions of
slaughtered dogs, the 2008 Olympics, and all the boisterous hoopla over a
No designer can draft human emotions, they have their own paths, and like the harmonious society? These cats, slated for murder, were discovered by chance.
direction of a cat’s next step, I am powerless to predict such things.32 There are many such markets in Tianjin, where, year after year, an unimaginable
sum of cats and dogs meet their doom. Across the entire nation, every day,
Those days had a special significance, and the image of an abandoned cat every hour, every moment, there are countless animals who meet a similar
running across the Second Ring Road in the rain still comes clearly to mind.33 fate; they are unable to speak in a language humans can understand, and are
eternally unable to plead in defence of a life of dignity. In their eyes, all that
Every attempt to build marks an attempt at questioning, but the answer always humanity can offer them is an undefeatable, extreme sense of dread.
slips away, like a black cat attacking its own shadow – futile … To better Owing to a lack of animal protection laws, such evil knows no restraints, and
understand the potential of space and its related events, you can examine a these murders will never be punished. When such laws are absent, humans’
leaping cat, or the raising of a flag.34 intuitive knowledge and good will are similarly laid to waste, infinitely doomed,

270 271
 and all that remains is an ignorant and twisted world filled with inhumanity. The
greatest self-punishment the Chinese people will know is that they will forever
lack the trust and respect of other races and forms of life.35

This depth of feeling is rooted in personal experience, not only that of witnessing
the rescue, but also having had one of the studio cats, San Hua, disappear and is
believed to have been snatched by those who sell cats for their meat and fur, as Ai
discusses in the film 258 Cats. This brutal industry is documented in a film named for
Ai’s vanished cat, San Hua.36 While the cats of FAKE are a frequent subject for him, Ai
notes, ‘I wouldn’t say they’re my artwork because they’re a very different world. I could
never understand a cat … Every time I look at cats I’m always affected, I’m very touched
by their way of behaving’.37
In a slightly earlier blog entry from 2006,38 Ai mentions a specific cat, Da Mi (a
common cat name in China, meaning ‘Big Kitty’), before going on to discuss ruins and
compare the outskirts of Beijing circa 2000 to the historic ruins of ancient Rome. Both
are known for their resident stray cats – ‘ruins were designed for cats’ and ‘any place
with humans will have ruins’, writes Ai. Cats are not only ‘self-aware and proud’, but also
‘have been melancholy through the ages’, he notes. The context for these observations
is a discussion of photographs by Rongrong and inri, residents of Beijing’s short-lived
artists’ colony known as the East Village, the name a reference to the post-Soho/pre-
Chelsea art scene in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, also named the East Village. The
Manhattan scene was notable for graffiti work by artists such as Keith Haring, Jean-
Michel Basquiat and David Wojnarowicz made between 1980 and 1988, at the same
time Ai was living there. In the way he witnessed both East Villages, Ai resembles Da Mi,
the cat who ‘witnessed everything’.
Warhol also witnessed everything, but in a different milieu. As a gay man in
Pittsburgh and New York, he had to evade the notorious vice squads;39 his art was
rejected by New York’s Tanager Gallery for being ‘too gay’ (although those words were
not used); and he experienced both the relative freedoms of the 1970s post-Stonewall
period and the demonisation and fear of ‘gay cancer’, as AIDS was referred to in the
mid 1980s. In his later years Warhol wanted to adopt a child, but was unable to find a
legal way to do so in the United States.40 He also did not live to see the era of legal gay
marriage, which – almost thirty years after his death – was determined to be legal by
the US Supreme Court, with a landmark decision announced on 26 June 2015; before
then, it was legal in all but thirteen of the fifty US states. Ai recounts that the Beijing
East Village artists, too, faced many difficulties: ‘they were hunted and dispersed, and
they faced a reality that included arrest and jail’.
Ai concludes his 2006 blog post by reflecting on all that Big Kitty has experienced,
stating: ‘In some ways, cats prove the stupidity and impotence of humans … But how
she sees all of this remains a mystery’. Warhol and Ai have openly shared with us what
they have seen, forcing us at times to confront painful realities of our humanity and,
perhaps, wish that we were omniscient, purring – or even talking – cats instead.

272 Cats in Ai Weiwei’s studio, Caochangdi, Beijing, 2005 273

274 Andy Warhol The Cat Resembled My Uncle Pierre c. 1954 Andy Warhol Cat in Front of Church c. 1959; (overleaf) Edward Wallowitch Andy Warhol with Siamese Cat c. 1957 275
277
Ai Weiwei’s Study of Perspective with cat, Beijing, 2014

278
280 Andy Warhol Cat with Perfume Bottle 1950s; (opposite) Cat in Ai Weiwei’s studio, Beijing, 2007 281
Notes
Andy Warhol and Ai Weiwei: in dialogue and correspondence, Archaeological Archives, a small museum for ancient FAKE | Factory, pp. 85–104
pp. 1–17 Chinese pottery; and collaborations with Swiss architects
Herzog & de Meuron, notably the Beijing National Stadium 1 Andy Warhol in Gene Swenson, ‘What is Pop Art?
1 Ai Weiwei, ‘Andy Warhol’, blog post 3 Oct. 2007, written for the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and the 2012 Serpentine Interviews with eight painters (part 1)’, Art News, no. 62,
4 May 2006, in Ai Weiwei’s Blog: Writings, Interviews, and Pavilion in London. no. 7, Nov. 1963, p. 26.
Digital Rants, 2006–2009, ed. & trans. Lee Ambrozy, MIT 31 See Feng Boyi, ‘Ai Weiwei, natural-born rebel’, in Ai Weiwei: 2 Ai Weiwei to Chin-Chin Yap, ‘A handful of dust’, in Ai
Press, Cambridge, MA & London, 2011, p. 127. Absent, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, 2014, p. 21. Weiwei, Ai Weiwei: Works, Beijing 1993–2003, Timezone 8,
2 Ai Weiwei, video interview produced for Andy Warhol | Ai 32 A point noted by Charles Esche is his Monash University Hong Kong, 2003, p. 30.
Weiwei, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2015. Museum of Art lecture ‘Artistic freedom and cultural 3 The characters that spell FA-KE in Chinese are discussed
3 Ai Weiwei, ‘Foreword’, Warhol in China, Hatje Cantz Verlag, critique in the context of corporatism in the art world’, in the 2013 documentary Ai Weiwei: The Fake Case by
Ostfildern, Germany, 2013, p. 7. Greek Centre for Contemporary Culture, Melbourne, Andreas Johnsen (British Broadcasting Corporation,
4 See Annette Michelson, ‘ “Where is your rupture?” Mass 22 May 2015. 86 min., Denmark) when Ai’s assistant explains to a
culture and the Gesamtkunstwerk’, in Annette Michelson bureaucrat how to spell the corporation’s name. In
(ed.), Andy Warhol, October Files 2, MIT Press, Cambridge, conversation with Hans Ulrich Obrist, Ai explained: ‘In
MA & London, 2001, p. 101. An interview with Ai Weiwei, pp. 33–47 China the word “fake” is pronounced “fuck”’. See Ai
5 Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company, Weiwei, Ai Weiwei, Phaidon, New York, 2009, p. 31.
developed the assembly line technique in 1913, which 1 Located on Fourth Avenue in Greenwich Village, New York 4 A collaboration between Warhol and Bell Labs engineer
became the quintessential mass production method (once known as ‘Book Row’), the Strand is an independent Billy Klüver, the Clouds were later deployed as aleatory
of the twentieth century. In recent years, Fordism and bookstore in that features more than 2.5 million new, used components of the stage set for Merce Cunningham’s
post-Fordism have been prominent terms in economic and rare books. Established in 1927, the business was dance Rain Forest, which premiered in 1968.
and cultural debates related to new forms of economic named after the London street where avant-garde writers 5 This I have argued previously – see Caroline Jones,
production and consumption in the early twenty-first and book publishers thrived. Machine in the Studio: Constructing the Postwar American
century, and in relation to the advent of the internet, 2 In 1994 Ai collaborated with friends Xu Bing and Zeng Artist, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1996.
service provision and immaterial culture as characteristics Xiaojun to publish Black Cover Book, which featured the 6 Key players were Donald Judd, who got his own cast-iron
of post-Fordist production. experimental artistic practices of young Chinese artists building declared an historical landmark, and Gordon
6 Hans Ulrich Obrist, Ai Weiwei Speaks, Penguin Books, as well as translations of texts by leading Western artists, Matta-Clark, who pioneered what is now known as
London, 2011, pp. 28, 32. See also Ai Weiwei’s Blog. such as Marcel Duchamp, Jeff Koons and Andy Warhol. ‘adaptive re-use’, including loft conversions. SoHo has
7 Developed in collaboration with engineer Billy Klüver – a More than 3000 copies were distributed in an underground now been largely abandoned by the serious gallery scene
friend of artists Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg – edition that exerted a powerful influence on the Chinese in New York, which has moved to the new post-industrial
Andy Warhol’s Silver Clouds were first exhibited at Leo art world. Ai continued book production with White Cover wilderness of Chelsea, about forty blocks north.
Castelli Gallery, New York, in 1966, with Warhol’s yellow Book (1995) and Grey Cover Book (1997). 7 It can be argued that the party-state’s ‘fake case about
and pink Cow wallpaper adorning the walls of an adjacent FAKE company’, as Ai described the tax-evasion suit
gallery. In 1968 Warhol was invited by choreographer Merce brought against him in 2011, was merely politics by other
Cunningham to adapt the work for his dance performance ‘Point, push down, and a lot, repeatedly’, pp. 61–73 means, since the state had already kidnapped the artist
Rain Forest, with set design by Warhol, music by David and confined him in a secret location for eighty-one days,
Tudor and costumes by Jasper Johns. See Georg Frei & 1 Andy Warhol with Bob Colacello, Andy Warhol’s picking him up at the Beijing airport in April of that year, and
Neil Printz (eds), ‘Silver Clouds and Cow Wallpaper’, The Exposures, Grosset and Dunlap, New York, 1979, p. 19. only seeing fit to charge him with 15 million RMB in taxes
Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonne: Paintings and Sculpture 2 Ai Weiwei in Ai Weiwei: New York 1983–1993, Three and fines on 29 December (see Johnsen’s documentary
1964–1969, Phaidon, New York, 2004, cat. nos 1868–1871.2. Shadows Press, Beijing, 2010, p. 37. The Fake Case, and the volunteer website http://fakecase.
8 See Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, ‘Andy Warhol’s one dimensional 3 Ai Weiwei in Hans Ulrich Obrist, Ai Weiwei Speaks with com). The point to be made is that having made a legal
art: 1956–1966’, in Kynaston McShine (ed.), Andy Warhol: A Hans Ulrich Obrist, London, Penguin, 2011, p. 83 corporation, Ai is now subject to state laws governing
Retrospective, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1989, p. 40. 4 The artists lived in closest proximity when Warhol was at corporate activity (not that the party obeys those laws).
9 Ai’s Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn also takes the form of a the third Factory (The Office) at 860 Broadway (from 1974 8 Ai Weiwei, interview with Hans Ulrich Obrist, in Ai Weiwei,
short video loop. to 1984), and at the last Factory on Madison Avenue and 2009, p. 39.
10 See Charles Merewether, Ai Weiwei: Under Construction, 33rd Street (from 1984 to 1987). 9 McCollum is an important influence; several photographs
UNSW Press, Sydney, 2008, pp. 28; 59–60. 5 Ai Weiwei, conversation with the author, May 2015. by Ai capture the installation of McCollum’s Over Ten
11 The coat hanger profile of Duchamp is a work Ai has 6 Andy Warhol’s Exposures, p. 232. Thousand Individual Works, 1987–88, at the 1989 Whitney
returned to on various occasions: Duchamp’s Profile with 7 See Ai Weiwei: New York 1983–1993. Biennial, and the previous year McCollum had also shown
Sunflower Seeds, 1983; Hanging Man, 1995; and Hanging 8 Ai Weiwei, Ai Weiwei’s Blog: Writings, Interviews, and his Perfect Vehicles – gypsum casts of what look like
Man in Porcelain, 2009, are further works in this series. Digital Rants, 2006–2009, ed. & trans. Lee Ambrozy, MIT Asian urns – in several exhibitions. See Ai Weiwei: New
12 In this photographic diptych, Ai is seen through the glass Press, Cambridge, MA & London, 2011, p. 53. York 1983–1993, Three Shadows Press, Beijing, 2010, p. 199.
panel of Duchamp’s To Be Looked At (from the Other Side 9 Ai Weiwei in Ai Weiwei: New York 1983–1993, p. 33. 10 Ai Weiwei in The Fake Case.
of the Glass) with One Eye, Close to, for Almost an Hour, 10 Joseph D. Ketner II, Image Machine: Andy Warhol and 11 See the recent analysis by Roger Buergel in Ai Weiwei:
1918 (Museum of Modern Art, New York), dutifully enacting Photography, Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, Ohio Barely Something, Museum DKM, Duisburg, Germany, 2010,
the Duchampian instruction. & Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, pp. 10–17; see also Glenn Adamson, ‘The real thing’, in Ai
13 See John Tancock, ‘The influence of Marcel Duchamp’, in 2012–13, p. 41. Weiwei: Dropping the Urn (Ceramic Works, 5000 BCE – 2010
Francis Naumann & John Tancock, Duchamp and/or/China, 11 Andy Warhol, quoted in Bob Colacello, Holy Terror: Andy CE), Arcadia University Art Gallery, Glenside, 2010, pp. 48–55.
Ullens Centre for Contemporary Art, Beijing, 2014, pp. 37, Warhol Close Up, HarperCollins, New York, 1990, p. 284. 12 The full sequence of remarks from Li Zhanyang is
45–88, 301–62. 12 ‘People say there’s no such thing as Society anymore. extraordinary: ‘I’m just his hands. I’m like an assassin!
14 Merewether, p. 35. I think they’re wrong. Anyone rich, powerful, beautiful He tells me, “Here’s some money, go kill this person”.
15 See John Tancock, ‘Duchamp and/or/China’, in Naumann or famous can get into Society. If you’re a few of those I wouldn’t ask him, “Why do you want him killed?” That’s
& Tancock, pp. 45–88; 301–62. things you can really get to the top’, Andy Warhol’s silly. Just get it done!’ Li Zhanyang, in Ai Weiwei: Never
16 Jay Curley, ‘Readymade disasters: the art and politics Exposures, p. 19. Sorry, Alison Klayman, Expressions United Media, MUSE
of Andy Warhol and Ai Weiwei’, Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei, 13 For a full account of Warhol’s trip to Hong Kong and Film and Television, Germany, 90 min., 2012.
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2015, p. 148 China see Christopher Makos, Andy Warhol in China: 13 ‘Business art is the step that comes after Art … The
17 Andy Warhol, POPism, p. 290. The Photographs of Christopher Makos, Timezone 8, Business Art Business.’ Andy Warhol, The Philosophy of
18 Warhol refers to his now famous aphorism, ‘Everyone will Beijing, 2007. Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again), Harcourt Brace
be famous for fifteen minutes’, in POPism, p. 130. 14 David Bourdon, Warhol, Harry N. Abrams, New York, 1989, Jovanovich, New York, 1975, p. 92.
19 Ai Weiwei, ‘Andy Warhol’ blog post in Ai Weiwei’s Blog, p. 129. p. 317. 14 Think, for example, of Warhol’s well-known ‘blotted line’
20 See Ai Weiwei, ‘Names list investigation’, <http://aiweiwei. 15 The Andy Warhol Mao paintings to be included in the technique in which a preliminary line drawing would be
com/projects/5-12-citizens-investigation/name-list- exhibition Andy Warhol: 15 Minutes Eternal at the Power re-inked and blotted onto another sheet of paper while
investigation/index.html> and ‘Remembrance’, <http:// Station of Art, Shanghai (29 April – 28 July 2013) and the ink was still wet – effectively turning the ‘original’ into
aiweiwei.com/projects/5-12-citizens-investigation/ the CAFA Museum, Beijing (29 Sep. – 15 Nov. 2013) were a template for a ‘print’, which would then be submitted
remembrance/index.html>, accessed 7 Aug. 2015. withdrawn at the request of the authorities. See Doug to the commissioning magazine as ‘the artwork’ to be
21 Ai Weiwei, Ai Weiwei’s Blog: Writings, Interviews, and Digital Meigs, ‘Warhol’s Mao works censored in China’, 25 produced, in turn, in mass printed form.
Rants, 2006–2009, ed. & trans. Lee Ambrozy, MIT Press, March 2013, Scene Asia, The Wall Street Journal, <http:// 15 Sean Scully, quoted in Ai Weiwei, 2009, p. 67.
Cambridge, MA & London, 2011. blogs.wsj.com/scene/2013/03/25/warhols-mao-works- 16 Ai, interview with Hans Ulrich Obrist, in Ai Weiwei, 2009, p. 15.
22 Ai Weiwei in Hans Ulrich Obrist, Ai Weiwei Speaks, Penguin censored-in-china/>, accessed 15 July 2015. 17 Xu Bing and Ai picked up some paintings thrown out on
Books, London, 2011, p. 6. 16 ‘I didn’t know what a Forbidden City was, what it meant. the sidewalk in the East Village where they lived. They then
23 Thomas Crow, ‘Saturday disasters: trace and reference in Like when I was a kid and went to school with blacks substituted these paintings for the original illustrations in
early Warhol’, 1996, in Michelson, p. 49. and didn’t know there was something special about it’, a tendentious piece of formalist art criticism, giving the
24 ibid., p. 51. Andy Warhol, quoted in Makos, p. 56. artist and author anodyne Western names. They submitted
25 ibid., p. 60. 17 Warhol’s diary entry for 1 Nov. 1982 reads: ‘Finally when the plagiarised amalgam to a Chinese art journal and it
26 ibid., p.55. we got to the Great Wall it actually was really great. I’d was printed without question or comment.
27 Ai Weiwei’s Blog, p. 128–9. been putting it down, but then it was staggering … it’s 18 The China Art Archives and Warehouse (CAAW) is located
28 The Black Cover Book was edited with artists Xu Bing and like walking up to the Empire state Building’, Hackett, in north-east Beijing, in Caochangdi Village, Chaoyang
Zeng Xiaojun. The White and Grey Cover Books were co- p. 466. district. Ai’s initial partner in the project was Frank
edited with Zeng. 18 These photographs will be the subject of a forthcoming Uytterhaegen, and the enterprise was supported by the
29 China Art Archives and Warehouse was co-founded monograph by Ai, Stephanie H. Tung and John Tancock. Ghent-based Modern Chinese Art Foundation. CAAW is
with Hans van Dijk (1946–2002) and Frank Uytterhaegen 19 Ai Weiwei, ‘Ideal cities and architecture do not exist’, now affiliated with the Swiss Galerie Urs Meile.
(1954–2011). posted on 24 May 2006, in Ai Weiwei’s Blog: Writings, 19 Buergel, p. 14.
30 Following Ai’s Studio House, 1999, which led to the Interviews and Digital Rants, 2006–2009, p. 53. 20 See the essays by Beatrice Wood, Frank Crowninshield
subsequent realisation of an entire neighbourhood of 20 Ai Weiwei, ‘Some thoughts on future cities’, posted 25 and others in The Blind Man journal, no. 2, May 1917.
courtyard houses and gallery spaces in Caochangdi; July 2006, in Ai Weiwei’s Blog: Writings, Interviews, and 21 See, for example, Cildo Mereiles’s Insertions into
projects of FAKE Design include the master planning of Digital Rants, 2006–2009, p. 79. Ideological Circuits, 1970 (Tate, London), in which the artist
the Jinhua Architecture and Sculpture Park, 2004–06, 21 Ai Weiwei, ‘Andy Warhol’, posted 3 Oct. 2007, in Ai silkscreened anti-imperialist messages onto store-bought
involving seventeen architectural pavilions developed Weiwei’s Blog: Writings, Interviews, and Digital Rants, Coke bottles, then put them back on the shelf where they
by diverse international practices, including Ai’s 2006–2009, p. 128. would continue to circulate.

282 283
22 Ai Weiwei in Ai Weiwei: Works, Beijing 1993–2003, pp. 32–4. 3 Some of the ideas in this essay are explored in greater 32 See Ai Weiwei, ‘Why I’ll stay away from the Opening publishers who publish books and magazines to Meeooaaww-AW-AWW, pp. 257–72 22 Notably, Philip Pearlstein, Dorothy Cantor, Arthur Elias,
23 ‘I had nothing to do so I was going to the antique depth in John J. Curley, A Conspiracy of Images: Andy Ceremony of the Olympics’, The Guardian, 8 Aug. 2008, already established consumer groups. The artist-as- Joseph Groell and his brother Ted Groell (professionally
market.’ As Ai recalled, the motivation for Han Dynasty Warhol, Gerhard Richter, and the Art of the Cold War, Yale <http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/ publisher uses the book, the magazine and the event 1 In the author’s many years of experience with numerous known as Theophil Repke); sculptor James Rosati also
with Coca-Cola Logo, 1994, was ‘the actual form of the University Press, New Haven, 2013. aug/07/olympics2008.china>, accessed 17 July 2015; to bring worlds into being, rather than represent pre- domestic cats, he has been able to train only two had Pittsburgh roots. Warhol’s rejection by the Tanager
script, the brushstroke seemed to follow very closely 4 Warhol’s series of silkscreen paintings Shadows, 1978–79 ‘fake smile’ is from Ai Weiwei, ‘China excluded its existing ones. (Batgirl and Batman, tuxedos born to a tortoiseshell may have drawn him closer to the artist Ray Johnson
the shape and form of the vase itself’, Ai Weiwei: Works, (pp. xii–xiii), based on photographs of abstract shadows, people from the Olympics. London is different’, The 15 Gerhard Richter, ‘Between translation and invention: the mother) to recognise his whistle. (1927–1995) who, like Warhol, supported himself with
Beijing 1993–2003, p. 27. is perhaps his most powerful expression of this idea. Guardian, 25 July 2012, <http://www.theguardian.com/ photograph in deconstruction’, in Jacques Derrida, Copy, 2 Ai’s assistant Darryl Leung informed the author that the graphic design but whose serious work was in collage
24 Some accounts have Malanga meeting Warhol in 5 For a good introduction to the style, see Matthew artanddesign/2012/jul/25/china-olympics-london-ai- Archive, Signature: A Conversation on Photography, ed. number of resident cats at FAKE fluctuates between and eventually performance and correspondence art.
1962, and Malanga remembers the Elvis paintings, Cullerne Bown, Socialist Realist Painting, Yale University weiwei>, accessed 17 July 2015. Gerhard Richter, trans. Jeff Fort, Stanford University Press, twenty and thirty. Johnson, a graduate of the legendary avant-garde
1962–63, as the first silkscreens he made with Warhol. Press, New Haven, 1998. While Chinese Socialist Realism 33 See Lindsay Beck, ‘Beijing to evict 1.5 million for Stanford, 2010, p. xxiv. 3 Recorded at Broodthaers’s Musée d’Art Moderne, Black Mountain College in North Carolina, has also been
But it is probable Warhol began screening in 1962 diverged from the Soviet variety in a number of ways, Olympics’, 5 June 2007, Reuters, <http://www.reuters. 16 For a description of how Ai’s performance engages with Département des Aigles (Museum of Modern Art, credited as an early Pop artist who created portraits
before Malanga began working as his assistant. One this particular portrait of Mao has clear affinities with the com/article/2007/06/05/us-olympics-beijing-housing- an established code for criticising Chinese cultural policy, Department of Eagles), 12 Burgplatz, Düsseldorf, 1970. of James Dean and Elvis Presley in the 1950s. Johnson
source states: ‘According to Gerard Malanga, [he] was official portraits of Lenin and Stalin. For more on Chinese idUSPEK12263220070605>, accessed 17 July 2015. See see Rachel Arons, ‘Ai Weiwei’s “Gangnam Style” knockoff’, Broodthaers interviewed a cat regarding esoteric was a notorious prankster, and occasionally published
introduced to Warhol at a party given by Menken and Socialist Realism, see Gao Minglu, Total Modernity and also Ai’s series of photographs Provisional Landscapes, 26 Oct. 2012, The New Yorker, <http://www.newyorker.com/ subjects, such as market trends in contemporary art. ads in New York newspapers for exhibitions held at
Maas in Fall 1962 – although he has also indicated in his the Avant-Garde in Twentieth-Century Chinese Art, MIT 2002–08, which capture the transition between old and culture/culture-desk/ai-weiweis-gangnam-style-knockoff>,. The work contains a transcription of the interview. An the fictitious Robin Gallery (a parody of the serious
writings that he was introduced to Warhol on June 9, Press, Cambridge, 2011, pp. 32–97. new constructions, picturing, for example, open spaces 17 See ‘With Flowers’, Ai Weiwei, <http://aiweiwei.com/ edition of fifty copies was published by Marian Goodman Tanager; both names refer to North American birds
1963 by Charles Henri Ford at a poetry reading, which 6 Wu Hung, Remaking Beijing: Tiananmen Square and the created by demolition. projects/with-flowers>, accessed 15 June 2015. Gallery, New York, in 1995. known for their red feathers, with the tanager’s being
led to him working for Warhol beginning on June 11, 1963’ Creation of a Political Space, University of Chicago Press, 34 Gao, p. 58. 18 Horton & Wohl, p. 42. 4 This copy is in Warhol’s Time Capsule 12, held by The a lush scarlet, while the robin’s is almost orange). The
(for which see the meticulously researched website by Chicago, 2005, p. 81. This book provides a detailed and 35 For this process and images of labourers at work, see 19 Kostenbaum, p. 1. Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh. Wild Raspberries is a comic book superhero of campness, Batman, also had
Gary Comenas, ‘Andy Warhol chronology’, Warholstars. complex history of the Tiananmen Square portrait of Ai’s video Wenchuan Rebar, 2012, available online. 20 Ai Weiwei, Ai Weiwei’s Blog: Writings, Interviews, and Digital brilliant parody of French cuisine, which was becoming a sidekick named Robin, who was often thought by the
org, <http://www.warholstars.org/chron/192862.html>, Mao, see pp. 68–84. According to Wu, the form of the 36 Although Sorace argues for the importance of the Rants, 2006–2009, ed. & trans. Lee Ambrozy, MIT Press, enormously popular in the United States at that time. general public to be gay especially in the high-camp
accessed 22 May 2015). current portrait dates to 1967, but a new painted copy Cultural Revolution’s legacy in Ai’s work, he addresses Cambridge, MA & London, 2011, p. 128. 5 This correspondence is found in Warhol’s archives, in the television series of the mid 1960s, though less so in
25 An important publication bringing postmodernism to appears in the square every year. different aspects than the present essay. collection of The Andy Warhol Museum. the film serial of the 1940s. Warhol, of course, made a
the ground during these years was Brian Wallis (ed.), 7 Warhol admitted the relationship of his practice to 37 Jed Perl, ‘Noble and ignoble: Ai Weiwei: wonderful 6 These references were initially noted by Neil Printz; my painting of the Batman symbol, and shot a film titled
Art after Modernism: Rethinking Representation, New communism in the early 1960s when he attempted to dissident, terrible artist’, 1 Feb. 2013, The New Republic, Empire and eternal peace, pp. 205–19 reference is Lucy Mulroney’s ‘One blue pussy’, Criticism, Batman Dracula.
Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, and David formulate his own moniker for what was to become Pop <http://www.newrepublic.com/article/112218/ai-wei-wei- vol. 56, no. 3, summer 2014, pp. 559–92. Mulroney cites 23 As noted by Lucy Mulroney, the heroine of Nathaniel
Godine, Boston, 1984. Warhol’s Rorschach paintings, Art, calling it ‘Commonism’. See Tony Scherman & David wonderful-dissident-terrible-artist>, accessed 17 July. 1 ‘Ai Weiwei: fragments, voids, sections and rings’, interview Printz’s work. Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter (1850) is Hester
1984, form the end papers. Dalton, Pop: The Genius of Andy Warhol, HarperCollins, 38 For a compelling reading of these images, see Thomas by Adrian Blackwell, 5 Dec. 2006, Archinect, <http:// 7 The name Pyewacket has roots in the horrific Salem Prynne, who bears a child from an adulterous affair with
26 Ai Weiwei, interview with Obrist, in Ai Weiwei, 2009, p. 40. New York, 2009, p. 100. Eller, ‘The material rhetoric of aesthetic resistance in archinect.com/features/article/47035/ai-weiwei-fragments- witch trials in early American colonial history of the mid- the minister of her church.
27 Ai Weiwei, interview with Charles Merewether, in Ai Weiwei: 8 See Kyle Chayka, ‘Warhol’s Mao paintings censored the contemporary art of East and West’, in Gereon voids-sections-and-rings>, accessed 14 June 2015. seventeenth century. 24 Family members have stated that at the tender age of
Works, Beijing 1993–2003, p. 23. in China’, 20 Dec. 2012, Salon, <http://www.salon. Sievernich (ed.), Ai Weiwei: Evidence, Prestel, Munich, 2 ibid. 8 Named after the painters of the early Italian thirteen, Warhol was profoundly disturbed by the death
28 Andy Warhol, in Swenson, p. 26. com/2012/12/19/warhols_mao_paintings_censored_in_ 2014, pp. 28–9. 3 Ai Weiwei, Ai Weiwei’s Blog: Writings, Interviews, and Renaissance, Cimabue (Bencivieni di Pepo, Florence in 1942 of his father Andrei, following a long illness
29 Andy Warhol, quoted in Gretchen Berg, ‘Nothing to lose: china>, accessed 15 July 2015. Digital Rants, 2006–2009, ed. & trans. Lee Ambrozy, MIT c. 1240–1302) and Sassetta (Stefano di Giovanni, c. (Andy is said to have stayed underneath his bed for
an interview with Andy Warhol’, Cahiers du Cinéma in 9 Philip Tinari, ‘A kind of true living’, Artforum, vol. 45, no. Press, Cambridge & London 2011, p. 44. 1390–1450). three days). During Warhol’s youth, his mother Julia
English, no. 10, May 1967, p. 43. 10, summer 2007, p. 454. The art in being public, pp. 173–87 4 Ai Weiwei in ‘Ai Weiwei’. 9 The letter, with a drawing titled The Jess Shoe, was sold was hospitalised for a serious illness and had surgery;
30 Xu Bing, interview with Duan Gang, ‘Chuanru lishi de 10 Evan Osnos, ‘It’s not beautiful’, The New Yorker, 24 May 5 Ai Weiwei in Ai Weiwei’s Blog, p. 45. by the auctioneer Doyle New York on 13 May 2014. this caused him great anxiety and fear. He later had
shengyin’ (‘The sound transmitting history’), Nongmin ribao 2010, p. 57. 1 Andy Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B 6 ibid., p. 42. 10 Gluck’s observation was confirmed by Dorothy Cantor difficulty coping with Julia’s death in 1972, refusing to
(Farmer’s Daily), 10 June 1990, cited in translation by Britta 11 Ai Weiwei, quoted in Kerry Brougher, ‘Reconsidering and Back Again), Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York, 7 Since 1949 all land in China has been state-owned, Pearlstein, in conversation with the author, Nov. 2014. acknowledge it to friends when they inquired about
Erickson, ‘Process and meaning in the art of Xu Bing’, in reality: an interview with Ai Weiwei’, in Ai Weiwei: 1975, p. 84. which allows for development plans to proceed with 11 The author has been unable to find any historical citation her. Warhol himself had a near-death experience after
Three Installations by Xu Bing, Elvehjem Museum of Art, According to What, ed. Deborah E. Horowitz, Prestel, 2 Donald Horton & R. Richard Wohl, ‘Mass communication little negotiation and scarce compensation for previous for ‘blue pussy’ as a slang expression, but its likelihood being shot by a disturbed writer, Valerie Solanas, in 1968.
University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, 1992. Xu is Munich, 2012, p. 39. and parasocial interaction: observations on intimacy at inhabitants of a development site. as the female equivalent of the male slang term ‘blue Hester’s unintentional death during surgery may have
here referring to Ghosts Pounding on the Wall, the project 12 These marks are associated with Abstract Expressionist a distance’, in Erik P. Bucy (ed.), Living in the Information 8 Ai Weiwei in Ai Weiwei’s Blog, p. 44. balls’, meaning a state of unsatisfied sexual arousal, influenced his fear of hospitals; in an ironic and shocking
he began in response to a critic’s dismissal of his Book artists such as Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, Age: A New Media Reader, Wadsworth Thomas Learning, 9 Ai Weiwei in ‘Ai Weiwei’. seems apparent. twist of fate Warhol passed away after emergency gall-
from Heaven as similar to the fable of a lost traveller in as well as later Neo-Expressionist artist such as Georg Belmont, CA, 2002, pp. 41–8. 10 Ai Weiwei, quoted in Charles Merewether, Ai Weiwei: 12 Although not found in Warhol’s estate, copies of both bladder surgery in 1987, at the age of fifty-eight.
the night, who walks in circles as if ghosts had built an Baselitz and Julian Schnabel. The latter two were 3 Victor Bockris, Warhol: The Biography, 75th Anniversary Under Construction, University of New South Wales Press, books are included in the exhibition Warhol by the Book, 25 Andy Warhol, America, Harper and Row, New York, 1985,
invisible wall keeping him from the true path. prevalent when Ai was working in New York in the 1980s. Edition, Da Capo, Cambridge, MA, 2003, p. 41; Warhol, Sydney, 2008, p. 97. 2015–17, Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, p. 192.
31 In Remembering, Warholian repetition meets Ginsberg’s 13 David Coggins, ‘Ai Weiwei’s humane conceptualism’, Art pp. 83–5. 11 Ai Weiwei in Ai Weiwei’s Blog, p. 43. MA, and The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, along 26 In an email to the author on 7 May 2015, Ai’s assistant
‘White Shroud’, which the poet frequently read aloud in America, vol. 95, no. 8, Sep. 2007, p. 121. 4 Horton & Wohl, p. 42. 12 ibid., p. 44. with another found in Warhol’s library: The Personality Darryl Leung wrote: ‘The cats all come to the studio in
to Ai when the artist would visit his apartment. This 14 Thomas Crow, ‘Saturday disasters: trace and reference 5 ibid., p. 42. 13 See Victor Bockris, The Life and Death of Andy Warhol, of the Cat, edited by Brandt Aymar (1958), which different ways. Sometimes they are found on the street;
commemoration of the death of Ginsberg’s mother (the in early Warhol’ (1987), reprinted in Thomas Crow, Modern 6 Warhol, p. 84. Fourth Estate, London, 1998, p. 207 ; Callie Angell, includes the following inscription in the unmistakable sometimes they jump into the studio by their own
centrepiece of White Shroud: Poems 1980–1985, Harper Art in the Common Culture, Yale University Press, New 7 As a prefix in English (taken from the Greek), ‘para’ The Films of Andy Warhol: Part II, Whitney Museum of handwriting of Warhol’s long-time friend Sam Wagstaff, volition, other times friends might bring the cat to the
and Row, New York, 1986), has its parallel in the message Haven, CT, 1996, pp. 51, 63. can denote three different kinds of relationship: American Art, New York, 1994, p. 16; and Gary Comenas, former curator of both the Wadsworth Athenaeum and studio’.
from a grieving mother for her dead child, which Ai’s 15 For a discussion about the gesamtkunstwerk, including proximity (being beside, or next to, and separate ‘Empire (1964)’, warholstars.org, <http://warholstars.org/ the Detroit Institute of Art, as well as the partner of 27 Ai Weiwei in 258 Cats, Hosen Tandijono, China, 5:38 mins,
backpacks were arranged to spell out. a chapter on Warhol, see Juliet Koss, Modernism after from; as in parallel, which in geometry refers to lines empire.html>, accessed 7 June 2015. photographer Robert Mapplethorpe: ‘From 9 cats and 2013, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFUVigZYyJo>.
32 Ai Weiwei, blog post 21 June 2008, as translated in Ai Weiwei: Wagner, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, that are next to each other but never intersect); an 14 Patrick De Haas, Andy Warhol: Le cinema comme ‘braille one blue curator all named Sam’. 28 Ai Weiwei, ‘Here and now’, posted 10 May 2006, in Ai
So Sorry, Prestel Verlag, Munich and New York, 2010, p. 12. 2010. In 2010, Evan Osnos commented that ‘the auxiliary relationship connected to a primary term (as mental’, Les Cahiers de Paris Expérimental 21, Editions 13 One of Warhol’s many ‘shoe portraits’ – a shoe whose Weiwei’s Blog: Writings, Interviews and Digital Rants,
33 Angela Davis spoke at a conference in conjunction with line between [Ai’s] art and his life has become in paramedic); and a relationship of abnormality or Paris Expérimental, 2005, p. 8 (author’s translation). style is meant to capture the personality of the named 2006–2009, ed. & trans. Lee Ambrozy, MIT Press,
Sidra Stich’s exhibition Made in U.S.A. at the Berkeley indistinguishable’ (see Osnos, p. 54). defectiveness (as in paralexia, which is a disturbance in 15 Andy Warhol in G. R. Swenson, ‘What is Pop Art? person – is titled Beatrice Lillie, 1957 (illustrated on p. 222 Cambridge, MA & London, 2011, p. 49.
University Art Museum in 1987, noting that Warhol’s 16 Andy Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B reading ability brought on by brain injury). Which one of Interviews with eight painters (part 1)’, Art News, vol. 62, of Rainer Crone [ed.], Andy Warhol: A Picture Show by the 29 A folk tale from Quebec concerns a specific ‘talking cat’
painting does not show a riot at all – what the original Life and Back Again), Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York, these meanings were Horton and Wohl implying when no. 7, Nov. 1963, p. 26. Artist, Rizzoli, New York, 1987). named Chouchou; it was first published in 1952.
magazine photograph documented was a racist white 1975, p. 92. Ai read this on arriving in New York City. they coined the term parasocial relations? They do not 16 ibid. 14 Warhol occasionally refers to gay acquaintances as 30 Ai Weiwei in Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, Alison Klayman,
police officer unleashing dogs on peaceful black civil 17 For a useful study of this commercial period, see Donna clarify this question in their article, but are most likely 17 Boris Groys, Going Public, Sternberg Press, Berlin & New ‘fairies’ in his published diaries (Pat Hackett [ed.], The Expressions United Media, MUSE Film and Television,
rights protesters in Selma, Alabama. De Salvo (ed.), Success is a Job in New York: The Early Art evoking all three. York, 2010, p. 15. Andy Warhol Diaries, Warner Books, New York, 1989). Germany, 90 min., 2012.
34 Gao Ying, Ai’s redoubtable mother, in comments made and Business of Andy Warhol, Grey Art Gallery, New York, 8 Judith Butler, Giving an Account of Oneself, Fordham 18 ‘Conversation notated verbatim by Gerard Malanga 15 For one of his many unrealised book projects, titled 31 Ai in 258 Cats.
to the artist about what he got from both sides of their 1989. See also Curley, A Conspiracy of Images, pp. 60–70. University Press, New York, 2005, pp. 3–40. during the filming of Empire’, warholstars.org, <http:// So (from about 1959–61), Warhol made two drawings 32 Ai Weiwei, ‘Here and now’.
family, in The Fake Case. 18 For one example of this argument, see Benjamin H. D. 9 Wayne Kostenbaum, Andy Warhol: A Penguin Life, warholstars.org/warhol/warhol1/warhol1f/links/conv.html>, of a cat: one in the window of a red-brick building 33 Ai Weiwei, ‘Why I am a hypocrite’, posted 12 July 2006, in
35 Ai Weiwei in Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry. Buchloh, ‘Andy Warhol’s one-dimensional art: 1956–1966’ Penguin, New York, 2001, p. 152. accessed 7 June 7 2015. Originally published in Gerard (captioned ‘So meow’) and the other a blue cat Ai Weiwei’s Blog, p. 74.
36 Ai Weiwei in The Fake Case. (1989), in Annette Michelson (ed.), Andy Warhol, MIT 10 See William A. Callahan’s argument, quoting Ai Weiwei Malanga, Archiving Warhol: Writings and Photographs, surrounded by numerous repetitions of the word 34 Ai Weiwei, ‘Architecture and space’, posted 13 Jan. 2006,
37 Witness the hilarious exchange with an American Press, Cambridge, MA, 2001, pp. 1–46. and Evan Osnos, that: ‘[Ai] seeks out the state’s Creation Books, New York, 2002, p. 85–8. ‘purr’ in Julia Warhola’s handwriting (captioned ‘So in Ai Weiwei’s Blog, p. 5.
collector in The Fake Case, in which the collector is 19 Crow, p. 60. weaknesses to use state power against itself. When the 19 This ‘tank man’ event occurred on 5 June 1989 after happy’). Both drawings are in the collection of The 35 Ai Weiwei, ‘Eternally lost confidence’, posted 11 Feb.
showing Ai versions of his zodiac pieces rendered as 20 Roland Barthes, ‘The new Citroën’ (1957), in Mythologies, police put up fifteen surveillance cameras outside his the student massacres of the previous day and was Andy Warhol Museum. 2007, in Ai Weiwei’s Blog, p. 117.
medals, and proposes doing them in gold. Ai keeps trans. Annette Lavers, Hill and Wang, New York, 1972, p. 88. house, Ai did not try to evade their gaze: “I say, OK, let captured by a number of press photographers and 16 This book was until fairly recently misdated to 1957. 36 San Hua, an Ai Weiwei film by Guo Ke, China, 2010.
suggesting that they make pieces that look gold, and 21 See, for instance, Clement Greenberg, ’Avant-garde and me put cameras in my bedroom and in my yard. Let you cameramen whose still images and footage were Warhol’s archives hold an invoice from his printer, 37 Ai Weiwei in 258 Cats.
sell them for a high price to collectors, while making real kitsch’ (1939), in John O’Brian (ed.), Clement Greenberg: have a 24-hour broadcast so everybody knows exactly subsequently very widely reproduced and shown, Record Offset Printing, for a ‘cat book’ dated December 38 Ai Weiwei, ‘Documenting the unfamiliar self and the
gold pieces to give away. The collector has a hard time The Collected Writings, Vol. 1: Perceptions and Judgments, who I am seeing and what I am talking about ... I invited although not in China. 1960. After Julia Warhola left Pittsburgh to join her non-self: Rongrong and inri’, posted 15 Nov. 2006, in Lee
even grasping the concept of flooding the market with 1939–1944, University of Chicago Press, 1986, pp. 5–22. [the police] to work in my studio. ‘You don’t have to 20 This, however, did not stop the Chinese government youngest son Andy in New York in about 1952, her Ambrozy, p. 103.
‘free’ gold, and cannot access Ai’s logic of devaluation. 22 For information about the source image used by Warhol, follow me or tail me, just sit next to me, write whatever, from laying accusations of fiscal fraud without evidence handwriting was often featured in his graphic art. In 39 In 1949, the year that Warhol graduated from college
see Georg Frei & Neil Printz (eds), The Andy Warhol have your own computer, report to your boss what I am and detaining Ai illegally for eighty-one days in 2011, nor fact, she was recognised twice for her work by the and left Pittsburgh for New York, a young man (‘Jones’,
Catalogue Raisonné, vol. 1: Painting and Sculpture 1961– doing. And if I travel to foreign states, be my assistant.’ from confiscating his passport for four years, from 2011 professional associations of commercial artists, the Art home on leave from the military) was ‘arrested by
Political and artistic legacy in Ai Weiwei’s art, pp. 117–27 1963, Phaidon, London, 2002, p. 342. They [the police] can just see who I am and what I talk to 2015. Directors’ Club, and the American Institute of Graphic the Pittsburgh vice squad. Convicted of sodomy,
I thank Lihui Dong very much for her help preparing a draft of 23 Andy Warhol, quoted in Caroline A. Jones, Machine in about. Who are those anti-China forces and what they 21 Boris Groys, ‘Introduction – global conceptualism Art. In her published work, and on her awards, she is contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and other
this essay from a recording of my voice. the Studio: Constructing the Postwar American Artist, are doing”. By videoing himself and his police handlers, revisited’, e-flux, no. 29 , Nov. 2011, <http://www.e- credited with the name ‘Andy Warhol’s Mother’. The charges, Jones received a sentence of 15–30 years.
University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1996, p. 209. Ai “invert[s] the usual logic of art and politics: instead of flux.com/journal/introduction%E2%80%94global- two projects thus honoured were her son’s business Subsequently absolved of these charges, the state of
1 Ai Weiwei, quoted in Hans Ulrich Obrist, Ai Weiwei Speaks, 24 Warhol made another wallpaper earlier, in 1966, Cow enlisting art in the service of his protest, he had enlisted conceptualism-revisited>, accessed 5 July 2015, p. 9. letterhead and the packaging for the recording of ‘The Pennsylvania voted to compensate Jones for the 19
Penguin Books, London, 2011, p. 14. wallpaper, for his exhibit at Leo Castelli Gallery, New York. the apparatus of authoritarianism into his art (Evan 22 ibid. Story of Moondog’ for Prestige Records in 1957. years he spent in prison. The Pittsburgh vice squad was
2 See Gao Minglu, Total Modernity and the Avant-Garde in 25 Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle (1967), trans. Osnos, ‘It’s not beautiful: an artist takes on the system’, 23 Groys, Going Public, p. 117. 17 Warhol, in Hackett, p. 325. disbanded in 1954 on charges of extorting homosexuals.
Twentieth-Century Chinese Art, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, Donald Nicholson-Smith, Zone, New York, 1995. The New Yorker, 24 May 2010, p. 45)”’, in ‘Citizen Ai: 24 ibid., pp. 116–18. 18 Wayne Koestenbaum, Andy Warhol, Viking Adult/Penguin Jones says he was persecuted when he refused to pay
2011, pp. 287–98. 26 The importance of Cultural Revolution to Ai is referenced warrior, jester and middleman’, Asia Research Institute 25 Ai Weiwei, ‘Forward’, in Warhol in China, Hatje Cantz Lives, New York, 2001. $300’(‘Gay Chronicles, 1945–1970’, compiled by Len
3 ibid., p. 298. in Sorace, p. 402. Working Paper, no. 212, National University of Singapore, Verlag, Ostfildern, Germany, 2013, p. 7. 19 Anthony Grudin, ‘Warhol’s animal life’, Criticism, vol. 56, Evans, 1996, Fifty Gay Years in the Sacremento Area,
27 For a good introduction to the Cultural Revolution Jan. 2014. no. 3, summer 2014, pp. 593–622. 1950–2000, <http://gayinsacramento.com/Chron-45-page.
in the context of Chinese art history, see Wu Hung, 11 Michael Warner, ‘Publics and counterpublics’, Public 20 Andy Warhol & Pat Hackett, POPism: The Warhol Sixties, htm>, accessed 29 April 2015). In a quick search of
Readymade disasters: the art and politics of Andy Warhol Contemporary Chinese Art: A History (1970s–2000s), Culture, vol. 14, no. 1, 2002, p. 82. The collecting habit, pp. 233–40 Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York, 1980. the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s online archives, the word
and Ai Weiwei, pp. 141–54 Thames and Hudson, New York, 2014), pp. 18–51. 12 See Lauren Berlant, The Female Complaint: The 21 From the question-and-answer article by Gene R. ’sodomy’ appears forty-eight times, on twenty-six days in
28 Sorace, p. 401. Unfinished Business of Sentimentality in American Culture, 1 Andy Warhol, quoted in Pamela Allara, ‘Please touch: Swenson, ‘What is Pop Art? Interviews with eight 1949. My thanks to author Blake Gopnik for alerting me
1 Ai Weiwei, quoted in Christian Sorace, ‘China’s last 29 See Wu, Contemporary Chinese Art, pp. 18–21. Duke University Press, Durham, NC, 2008. Warhol’s collection as alternative museum’, in John painters (part 1)’, Art News, Vol. 62, no. 7, Nov. 1963, to the existence of these notorious police squads.
communist: Ai Weiwei’, Critical Inquiry, vol. 40, no. 2, p. 396. 30 It was during the Cultural Revolution that Ai’s father was 13 Warner, p. 82. W. Smith, Possession Obsession: Andy Warhol and pp. 26–60, quotation on p. 26: ‘The reason I’m painting 40 According to Paige Powell, Warhol’s close friend and
2 Andy Warhol, quoted in David Bourdon, Warhol, Harry N. assigned to clean toilets. See Osnos, p. 57. 14 This is an approach to publishing from within the world Collecting, The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, this way is that I want to be a machine and I feel that former director of advertising for his magazine Interview,
Abrams, New York, 1989, p. 317. 31 Sorace, p. 402. of art, which is distinct from the activity of commercial 2002, p. 48. whatever I do and do machine-like is what I want to do’. conversation with the author, 3 June 2005.

284 285
Artists chronologies Ai Weiwei
1957 Ai Weiwei is born on 28 August in Beijing, China. earthquake. Curates Ordos 100, with Herzog &
Ai’s father Ai Qing, poet and intellectual, is de Meuron, an architectural and masterplanning
denounced during the Anti-Rightist Movement. project in Ordos, Mongolia. Participates in the 11th
1958 Ai’s family is sent to a labour camp in Beidahuang, Venice Architecture Biennale, Italy.
Heilongjiang. 2009 Diagnosed with a cerebral haemorrhage sustained
1961 The family is exiled to Shihezi, Xinjiang, where they following a police beating on 12 August, prior to Ai’s
live for sixteen years. planned testimony at the trial of Tan Zuoren, a fellow
1976 The death of Mao Zedong marks the official end of investigator of negligent construction and student
the Cultural Revolution (1966–76). Ai’s family returns casualties during the Sichuan earthquake. Ai’s blog is
to Beijing. shut down by Chinese authorities on 28 May following
1978 Enrols in the Beijing Film Academy. the publication of numerous articles documenting
1978–80 Becomes member of avant-garde art group the Stars. the Sichuan earthquake investigation and names of
1981–93 Moves to the United States; lives primarily in New 5385 victims.
York City from 1983 onwards. 2010 Placed under house arrest for two days by the
1988 First solo exhibition, Old Shoes – Safe Sex, is held at Chinese police in order to prevent celebrations
Art Waves Gallery, New York. marking the forthcoming demolition of Ai’s newly
1993 Due to his father’s illness Ai returns to Beijing, built Shanghai studio. Participates in the 12th Venice
where he continues to live and work today. Becomes Architecture Biennale, Italy, and 29th Sao Paulo
involved in an experimental artists community, Biennial, Brazil.
Beijing East Village. 2010–11 Sunflower Seeds installation, Tate Modern, London.
1994–97 Publishes Black Cover Book (1994), White Cover Book 2011 Ai’s Shanghai studio is demolished by local
(1995) and Grey Cover Book (1997). government authorities on 11 January. Detained on
1997 Becomes Co-founder and Artistic Director of China 3 April at Beijing Capital International Airport, and
Art Archives and Warehouse, Beijing. imprisoned without charge for eighty-one days,
1999 Moves to Caochangdi in north-east Beijing and builds before being released on 22 June. Prohibited from
the Studio House, his first architectural project. leaving Beijing for one year.
Participates in the 48th Venice Biennale, Italy. 2012 Designs Serpentine Pavilion, in collaboration with
2000 Co-curates, with Feng Boyi, the exhibition Fuck Off Herzog & de Meuron, in London’s Kensington
in Shanghai. Gardens. Raises more than 15 million RMB on social
2002 Curates and acts as an architect of Jinhua media as a deposit to appeal accusations of tax
Architectural Art Park, Jinhua, China. avoidance by the Chinese government. The feature-
2003 Establishes FAKE Design architecture studio, Beijing. length documentary Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, directed
2003–08 With Herzog & de Meuron is commissioned to design by Alison Klayman, is released, which receives
the Beijing National Stadium, realised in 2008 for the the Special Jury Award at Sundance Film Festival.
Beijing Olympic Games. Receives the Václav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent,
2004 Participates in the 9th Venice Architecture Biennale, Italy. awarded by the Human Rights Foundation. Receives
2005 Is invited by Sina.com to start blogging; posts first blog an honorary fellowship from the Royal Institute of
post on 5 October. Participates in the 2nd Guangzhou British Architects, London.
Triennial, Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China. 2012–13 Ai Weiwei: According to What?, Hirshhorn Museum and
2006 Participates in the 15th Biennale of Sydney; 5th Asia Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC, United States.
Pacific Triennial, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane; 2013 Releases first music album The Divine Comedy.
and 3rd Busan Biennial, Korea. Designs the cover of the June issue of Time
2007 Exhibits at Documenta 12, Kassel, Germany; Ai’s project magazine. Participates in the 55th Venice Biennale,
Fairytale involves 1001 Chinese citizens travelling to German Pavilion, Italy.
Kassel. Participates in the 2nd Moscow Biennale of 2014 Participates in the 14th Venice Architecture Biennale, Italy.
Contemporary Art, Russia. Undertakes architectural @Large: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz, San Francisco, United
projects in China, including the Museum of Neolithic States.
Pottery, Jinhua, and Three Shadows Photography Art 2015 Receives the Amnesty International Ambassador of
Centre, Beijing. Conscience Award. Passport is reinstated 22 July;
2008 Initiates the Citizens’ Investigation project, travels to Europe and United Kingdom for a solo
examining student casualties of the Sichuan exhibition at the Royal Academy of Art, London.
earthquake and subsequent Chinese government 2015–16 Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei, National Gallery of Victoria,
cover-ups related to substandard ‘tofu-dreg’ Melbourne, and The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh,
construction of schools which collapsed in the United States.

286 287
Andy Warhol
1928 Andrew Warhola is born in Pittsburgh, United States, 1963 The young poet Gerard Malanga becomes Warhol’s 1970 Production of commissioned portraits increases,
on 6 August, to Julia and Andrej Warhola, Carpatho- studio assistant. Begins paintings of Elvis Presley many based on Polaroid photographs of sitters,
Rusyn immigrants from the village of Mikova in and Elizabeth Taylor using publicity photographs as including patrons, friends and celebrities. Acquires
present-day eastern Slovakia. sources. Purchases a 16-millimetre movie camera and a portable video camera and begins working more
1937 Takes pictures with the family’s Kodak Brownie makes the films Sleep, Kiss, Haircut and Tarzan and regularly with video. The first monograph on Warhol is
camera. An area of the Warholas’ basement is cleared Jane Regained … Sort Of, and the first of more than 500 published, written by art historian Rainer Crone.
for use as a darkroom. Attends free Saturday art Screen Tests. Meets Marcel Duchamp at Duchamp’s 1971 Begins Factory Diaries, with Vincent Fremont and
classes at the Carnegie Institute. Contracts St Vitus’s exhibition in Pasadena. Participates in the exhibitions Michael Netter, a series of videotaped recordings of
dance (chorea) and is confined to the home for two Six Painters and the Object, at Solomon R. Guggenheim life at the studio. In collaboration with Craig Braun
months, during which his mother encourages his Museum, New York, and The Popular Image, at designs cover for the Rolling Stones album Sticky
interests in art, comics and movies. Washington Gallery of Modern Art, Washington, DC. Fingers; the design is nominated for a Grammy Award.
1942 Graduates from Holmes Elementary School and enters 1964 Establishes a studio at 231 East 47th Street, soon to 1972 Begins Mao paintings, drawings and prints. After
Schenley High School. Andrej Warhola dies after a be known as the Factory, which is painted silver and publishing his print Vote McGovern for the unsuccessful
lengthy illness. covered with aluminium foil. Begins series of Jackie presidential candidate, Warhol is audited by the
1945 Admitted to the Carnegie Institute of Technology, paintings after President Kennedy’s assassination. Internal Revenue Service; he will be audited annually
Pittsburgh (now Carnegie Mellon University); enrols in Exhibits Flowers paintings at Leo Castelli Gallery, New until his death. Warhol’s mother dies in Pittsburgh.
the department of Painting and Design. York, and his paintings of car crashes and suicides 1974 Begins assembling the Time Capsules in standard-
1948 Is included in the annual exhibition of the Associated are shown at Galerie Ileana Sonnabend, Paris, and sized boxes. This collection of personal objects and
Artists of Pittsburgh. elsewhere in Europe. Makes the films Blow Job, Eat, ephemera dating from the 1940s through to the 1980s
1949 Graduates from Carnegie Institute with a Bachelor of Empire and Harlot (his first with live sound). Acquires eventually numbers more than 600 boxes.
Fine Arts degree in Pictorial Design, and moves to New his first tape recorder which later becomes his 1975 Publication of The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A
York City soon after. Begins working as a commercial constant companion. to B and Back Again).
artist, usually under the name Andy Warhol. 1965 Among the first artists to exhibit video art. Describes 1976 Produces Skull paintings, drawings and prints. Begins
1951 Receives the Art Directors Club Medal, and numerous himself as a ‘retired artist’ who plans to devote dictating his detailed diary to Pat Hackett; the diary is
graphic arts awards throughout the 1950s. himself to film. Meets Paul Morrissey, one the most published posthumously and becomes a bestseller.
1952 Holds first solo exhibition, Fifteen Drawings Based on important figures for Warhol’s work in film. 1978 Andy Warhol, Kunsthaus, Zürich, Switzerland.
the Writings of Truman Capote, at Hugo Gallery, New 1966 Produces Exploding Plastic Inevitable multimedia 1979 Commences production of the ten-episode video
York. Julia Warhola moves to New York, where she ‘happenings’, featuring the Velvet Underground. program Fashion, directed by Don Munroe. Publication
lives with her son until 1971. Cow wallpaper and Silver Clouds are shown at Leo of Andy Warhol’s Exposures, with photographs by
1953 Produces the illustrated books A Is an Alphabet and Castelli Gallery, New York. Makes the films The Velvet Warhol and text co-written with Bob Colacello. Andy
Love Is a Pink Cake with his friend Ralph T. Ward Underground and Nico and The Chelsea Girls. The Warhol: Portraits of the 70s, Whitney Museum of
(credited as ‘Corkie and Andy’). Chelsea Girls is distributed widely and receives American Art, New York.
1954 Holds solo shows, and is included in group shows, at international media attention. Produces the first LP by 1980 Develops Andy Warhol’s T.V., directed by Don Munroe.
Loft Gallery, New York. Self-publishes hand-coloured the Velvet Underground and Nico, with cover design Publication of POPism: The Warhol Sixties, by Warhol
illustrated book 25 Cats Name Sam and One Blue by Warhol. and Pat Hackett.
Pussy, with text by Charles Lisanby. 1967 The books Andy Warhol’s Index and Screen Tests/A 1981 Produces and stars in three one-minute episodes of
1955 Shoe company I. Miller commissions Warhol to Diary, by Warhol in collaboration with Gerard Malanga, Andy Warhol’s T.V., directed by Don Munroe for the
illustrate its weekly newspaper advertisements, which are published. television program Saturday Night Live.
became a great success. 1968 Shot on 3 June by Valerie Solanas, who appeared 1982 Travels to Hong Kong and Beijing with Fred Hughes
1956 Holds the solo exhibitions Studies for a Boy Book and in Warhol’s film I, a Man, 1967, and was the founder and photographer Christopher Makos.
Golden Slipper Show or Shoes in America at Bodley and sole member of S.C.U.M. (Society for Cutting Up 1983 Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Francesco
Gallery, New York; is included in Recent Drawings USA Men). Produces Flesh, directed by Paul Morrissey, Clemente begin collaborating on paintings. Warhol
at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Undertakes a and Blue Movie. Begins to take a less active role in and Basquiat become close friends and continue to
two-month world tour with Charles Lisanby, focusing filmmaking. Publications of a: a novel, a transcription work together until 1985.
on Asia. of Warhol’s tape recordings featuring Warhol 1985 Exhibits Invisible Sculpture, consisting of a pedestal,
1961 Paints first works based on comics and advertisements. Superstar Ondine. Silver Clouds used as a set for wall label and Warhol himself in a showcase at
Shows paintings with a display of dresses in a window Merce Cunningham’s dance Rain Forest. Exhibits the New York nightclub Area. Andy Warhol’s Fifteen
of New York’s Bonwit Teller department store. at Documenta 4, Kassel, Germany. Minutes, directed by Don Munroe, airs on MTV from
1962 Begins photo-silkscreening Marilyn paintings after 1969 Produces the film Trash, directed by Paul Morrissey. 1985 to 1987. Publication of America, by Warhol.
Marilyn Monroe’s death. Exhibits the first Campbell’s Publishes first issue of Interview magazine. Included 1987 After suffering acute pain for several days, Warhol
Soup Can paintings at Ferus Gallery, Los Angeles. in the exhibition New York Painting and Sculpture: is admitted to New York Hospital for gallbladder
1940–1970, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. surgery. The operation is successful, but
complications during recovery result in his death
on 22 February. He is buried near his parents in a
suburban cemetery in Pittsburgh.

288 289
List of works Ai Weiwei Note to reader Shanghai Rooftops 1979 Tomkins Square Park 1988
pen and ink on paper Washington Square Park Protest 1988

Chinese 1957– Works are arranged in alphabetical order by

artist and chronologically within each artist’s
54.6 x 38.1 cm (image and sheet)
Stockamp Tsai Collection, New York
Yao Qingzhang 1988
Chinese New Years on Mott Street 1989
listing. Andy Warhol’s Polaroids, along with (STC-AWW02) Communist John 1989
books and multimedia works presented in Entrance to 52 East 7th Street Basement
the film and video kiosks by both artists, Street in Shanghai 1979 1989
are listed separately. All measurements are pen and ink on paper Fashion Show at Ethan Cohen’s 1989
in centimetres to the first decimal point, 53.3 x 38.1 cm (image and sheet) Gu Chiangwei, Chinese New Years on
height x width for two-dimensional objects, Stockamp Tsai Collection, New York Mott Street 1989
height x width x depth for three-dimensional (STC-AWW01) Gu Changwei’s Apartment in Chinatown
objects. Measurements for photographs and 1989
prints are represented by sheet size. Dates Suzhou 1979 Lower East Side Housing Demonstration
written in parentheses are supported by ink on rice paper 1989
documentary evidence; unknown dates are 40.6 x 62.2 cm (image and sheet) Portrait in the Mirror 1989
represented by n.d. Numbers in brackets at Stockamp Tsai Collection, New York Portrait with Profile 1989
the conclusion of the caption are accession (STC-AWW03) Residents of ‘Prince’ and ‘Sunshine’
numbers of the relevant lending institutions. Hotels. Bowery 1989
Please note that works may vary slightly for Suzhou River in Shanghai 1979 Robert Frank & Allen Ginsberg 1989
the exhibition at The Andy Warhol Museum, ink on rice paper Undercover Arrest in Manhattan 1989
Pittsburgh, 2016. 24.4 x 36.8 cm (image and sheet) USS Intrepid. Hudson River 1989
Stockamp Tsai Collection, New York Corner of 2nd Ave. & 7th 1990
(STC-AWW04) I’m Not Going 1990
Preacher Reading Bible to Man on the
Painting of Two Figures 1983–90 Street 1990
oil on canvas Rock Concert at Tomkins Square Park
141.0 x 126.0 cm 1990
Ai Weiwei Studio Woman on Avenue A 1990
Ai Weiwei, Hsieh Tehching at Xu Bing’s
Untitled 1983–90 Apartment in Madison, Wisconsin
oil on canvas 1991
148.0 x 148.0 cm Bill Clinton at His Last Campaign Stop in
Ai Weiwei Studio New York 1992
Bob at Harry Smith’s Memorial 1992
New York Photographs (1983–93) Dean & Deluca Gourmet Foods on
Ai Weiwei. Williamsburg, Brooklyn 1983 Broadway 1992
Lorimer Avenue Apartment, Brooklyn 1983 Feng Xiaogang 1992
Profile of Duchamp. Sunflower Seeds ‘Love Saves The Day’ Shop. East Village
1983 1992
Lower East Side 1985 West 4th Street, Washington Square
Allen Ginsberg. East 3rd Street Station 1992
Apartment 1986 At John’s 42nd Street Studio 1993
Guo Wei, Hu Yongyan, Zhou Lin. East 3rd Liu Xiaodong & His Works 1993
Street Apartment 1986 New York, MOMA 1993
Hu Yongyan 1986 Park Gathering 1993
Outside Tomkins Square Park 1986 Pedestrians on St. Marks Street 1993
Self Portrait 1986 Setting Up Cards. Atlantic City 1993
Tan Dun 1986 Subway 1993
Wang Yin & Tan Dun. East 3rd Street Summer at Tomkins Square Park 1993
Apartment 1986 Ai Dan, Pedestrian n.d.
Xu Weiling & Hu Yongyan 1986 Allen Ginsberg n.d.
Ai Dan 1987 East Village’s Two Most Famous
Ai Dan & Ai Weiwei 1987 Homeless People n.d.
Ai Dan, Coney Island 1987 Self Portrait East 3rd Street Apartment n.d.
Allen Ginsberg & Harry Smith at Allen’s silver gelatin photographs
Apartment 1987 (1-89) various dimensions
Apartment Shower 1987 Ai Weiwei Studio
At the Museum of Modern Art 1987
Backstage at the Met. 8th Street Subway Mao 1985
Station 1987 oil on canvas
Basement of the World Trade Centre (a–c) 181.0 x 133.0 cm (each)
1987 Private collection, New York
Dress Rehearsal for Turandot at the
Metropolitan Opera 1987 Violin with a Pair of Shoes 1985
East 3rd Street Bathroom 1987 violin, shoe, canvas
East Village Street 1987 58.2 x 22.9 cm
A Film Student from Taiwan 1987 Private collection, New York
In Front of Duchamp’s Work, Museum of
Modern Art 1987 Mao (Facing Forward) 1986
Portrait Artist in Times Square 1987 oil on canvas
Self-Portrait 1987 234.0 x 193.0 cm
Street Scene. Lower East Side 1987 Private collection, New York
Subway Entrance 1987
Union Square Subway Station 1987 Mao (Facing Right) 1986
Wang Keping & Ai Weiwei 1987 oil on canvas
Wang Keping. East 3rd Street Apartment 234.0 x 193.0 cm
1987 Private collection, New York
Allen on the Phone 1988
Al Sharpton 1988 Safe Sex 1986
Battery Park 1988 raincoat, condom, wood
Bleeding Protestor. Tomkins Square Park 155.0 x 100.0 x 11.0 cm
Riot 1988 Private collection, New York
Books on a Table & Allen on the Phone
1988 Shovel with Cow Hide 1986
Demonstrators in Front of the shovel, cowhide
Christadora House 1988 99.0 x 30.5 x 3.8 cm
East Village Arrest 1988 Collection of Larry Warsh, New York
Hsieh Tehching 1988
Hsieh Tehching in Soho 1988 One Man Shoe 1987
A Jewish Family 1988 shoes, leather, wood
Lower East Side Restaurant 1988 11.4 x 61.0 x 25.5 cm
Morning at the Park 1988 Private collection, New York
Park Avenue 1988
Park Stage 1988 Axe in Box 1993
Police at a Park Protest 1988 axe, wooden box
Police at Tomkins Square Park 1988 5.0 x 55.8 x 25.4 cm (closed)
Tawana Brawley Protest 1988 Private collection, New York

290 291
June 1994 1994
gelatin silver photograph
Circle of Animals (in Gold) 2010
gilt-bronze
Chandelier with Restored Han Dynasty Lamps
for the Emperor 2015 Andy Warhol Hands Holding Guns (c. 1950)
graphite on bond paper
Hong Kong, China 1956
ballpoint pen on paper
Brillo Soap Pads Box 1964
silkscreen ink and house paint on plywood
119.5 x 155.0 cm
Collection of Ellie Warsh, New York
(a) 71.0 x 35.5 x 43.0 cm (snake),
(b) 3.5 x 51.0 x 43.0 cm (ox),
steel, crystal, lights
dimensions unknown American 1928–87 27.9 x 21.6 cm
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh
26.7 x 40.6 cm
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh
43.2 x 43.2 x 35.6 cm
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh
(c) 91.5 x 45.5 x 66.0 cm (dragon), Ai Weiwei Studio Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy
Tang Dynasty Courtesan in Bottle (d) 63.5 x 38.0 x 48.5 cm (dog), Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
(Absolut Kurant) 1994 (e) 68.5 x 33.0 x 38.0 cm (monkey), Coloured Vases 2015 (1998.1.1527) (1998.1.1757) (1998.1.706)
earthenware, glass (f) 63.5 x 53.5 x 40.5 cm (ram), synthetic polymer paint, Neolithic
23.0 x 7.5 cm diameter (g) 66.0 x 38.0 x 43.0 cm (tiger), earthenware jars Cat with Perfume Bottle (1950s) Butterfly Layered Cake (c. 1959) Campbell’s Tomato Juice Box 1964
Collection of Larry Warsh, New York (h) 73.5 x 30.5 x 56.0 cm (horse), 48.0 x 600.0 x 360.0 cm (installation) ink, aniline dye, and printed material on ink and aniline dye on paper silkscreen ink and house paint on plywood
(i) 71.0 x 33.0 x 53.5 cm (rat), Ai Weiwei Studio paper 73.7 x 58.4 cm (1–2) 25.4 x 48.3 x 24.1 cm (each)
Study of Perspective 1995–2011 (j) 71.0 x 25.5 x 48.5 cm (rabbit), 57.2 x 39.4 cm The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh
gelatin silver photographs, type C (k) 68.5 x 40.5 x 53.5 cm (pig), Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn 2015 The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy
photographs (l) 60.9 x 22.8 x 43.1 cm (rooster) video, sound Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
(1-40) various dimensions Private collection, New York duration unknown Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. (1998.1.1037) (1998.1.766–7)
Ai Weiwei Studio Ai Weiwei Studio (1998.1.942)
Surveillance Camera 2010 Cat in Front of Church (c. 1959) Del Monte Peach Halves Box 1964
Beijing 2003 2003 marble Forever Bicycles 2015 Four Rows of Eyes (1950s) ink, graphite and aniline dye on paper silkscreen ink and house paint on plywood
colour video, sound, 9000 min 39.2 x 39.8 x 19.0 cm stainless steel bicycle frames ink and paint on paper 57.5 x 45.1 cm 30.5 x 38.1 x 24.1 cm
Ai Weiwei Studio Collection of Larry Warsh, New York 921.4 x 1603.8 x 397.9 cm (installation) 31.1 x 39.4 cm The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh
Courtesy Ai Weiwei and Lisson Gallery The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy
Chang’an Boulevard 2004 258 Fake 2011 Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
colour video, sound, 613 min 12 channel colour digital images, silent, looped Handcuffs 2015 Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. (1998.1.1035) (1998.1.773)
Ai Weiwei Studio Ai Weiwei Studio jade (1998.1.913)
1.5 x 30.0 x 9.0 cm (variable) Toilet 1961 Empire 1964
Pillar Through Round Table 2004–5 S.A.C.R.E.D. Maquettes 2011 Ai Weiwei Studio NYC Street Map (Uptown) (1950s) water-based paint on linen black and white 16mm film transferred to
Elm, Ironwood fibreglass graphite on off-white paper 174.3 x 149.9 cm digital file, silent, 485 min at 16 frames per
140 0 x 656.5 x 123.0 cm (overall) (1–47) 95.0 x 480.0 x 480.0 cm (overall) Mugshots 2015 30.2 x 22.9 cm The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh second
Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Ai Weiwei Studio (1-2) 123.2 x 94.3 cm (each) The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh
Art, Brisbane Ai Weiwei Studio Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation
Purchased, 2006 (2006.238a-c) I.O.U. Wallpaper 2011–13 Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. (1998.1.6) for the Visual Arts, Inc.
digital print on wallpaper The Animal that Looks Like a Llama but is (1998.1.1565)
Beijing: The Second Ring 2005 450.0 x 1910.0 cm (installation) Really an Alpaca 2015 Campbell’s Soup Box 1962 Heinz Tomato Ketchup Box 1964
colour video, sound, 66 min Ai Weiwei Studio digital print on paper One Million Dollar Bill (1950s) casein, spray paint and pencil on plywood silkscreen ink and house paint on plywood
Ai Weiwei Studio 680.0 x 4150.0 cm (installation) ink on paper 55.9 x 40.0 x 40.0 cm (1–10) 21.6 x 39.4 x 26.7 cm (each)
Grapes 2011 Ai Weiwei Studio 38.1 x 57.5 cm The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh
Beijing: The Third Ring 2005 Qing Dynasty stools The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy
colour video, sound, 110 min 223.5 x 185.5 x 190.0 cm @aiww 2015–16 Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
Ai Weiwei Studio Collection of Larry Warsh, New York live Instagram feed Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. (1998.1.775) (1998.1.749–56, 1998.1.758, 1998.1.761)
Ai Weiwei Studio (1998.1.1112)
Feet 2005 Caonima Style 2012 Three Coke Bottles 1962 Jackie 1964
set of 13 fragments of sculpture from the colour video, sound, 4 min 15 sec @aiww 2015–16 Seated Male Nude Torso (1950s) silkscreen ink and graphite on linen synthetic polymer paint and silkscreen ink
Northern Wei dynasty AD 386–535 and North Ai Weiwei Studio live Twitter feed ballpoint pen on brown paper 50.8 x 40.6 cm on linen
Qi dynasty AD 550–77 on a table Ai Weiwei Studio 42.9 x 35.6 cm The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh (1–9) 50.8 x 40.6 cm (each)
stone, wood Handcuffs 2012 The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh
88.0 x 220.0 x 68.0 cm (overall) Huali wood AI Weiwei Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy
Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern 2.5 x 40.0 x 13.0 cm Chinese 1957– Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. (1998.1.20) Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
Art, Brisbane Collection of Larry Warsh, New York HERZOG & DE MEURON, Basel (architects) (1998.1.1689) (1998.1.85; 1998.1.88; 1998.1.96; 1998.1.98;
Purchased, 2006 (2006.013a-aa) Switzerland est. 1978 Three Marilyns 1962 1998.1.103; 1998.1.112; 1998.1.114; 1998.1.118;
Baby Formula 2013 Porcelain Vases with Bamboo Poles 2008–09 Shoe (1950s) synthetic polymer paint, silkscreen ink, and 1998.1.132)
Ton of Tea 2006 baby formula, plastic bamboo, porcelain ink, ballpoint pen, graphite, tempera and graphite on linen
compressed pu’er tea 33.0 x 22.0 x 17.0 cm 330.0 x 320.0 x 420.0 cm (installation) wash on paper 35.6 x 85.1 cm Most Wanted Men No. 2, John Victor G. 1964
100.0 x100.0 x 100.0 cm Ai Weiwei Studio Ai Weiwei Studio 15.1 x 21.9 cm The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh silkscreen ink on linen
Ai Weiwei Studio The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy 123.2 x 94.3 cm
Dumbass 2013 Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh
Neolithic Pottery with Coca-Cola Logo 2007 colour, video, sound, 5 min 12 sec Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. (1998.1.60) Founding Collection, Contribution Dia Center
metallic paint, earthenware jar Ai Weiwei Studio (1998.1.1302) for the Arts (2002.4.4a)
27.9 x 24.9 (diameter) cm Elvis 1963
Collection of Larry Warsh, New York With Flowers 2013–15 Unidentified Male (1950s) synthetic polymer paint on canvas Most Wanted Men No. 2, John Victor G. 1964
bicycle, flowers, digital print on paper gold leaf, silver leaf and ink on paper 208.0 x 91.0 cm silkscreen ink on linen
Map of China 2008 (a) 330.0 x 1246.0 cm (wall), 58.4 x 37.1 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra 123.5 x 97.8 cm
Tieli wood (b) 110.0 x 60.0 x 183.0 cm (bicycle) The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Purchased, 1973 (73.572) The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh
161.0 x 215.0 x 170.0 cm Ai Weiwei Studio Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Founding Collection, Contribution Dia Center
Private collection, New York Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. Silver Liz (Ferus Type) 1963 for the Arts (2002.4.4b)
Illumination 2014 (1998.1.2046) silkscreen ink, synthetic polymer paint and
Names of the Student Earthquake Victims type C photograph spray paint on linen Screen Test: Ann Buchanan [ST33] 1964
Found by the Citizens’ Investigation 2008–11 126.0 x 168.0 cm Cat Collage (c. 1954) 101.6 x 101.6 cm black and white 16mm film transferred to
digital print on paper Ai Weiwei Studio from the 25 Cats Name Sam and One Blue The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh digital file, silent, 4 min 24 sec at 16 frames
450.0 x 730.0 cm (installation) Pussy series 1954 Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy per second
Ai Weiwei Studio Leg Gun 2014 ink, aniline dye and collage on paper Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh
digital images, looped 73.7 x 58.4 cm (1998.1.55) Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation
4851 2009 Ai Weiwei Studio The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh for the Visual Arts, Inc.
black and white video, sound, 86 min 55 sec Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Tunafish Disaster 1963
Ai Weiwei Studio Bicycle Basket with Flowers in Porcelain 2015 Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. silkscreen ink and metallic paint on linen Screen Test: Billy Linich [ST194] 1964
porcelain (1998.1.1332) 173.4 x 210.8 cm black and white 16mm film transferred to
Hanging Man 2009 37.0 x 34.0 x 20.0 cm The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh digital file, silent, 4 min 24 sec at 16 frames
steel coat hanger Ai Weiwei Studio The Cat Resembled My Uncle Pierre (c. 1954) Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy per second
38.0 x 28.0 cm (hanger), 68.5 x 51.0 cm ink on paper Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh
(frame) Bird Balloon 2015 40.6 x 34.3 cm (1998.1.17) Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation
Collection of Larry Warsh, New York metallised polyester film, helium The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh for the Visual Arts, Inc.
89.0 x 110.0 x 47.0 cm (variable) (each) Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Self-Portrait 1963–64
@aiww 2010–2015 Ai Weiwei Studio Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. synthetic polymer paint and silkscreen ink Screen Test: Jane Holzer [ST142] 1964
digital images from Instagram, looped (1998.1.1029) on linen black and white 16mm film transferred to
Ai Weiwei Studio Blossom 2015 50.8 x 40.6 cm digital file, silent, 4 min 30 sec at 16 frames
porcelain Untitled (c. 1954) The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh per second
15.0 x 480.0 x 480 0 cm (installation) from the 25 Cats Name Sam and One Blue Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh
Ai Weiwei Studio Pussy series 1954 Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation
ink on paper (1998.1.810) for the Visual Arts, Inc.
Caonima Balloon 2015 58.4 x 36.8 cm
metallised polyester film, helium The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Blow Job 1964 Screen Test: John Giorno [ST117] 1964
150.0 x 113.0 x 64.0 cm (variable) (each) Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy black and white 16mm film transferred to black and white 16mm film transferred to
Ai Weiwei Studio Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. digital file, silent, 41 min at 16 frames per digital file, silent, 4 min 24 sec at 16 frames
(1998.1.1329) second per second
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh
Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation
for the Visual Arts, Inc. for the Visual Arts, Inc.

292 293
Screen Test: Rufus Collins [ST61] 1964 Cow Wallpaper (Pink on Yellow) 1966, reprint Campbell’s Soup II: Tomato-Beef Noodle O’s Marion Bloch 1975 Debbie Harry 1980 Dollar Sign 1981 Christopher Makos and Chinese Men and Temple 1982
black and white 16mm film transferred to 2015 1969 synthetic polymer paint and silkscreen ink synthetic polymer paint and silkscreen ink synthetic polymer paint and silkscreen ink Boys 1982 gelatin silver photograph
digital file, silent, 4 min 18 sec at 16 frames screenprint on wallpaper from the Campbell’s Soup II series, 1969 on linen on linen on linen gelatin silver photograph 20.3 x 25.4 cm
per second 780.0 x 4150.0 cm (installation) colour silkscreen on paper (1–2) 101.6 x 101.6 cm (each) (1–2) 106.7 x 106.7 cm (each) 228.6 x 177.8 cm 20.3 x 25.4 cm Collection of Delahunty Fine Art, London
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh 88.9 x 58.4 cm The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Collection of Delahunty Fine Art, London
Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation (IA1994.7) The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Temple gates 1982
for the Visual Arts, Inc. Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. Concrete Block 1982 gelatin silver photograph
Exploding Plastic Inevitable 1966–67, Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. (1998.1.508–9) (1998.1.564–5) (1998.1.245) cement, cardboard 20.3 x 25.4 cm
Self-Portrait 1964 installation 2015 (1998.1.2394.8) 17.8 x 45.7 x 21.6 cm Collection of Delahunty Fine Art, London
synthetic polymer paint, metallic paint and black and white and colour 16mm film and Hammer and Sickle 1976 Debbie Harry 1980 Jon Gould 1981 The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh
silkscreen ink on linen photographic slides transferred to digital Dominique de Menil 1969 synthetic polymer paint and silkscreen ink gelatin silver photograph synthetic polymer paint and silkscreen ink Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Temple Roofs 1982
51.1 x 41.0 cm files, sound; mirror ball synthetic polymer paint and silkscreen ink on linen 25.4 x 20.3 cm on linen Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. gelatin silver photograph
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh 330.0 x 1055.0 x 989.0 cm (installation) on linen 182.9 x 218.4 cm The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh (1–2) 101.6 x 101.6 cm (each) (1998.1.777) 20.3 x 25.4 cm
Founding Collection, Contribution Dia Center The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh (1–2) 101.6 x 101.6 cm (each) The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Collection of Delahunty Fine Art, London
for the Arts (2002.4.20) Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy The Great Wall of China 1982
Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. (1998.1.3037) Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. gelatin silver photograph Two Women 1982
Screen Test: Donyale Luna [ST196] 1965 Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. (1998.1.188) (1998.1.557–8) 20.3 x 25.4 cm gelatin silver photograph
black and white 16mm film transferred to Andy Warhol’s Index 1967 (1998.1.52, 1998.1.149) Fred Hughes and Diana Vreeland 1980 Collection of Delahunty Fine Art, London 20.3 x 25.4 cm
digital file, silent, 4 min 30 sec at 16 frames published by Random House, New York, 1967 Skull 1976 gelatin silver photograph Loti Smorgon 1981 Collection of Delahunty Fine Art, London
per second book: lithographs, colour lithographs and Flowers 1970 synthetic polymer paint and silkscreen ink 20.3 x 25.4 cm synthetic polymer paint and silkscreen on The Great Wall of China 1982
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh letterpress, silver embossing, cardboard colour silkscreens on paper on linen The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh canvas gelatin silver photograph Unidentified Women and Waiter 1982
Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation cover, stitched binding (1–10) 91.4 x 91.4 cm (each) (1) 182.9 x 203.2 cm, (2–3) 183.2 x 204.5 cm Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy (a) 102.0 x 101.9 cm, (b) 102.1 x 101.9 cm 20.3 x 25.4 cm gelatin silver photograph
for the Visual Arts, Inc. 28.4 x 21.4 x 1.2 cm (closed) The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh (each) Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. National Gallery of Victoria Collection of Delahunty Fine Art, London 20.3 x 25.4 cm
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh (1998.1.3100) Gift of Ginny Green, Sandra Bardas OAM Collection of Delahunty Fine Art, London
Screen Test: Edie Sedgwick [ST308] 1965 Purchased, 1983 (NGA 83.3730) Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. Founding Collection, Contribution Dia Center family, Vicki Vidor OAM and Bindy Koadlow Hong Kong 1982
black and white 16mm film transferred to (1998.1.2395.1–10) for the Arts (2002.4.25, 2002.4.28–9) Jerry Hall with Birthday Cake 1980 in memory of their parents Loti Smorgon gelatin silver photograph Union Square 1982
digital file, silent, 4 min 36 sec at 16 frames Electric Chair 1967 gelatin silver photograph AO and Victor Smorgon AC through the 20.3 x 25.4 cm gelatin silver photograph
per second synthetic polymer paint on canvas Electric Chairs 1971 Bianca Jagger (c. 1976) 25.4 x 20.3 cm Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Collection of Delahunty Fine Art, London 20.3 x 25.4 cm
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh 137.2 x 185.1 cm colour silkscreens on paper gelatin silver photograph The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Program (2014.375.a-b) The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh
Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (1-10) 90.2 x 121.6 cm (each) 20.3 x 25.4 cm Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Hong Kong Construction Site 1982 Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation
for the Visual Arts, Inc. Purchased 1977 (NGA 77.795) National Gallery of Australia, Canberra The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. Unidentified Photographers (c. 1981) gelatin silver photograph for the Visual Arts, Inc. (2001.2.1076)
Purchased 1972 (NGA 72.161.1–10) Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy (1998.1.3103) gelatin silver photograph 20.3 x 25.4 cm
Screen Test: Allen Ginsberg [ST115] 1966 You’re In 1967 Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. 20.3 x 25.4 cm Collection of Delahunty Fine Art, London Young Man at Great Wall 1982
black and white 16mm film transferred to spray paint, glass bottles, printed wooden Factory Diary: Andy Paints Mao, December (1998.1.3042) Joseph Beuys 1980 The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh gelatin silver photograph
digital file, silent, 4 min 30 sec at 16 frames crate 7, 1972 1972 synthetic polymer paint and silkscreen ink Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation Julianna Siu 1982 25.4 x 20.3 cm
per second 20.3 x 43.2 x 30.5 cm (overall) black and white1/2 inch reel to reel Jack Nicklaus 1977 on linen for the Visual Arts, Inc. (2001.2.237) synthetic polymer paint and silkscreen ink Collection of Delahunty Fine Art, London
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh videotape transferred to digital file, sound, synthetic polymer paint and silkscreen ink (1–2) 101.6 x 101.6 cm (each) on linen
Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy 67 min on linen The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Gun 1981–82 (1–2) 101.6 x 101.6 cm (each) Self-Portrait (c. 1982)
for the Visual Arts, Inc. Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh (1–2) 101.6 x 101.6 cm (each) Founding Collection, Contribution Dia Center synthetic polymer paint and silkscreen ink The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh silkscreen printed in pink and black ink on
(1998.1.789a-x) Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh for the Arts (1997.1.12a–b) on linen Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy cardboard
Screen Test: Bob Dylan [ST83] 1966 for the Visual Arts, Inc. Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy 177.8 x 228.6 cm Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. 96.5 x 96.5 cm
black and white 16mm film transferred to Flash – November 22, 1963 1968 Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. William S. Burroughs 1980 The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh (1998.1.655–6) The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh
digital file, silent, 4 min 36 sec at 16 frames portfolio of 11 silkscreens and 11 silkscreened Mao 1972 (1998.1.701–2) gelatin silver photograph Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy
per second text pages, ed. of 200 synthetic polymer paint and silkscreen ink 20.3 x 25.4 cm Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. Man Holding Young Boy 1982 Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh (1–22) 53.3 x 53.3 cm (each) on linen Liza Minnelli (c. 1977) The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh (1998.1.274) gelatin silver photograph (1998.1.2630)
Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation National Gallery of Australia, Canberra 208.3 x 154.9 cm gelatin silver photograph Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy 25.4 x 20.3 cm
for the Visual Arts, Inc. Gift of Dr. K. David G. Edwards (Ret.), from The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh 25.4 x 20.3 cm (sheet) Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. Airport 1982 Collection of Delahunty Fine Art, London The Great Wall of China 1982–87
the David and Margery Edwards New York Founding Collection, Contribution Dia Center The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh (1998.1.3078) gelatin silver photograph gelatin silver photographs, thread
Screen Test: Cass Elliot [ST91] 1966 Art Collection, 2005 (NGA 2005.373.1-22) for the Arts (1997.1.21) Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy 20.3 x 25.4 cm Men 1982 54.6 x 69.9 cm (overall)
black and white 16mm film transferred to Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. Bianca Jagger (c. 1980) Collection of Delahunty Fine Art, London gelatin silver photograph Collection of Delahunty Fine Art, London
digital file, silent, 4 min 36 sec at 16 frames Campbell’s Soup II: Chicken’n Dumplings 1969 Mao 1972 (1998.1.3050) gelatin silver photograph 20.3 x 25.4 cm
per second from the Campbell’s Soup II series, 1969 colour silkscreens on paper, ed. 162/250 25.2 x 20.3 cm Alfred Siu 1982 Collection of Delahunty Fine Art, London Palace Wall 1982–87
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh colour silkscreen on paper (1–10) 91.6 x 91.6 cm (each) Shadows 1978 The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh gelatin silver photograph gelatin silver photographs, thread
Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation 88.9 x 58.4 cm National Gallery of Australia, Canberra synthetic polymer paint on linen Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy 20.3 x 25.4 cm New York City Skyline (Queensboro Bridge) 54.3 x 69.9 cm (overall)
for the Visual Arts, Inc. The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Purchased, 1973 (NGA 73.279.1–10) 198.1 x 350.5 cm Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. Collection of Delahunty Fine Art, London 1982 Collection of Delahunty Fine Art, London
Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh (1998.1.3043) gelatin silver photograph
Screen Test: Lou Reed (Coke) [ST269] 1966 Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. Vote McGovern 1972 Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Alfred Siu and Partygoers 1982 20.2 x 25.6 cm Chinese Stone Lion 1982–87
black and white 16mm film transferred to (1998.1.2394.5) colour photo-stencil silkscreen on paper, Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. David Whitney (c.1980) gelatin silver photograph The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh gelatin silver photographs, thread
digital file, silent, 4 min 30 sec at 16 frames edition of 250 (1998.1.229) synthetic polymer paint, silkscreen ink and 20.3 x 25.4 cm Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation 69.2 x 54 cm (overall)
per second Campbell’s Soup II: Golden Mushroom 1969 106.7 x 106.7 cm diamond dust on canvas Collection of Delahunty Fine Art, London for the Visual Arts, Inc. (2001.2.1095) Collection of Delahunty Fine Art, London
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh from the Campbell’s Soup II series, 1969 National Gallery of Australia, Canberra Andy Warhol’s Exposures 1979 (1–2) 101.6 x 101.6 cm (each)
Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation colour silkscreen on paper Purchased, 1973 (NGA 73.1201) by Andy Warhol and Bob Colacello The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Andy Warhol and Alfred Siu 1982 New York Post (‘The Big Snow!’) 1982 Chinese Billboard with Portraits 1982–87
for the Visual Arts, Inc. 88.9 x 58.4 cm published by Grosset & Dunlap, New York, Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy gelatin silver photograph gelatin silver photograph gelatin silver photographs, thread
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Marcia Weisman (c. 1972) 1979 Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. 20.3 x 25.4 cm 25.4 x 20.3 cm 54.0 x 69.0 cm (overall)
Screen Test: Marcel Duchamp [ST80] 1966 Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy synthetic polymer paint and silkscreen ink book: lithographs, cloth-covered cardboard (1998.1.685–6) Collection of Delahunty Fine Art, London The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Delahunty Fine Art, London
black and white 16mm film transferred to Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. on canvas cover, stitched binding, silver edition Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation
digital file, silent, 4 min 24 sec at 16 frames (1998.1.2394.9) (1–2) 101.6 x 101.6 cm (each) 29.2 x 24.0 x 2.6 cm (closed) Dennis Hopper and Unidentified Woman Andy Warhol and Bellboy 1982 for the Visual Arts, Inc. (2001.2.936) Fish Wallpaper 1983, reprint 2015
per second The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (c. 1980) gelatin silver photograph screenprint on wallpaper
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Campbell’s Soup II: Hot Dog Bean 1969 Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Purchased, 1981 (NGA 81.894) gelatin silver photograph 20.3 x 25.4 cm Restaurant 1982 dimensions variable
Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation from the Campbell’s Soup II series, 1969 Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. 20.2 x 25.2 cm Collection of Delahunty Fine Art, London gelatin silver photograph The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh
for the Visual Arts, Inc. colour silkscreen on paper (1998.1.683–4) Jerry Hall 1979 The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh 20.3 x 25.4 cm (IA1994.11)
88.9 x 58.4 cm gelatin silver photograph Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation Billboard 1982 Collection of Delahunty Fine Art, London
Screen Test: Nico [ST238] 1966 The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Flowers (Hand Coloured) 1974 20.3 x 25.4 cm for the Visual Arts, Inc. (2001.2.715) gelatin silver photograph The Jacksons and Don King 1983
black and white 16mm film transferred to Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy colour silkscreens on paper The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh 20.3 x 25.4 cm Restaurant Table 1982 gelatin silver photograph
digital file, silent, 4 min 30 sec at 16 frames Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. (1–10) 104.1 x 69.9 cm (each) Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Empire State Building (c. 1980) Collection of Delahunty Fine Art, London gelatin silver photograph 20.2 x 25.4 cm
per second (1998.1.2394.6) Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. gelatin silver photograph 25.4 x 20.3 cm The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Founding Collection, Contribution Dia Center (1998.1.3097) 25.4 x 20.3 cm Buffet 1982 Collection of Delahunty Fine Art, London Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation
Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation Campbell’s Soup II: New England Clam for the Arts (1997.1.28.1–10) The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh gelatin silver photograph for the Visual Arts, Inc. (2001.2.250)
for the Visual Arts, Inc. Chowder 1969 Andy Warhol 1980 Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation 20.3 x 25.4 cm Soda Bottle 1982
from the Campbell’s Soup II series, 1969 Mao Wallpaper 1974, reprint 2015 gelatin silver photograph for the Visual Arts, Inc. (2001.2.1009) Collection of Delahunty Fine Art, London gelatin silver photograph Liberace and John Sex 1984
The Velvet Underground and Nico 1966 colour silkscreen on paper screenprint on wallpaper 20.3 x 25.4 cm 25.4 x 20.3 cm gelatin silver photograph
black and white 16mm film transferred to 88.9 x 58.4 cm 600.0 x 680.0 cm (installation) The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Brooke Shields (1980s) China (Christopher Makos and Propaganda Collection of Delahunty Fine Art, London 20.3 x 25.4 cm
digital file, sound, 67 min The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy gelatin silver photograph Image of Mao) 1982 The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy (IA1994.9) Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. 20.3 x 25.4 cm gelatin silver photograph Statue of Mao 1982 Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation
Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. (1998.1.3006) The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh 25.4 x 20.2 cm gelatin silver photograph for the Visual Arts, Inc. (2001.2.656)
for the Visual Arts, Inc. (1998.1.2394.4) Washington Monument Wallpaper 1974, Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh 20.3 x 25.4 cm
reprint 2015 Bob Colacello (Eating) 1980 Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation Collection of Delahunty Fine Art, London Unidentified Men 1984
Silver Clouds (Warhol Museum Campbell’s Soup II: Oyster Stew 1969 screenprint on wallpaper gelatin silver photograph (1998.1.3064) for the Visual Arts, Inc. (2001.2.559) gelatin silver photograph
Series)1966/1994 from the Campbell’s Soup II series, 1969 600.0 x 1485.5 x 1600.0 cm (installation) 20.3 x 25.4 cm ‘Suggestions Please’ sign 1982 20.3 x 25.4 cm
metallised polyester film, helium colour silkscreen on paper The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Statue of Liberty (1980s) Chinese Characters 1982 gelatin silver photograph The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh
(1–80) 81.3 x 121.9 x 38.1 cm (each) (variable) 88.9 x 58.4 cm (IA1994.12) Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy gelatin silver photograph gelatin silver photograph 25.4 x 20.3 cm Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. 20 x 25.2 cm 20.3 x 25.4 cm Collection of Delahunty Fine Art, London for the Visual Arts, Inc. (2001.2.252)
(IA1994.13) Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy (1998.1.3079) The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Collection of Delahunty Fine Art, London
Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation Temple 1982
(1998.1.2394.7) for the Visual Arts, Inc. (2001.2.907) gelatin silver photograph
20.3 x 25.4 cm
Collection of Delahunty Fine Art, London

294 295
Cheryl Tiegs (c. 1984) Self-Portrait No. 9 1986 Street Scene (Park Avenue) n.d. Myths: The Star 1981 Andy WARHOL Naomi Sims 1971 Katie Jones 1972 Yves Saint Laurent 1972
synthetic polymer paint and silkscreen ink synthetic polymer paint and silkscreen on gelatin silver photograph colour silkscreen and diamond dust on American 1928–87 Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid SX-70 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph
on linen canvas 20.3 x 25.2 cm cardboard Julia WARHOLA 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.9 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm
(1–2) 101.6 x 101.6 cm (each) 203.5 x 203.7 cm The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh 96.5 x 96.7 cm American 1892–1972 (2001.2.1180) (2001.2.1184) (2001.2.1428)
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh National Gallery of Victoria (IC3-1987) Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh So Happy (1950s)
Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy for the Visual Arts, Inc. (2001.2.999) Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy ink, graphite and aniline dye on paper Peter Beard 1971 Lee Radziwill 1972 Baroness de Waldner 1973
Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. Sewn Photograph (China), 1982 1986 Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc 24.8 x 31.8 cm Polaroid photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph
(1998.1.667–8) gelatin silver photographs, thread Union Square n.d. (1998.1.2452.1) The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm
54.6 x 69.9 cm (overall) gelatin silver photograph Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy (1998.1.2997.19) (2001.2.1154) (2000.2.432)
Absolut Vodka 1985 The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh 20.3 x 25.4 cm Myths: The Witch 1981 Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
synthetic polymer paint and silkscreen ink Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh colour silkscreen and diamond dust on (1998.1.1404) Ryan O’Neal 1971 Lee Radziwill 1972 Baroness Thyssen 1973
on linen Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation cardboard Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph
101.6 x 101.6 cm (1998.1.2706) for the Visual Arts, Inc. (2001.2.997) 96.7 x 96.5 cm Studies for a Boy Book 1956 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh ballpoint pen and ink on buff paper (2001.2.1420) (2001.2.1157) (2001.2.1172)
Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Sewn Photograph (China), 1982 1986 Andy WARHOL Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy 42.5 x 35.2 cm
Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. gelatin silver photographs, thread American 1928–87 Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Ryan O’Neal 1971 Marella Agnelli 1972 Baroness Thyssen 1973
(1998.1.393) 54.0 x 69.9 cm (overall) Malcolm KIRK (after) (1998.1.2452.4) Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Self-Portrait 1966–67 Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm
Dolly Parton 1985 Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy synthetic polymer paint and silkscreen ink Myths: Uncle Sam 1981 (1998.1.1847) (2001.2.1421) (2000.2.444) (2001.2.1173)
synthetic polymer paint and silkscreen ink Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. on canvas colour silkscreen and diamond dust on
on linen (1998.1.2708) 55.9 x 55.9 cm cardboard Julia WARHOLA Self-Portrait with Yoko Ono 1971 Mick Jagger 1972 Delfina Rattazzi 1973
(1–2) 106.7 x 106.7 cm (each) The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh 96.7 x 96.5 cm American 1892–1972 Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid photograph Polaroid SX-70 photograph
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Lenin (c. 1986) Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Andy WARHOL (designer) 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.9 cm
Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy synthetic polymer paint and silkscreen ink Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy American 1928–87 (1998.1.2990.8) (1998.1.2997.9) (2001.2.1189)
Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. on canvas (1998.1.809) Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. Holy Cats by Andy Warhol’s Mother 1960
(1998.1.624–5) (1–2) 55.9 x 40.6 cm (each) (1998.1.2452.2) book: photo-offset lithographs on coloured Candy Darling and Unidentified Female Minnie Bechtler 1972 Delfina Rattazzi 1973
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Andy WARHOL paper, buckram board cover (c. 1971) Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid SX-70 photograph
Joan Collins 1985 Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy American 1928–87 Andy WARHOL 23.2 x 14.9 x 0.5cm (closed) Polaroid photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.9 cm
synthetic polymer paint and silkscreen ink Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. Rupert Jasen SMITH (silkscreener) American 1928–87 The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh 10.8 x 8.6 cm (2001.2.1167) (2001.2.1191)
on linen (1998.1.369–70) American 1953–89 Edward WALLOWITCH (photographer) Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy (1998.1.2992.3)
(1–2) 101.6 x 101.6 cm (each) Myths: Dracula 1981 American 1933–81 Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. Nan Kempner 1972 Diana Vreeland 1973
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Arnold Schwarzenegger and Unidentified colour silkscreen on cardboard Andy Warhol 1957 (1998.3.2429.1) Andre Mourgue 1972 Polaroid SX-70 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph
Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Man n.d. 96.5 x 96.7 cm gelatin silver photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph 10.8 x 8.9 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm
Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. gelatin silver photograph The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh 14.0 x 17.8 cm (sheet) 10.8 x 8.6 cm (2001.2.1186) (2000.2.294)
(1998.1.525–6) 25.4 x 20.3 cm Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Andy Warhol: Polaroids (2001.2.1409)
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Nan Kempner 1972 Diana Vreeland 1973
Andy Warhol’s Fifteen Minutes (Episode 2) Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation (1998.1.2452.7) Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. Note to the reader Brooke Hayward 1972 Polaroid SX-70 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph
1987 for the Visual Arts, Inc. (2001.2.439) (1998.3.5229) Unless otherwise noted, Polaroids are Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph 10.8 x 8.9 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm
colour video transferred to digital file, sound, Myths: Howdy Doody 1981 Collection of The Andy Warhol Museum, 10.8 x 8.6 cm (2001.2.1188) (2000.2.296)
30 min Brooklyn Bridge n.d. colour silkscreen and diamond dust on Andy Warhol 1957 Pittsburgh; Contribution The Andy Warhol (2001.2.1147)
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh gelatin silver photograph cardboard gelatin silver photograph Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. Pauli Schenker 1972 Ivan Karp 1973
Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation 25.2 x 20.3 cm 96.7 x 96.5 cm 14.0 x 17.8 cm (sheet) Gianni Agnelli 1972 Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph
for the Visual Arts, Inc. The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Brigid Berlin 1969 Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm
Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation Polaroid photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm (2001.2.1430) (2000.2.919)
Grace Jones (c. 1985) for the Visual Arts, Inc. (2001.2.1012) Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. for the Visual Arts, Inc. (2001.2.2116) 10.8 x 8.6 cm (2000.2.926)
gelatin silver photograph (1998.1.2452.6) (1998.1.2998.14) Philip Niarchos 1972 Jed Johnson 1973
20.3 x 25.4 cm Jellybean Benitez and Madonna n.d. Andy Warhol Holding Kitten 1957 Gianni Agnelli 1972 Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh gelatin silver photograph Myths: Mammy 1981 gelatin silver photograph Candy Darling 1969 Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm
Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy 25.4 x 20.3 cm colour silkscreen and diamond dust on 13.3 x 17.5 cm (sheet) Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm (2001.2.1448) (2001.2.1275)
Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh cardboard The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh 10.8 x 8.6 cm (2000.2.927)
(1998.1.3045) Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy 96.5 x 96.7 cm Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy (1998.1.2996.12) Rudolf Bechtler 1972 Jason McCoy 1973
Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. Gianni Agnelli 1972 Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph
China (Movie Poster), 1982 1986 (1998.1.3048) Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy (1998.3.2810) Candy Darling 1969 Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm
gelatin silver photographs, thread Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. Polaroid photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm (2001.2.1436) (2001.2.140)
54.0 x 69.9 cm (overall) Louise Bourgeois n.d. (1998.1.2452.5) Andy Warhol with Kitten (c. 1957) 10.8 x 8.6 cm (2000.2.928)
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh gelatin silver photograph gelatin silver photograph (1998.1.2998.1) Self-Portrait with Stevie Wonder 1972 Nicky Lane Weymouth 1973
Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy 20.3 x 25.4 cm Myths: Mickey Mouse 1981 17.8 x 25.4 cm (sheet) Gloria Swanson 1972 Polaroid photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph
Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh colour silkscreen and diamond dust on The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Candy Darling and Gerard Malanga 1969 Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm
(1998.1.2705) Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy cardboard Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Polaroid photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm (1998.1.2992.1) (2000.2.713)
Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. 96.5 x 96.5 cm Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. 10.8 x 8.6 cm (1998.1.2990.1)
Donald Baechler 1986 (1998.1.3017) The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh (1998.3.5201) (1998.1.3001.11) Self-Portrait with Stevie Wonder 1972 Valentino 1973
synthetic polymer paint and silkscreen ink Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Gloria Swanson 1972 Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph
on linen Mel Gibson and Mark Lee n.d. Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. Andy Warhol with Kitten (c. 1957) Jackie Curtis 1969 Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm
(1–2) 101.6 x 101.6 cm (each) gelatin silver photograph (1998.1.2452.8) gelatin silver photograph Polaroid photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm (1998.1.2992.5) (2001.2.1261)
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh 20.3 x 25.4 cm 14.0 x 17.8 cm (sheet) 10.8 x 8.6 cm (1998.1.2990.3)
Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Myths: Santa Claus 1981 The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh (1998.1.2991.5) Stavros Niarchos 1972 Lee Radziwill (c. 1973)
Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation colour silkscreen and diamond dust on Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Gunter Sachs 1972 Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid photograph
(1998.1.496–7) for the Visual Arts, Inc. (2001.2.694) cardboard Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. Taylor Mead 1969 Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm
96.7 x 96.5 cm (1998.3.5233) Polaroid photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm (2001.2.1418) (1998.1.2997.15)
Fabis Statue of Liberty 1986 Nick Rhodes n.d. The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh 10.8 x 8.6 cm (2001.2.1425)
synthetic polymer paint and silkscreen ink gelatin silver photograph Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Andy Warhol with Kitten (c. 1957) (1998.1.2991.3) Theresa Heer 1972 Baron Philippe de Rothschild 1974
on linen 20.3 x 25.4 cm Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. gelatin silver photograph Ileanna Sonnabend 1972 Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph
127.0 x 177.8 cm The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh (1998.1.2452.9) 17.8 x 14.0cm (sheet) John Lennon 1971 Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm (2001.2.1168) (2001.2.1423)
Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy for the Visual Arts, Inc. (2001.2.432) Myths: Superman 1981 Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy 10.8 x 8.6 cm (2001.2.1158)
Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. colour silkscreen and diamond dust on Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. (1998.1.2990.7) Thomas Bechtler 1972 Bob Colacello 1974
(1998.1.346) Ozzy Osbourne n.d. cardboard (1998.3.5236) Ileanna Sonnabend 1972 Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph
gelatin silver photograph 96.5 x 96.7 cm John Lennon and Yoko Ono 1971 Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm
Self-Portrait 1986 20.3 x 25.4 cm (sheet) The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Andy Warhol with Projections (c. 1957) Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm (2001.2.1437) (2000.2.993)
synthetic polymer paint and silkscreen ink The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy gelatin silver photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm (2001.2.1159)
on linen Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. 17.8 x 25.4 cm (sheet) (1998.1.2990.11) Tom Jones 1972 Bob Colacello 1974
274.3 x 274.3 cm for the Visual Arts, Inc. (2001.2.422) (1998.1.2452.3) The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Irving Blum 1972 Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Kimiko Powers (Wearing Kimono) 1971 Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm
Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Peter Allen n.d. Myths: The Shadow 1981 Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm (2001.2.1278) (2000.2.994)
Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. gelatin silver photograph colour silkscreen and diamond dust on (1998.3.5209) 10.8 x 8.6 cm (2001.2.1389)
(1998.1.815) 20.3 x 25.4 cm cardboard (2000.2.99) Walter Bechtler 1972 Divine 1974
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh 96.7 x 96.5 cm Andy Warhol with Siamese Cat (c. 1957) Kathrin Bechtler 1972 Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid photograph
Self-Portrait 1986 Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh gelatin silver photograph Man’s Lower Torso, Clothed 1971 Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm
synthetic polymer paint and silkscreen ink for the Visual Arts, Inc. (2001.2.395) Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy 20.3 x 25.4 cm (sheet) Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm 2001.2.1439) (1998.1.2993.1)
on linen Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh 10.8 x 8.6 cm (2001.2.1170)
203.2 x 193.0 cm Sign n.d. (1998.1.2452.10) Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy (2001.2.1566) Yves Saint Laurent 1972 Dorothy Lichtenstein 1974
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh gelatin silver photograph Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. Katie Jones 1972 Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph
Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy 20.3 x 25.4 cm (1998.3.5212) Naomi Sims 1971 Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm
Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm (2000.2.847) (2001.2.1151)
(1998.1.817) Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation 10.8 x 8.6 cm (2001.2.1148)
for the Visual Arts, Inc. (2001.2.916) (2001.2.1177)

296 297
Drag Queen 1974 Drag Queen (Pink Tank Top) 1974 Max Ernst 1974 Gardner Cowles 1976 Ashraf Pahlavi (Princess of Iran) 1977 Joe Eula 1977 Nude Model (Male) 1977 Self-Portrait 1977
Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph
10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm
(2001.2.1202) (2001.2.1731) (2001.2.1395) (2000.2.1000) (2000.2.356) (2000.2.839) (2001.2.1460) (1998.1.2878)

Drag Queen 1974 Drag Queen (Pink Tank Top) 1974 Max Ernst 1974 Gardner Cowles 1976 Bella Abzug 1977 Joe Eula 1977 Nude Model (Victor Hugo) 1977 Self-Portrait 1977
Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph
10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm
(2001.2.1204) (2001.2.1733) (2001.2.1396) (2000.2.1001) (2000.2.273) (2000.2.841) (2001.2.1453) (1998.1.2879)

Drag Queen 1974 Drag Queen (Wilhelmina Ross) 1974 Todd Brassner 1974 George 1976 Bob Colacello 1977 Keith Richards 1977 Nude Model (Victor Hugo) 1977 Self-Portrait 1977
Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph
10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm
(2001.2.1210) (2001.2.1203) (2001.2.1392) (1998.1.2937) (2000.2.991) (2001.2.1193) (2001.2.1454) (1998.1.2880)

Drag Queen 1974 Drag Queen (Wilhelmina Ross) 1974 Valentino 1974 George 1976 Charlie Watts 1977 Keith Richards 1977 O.J. Simpson 1977 Self-Portrait 1977
Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph
10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm
(2001.2.1774) (2001.2.1724) (2000.2.828) (1998.1.2938) (2001.2.1200) (2001.2.1196) (2001.2.1230) (1998.1.2881)

Drag Queen (Auburn Hair) 1974 Drag Queen (Wilhelmina Ross) 1974 Jed Johnson (c. 1974) Gilbert Proesch (Gilbert and George) 1976 Chris Evert 1977 Keith Richards 1977 O.J. Simpson 1977 Self-Portrait 1977
Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph
10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm
(2001.2.1720) (2001.2.1725) (1998.1.2997.12) (1998.1.2935) (2001.2.1128) (2001.2.1198) (2001.2.1252) (1998.1.2882)

Drag Queen (Blue Sweater) 1974 Drag Queen (Wilhelmina Ross) 1974 Giancarlo Giannini 1975 Jimmy Carter 1976 Chris Evert 1977 Liza Minnelli 1977 O.J. Simpson 1977 Self-Portrait 1977
Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph
10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm
(2001.2.1735) (2001.2.1727) (2001.2.1259) (2000.2.860) (2001.2.1129) (2000.2.328) (2001.2.1256) (1998.1.2883)

Drag Queen (Broadway) 1974 Francis Bacon 1974 Harold Stevenson 1975 Kay Fortson 1976 Dennis Hopper 1977 Liza Minnelli 1977 Pelé 1977 Self-Portrait 1977
Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph
10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm
(2001.2.1209) (1998.1.2993.10) (2001.2.1353) (2000.2.509) (1998.1.2967) (2000.2.329) (2001.2.1235) (1998.1.2884)

Drag Queen (E.M. Studded Shirt) 1974 Gary Trudeau 1974 Jerry Brown 1975 Kay Fortson 1976 Dennis Hopper 1977 Liza Minnelli 1977 Pelé 1977 Self-Portrait 1977
Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph
10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm
(2001.2.1738) (2001.2.1432) (2001.2.1394) (2000.2.511) (1998.1.2968) (2000.2.330) (2001.2.1236) (1998.1.2885)

Drag Queen (Floral and Multi-patterned Gordon Locksley 1974 Joe MacDonald 1975 Lillian Carter 1976 Dorothy Hamill 1977 Liza Minnelli 1977 Pelé 1977 Self-Portrait 1977
Dress) 1974 Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph
Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm
10.8 x 8.6 cm (2001.2.1282) (2001.2.1447) (2000.2.396) (2001.2.1126) (2000.2.331) (2001.2.1237) (1998.1.2886)
(2001.2.1752)
Guglielmo Achille Cavellini 1974 Mick Jagger 1975 Lillian Carter 1976 Dorothy Hamill 1977 Liza Minnelli 1977 Pelé 1977 Stuart Pivar 1977
Drag Queen (Helen/Harry Morales) 1974 Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph
Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm
10.8 x 8.6 cm (2001.2.1383) (1998.1.2995.11) (2000.2.397) (2001.2.1127) (2000.2.332) (2001.2.1238) (2001.2.1325)
(2001.2.1763)
Halston 1974 Mick Jagger 1975 Nima Farmanfarmian Isham 1976 Drag Queen (Potassa de la Fayette) 1977 Liza Minnelli 1977 Paul Jenkins 1977 Thomas Ammann 1977
Drag Queen (Helen/Harry Morales) 1974 Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph
Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm
10.8 x 8.6 cm (2000.2.843) (1998.1.2995.14) (2001.2.1176) (2001.2.1205) (2000.2.333) (2000.2.773) (2000.2.911)
(2001.2.1767)
Halston 1974 Mick Jagger 1975 Peter Duchin and Sherry Zauderer 1976 Dr. Erich Marx 1977 Mick Jagger 1977 Rod Gilbert 1977 Tom Seaver 1977
Drag Queen (Ivette) 1974 Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph
Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm
10.8 x 8.6 cm (2000.2.844) (1998.1.3003.2) (2000.2.9) (2001.2.1290) (2001.2.1195) (2001.2.1246) (2001.2.1226)
(2001.2.1749)
Halston 1974 Mick Jagger 1975 Rosalynn and Amy Carter 1976 Duane Hanson 1977 Mick Jagger and Charlie Watts 1977 Rod Gilbert 1977 Tom Seaver 1977
Drag Queen (Ivette) 1974 Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph
Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm
10.8 x 8.6 cm (2000.2.845) (1998.1.3003.8) (2000.2.395) (1998.1.2960) (2001.2.1197) (2001.2.1247) (2001.2.1227)
(2001.2.1750)
Halston 1974 Robert Palmer 1975 Russell Means 1976 Evelyn Kuhn 1977 Mick Jagger and Charlie Watts 1977 Ronnie Cutrone 1977 Truman Capote 1977
Drag Queen (Kim) 1974 Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph
Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm
10.8 x 8.6 cm (2000.2.846) (2001.2.1317) (2001.2.1597) (2000.2.21) (2001.2.1199) (2000.2.1008) (1998.1.2976)
(2001.2.1761)
Jackie Curtis 1974 Roy Lichtenstein 1975 Russell Means 1976 Heiner Bastian 1977 Mick Jagger and Unidentified Woman 1977 Sachiko Bower 1977 Truman Capote 1977
Drag Queen (Lurdes) 1974 Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph
Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm
10.8 x 8.6 cm (2001.2.1442) (1998.1.2951) (2001.2.1598) (2000.2.907) (2001.2.1194) (2000.2.129) (1998.1.2977)
(2001.2.1768)
Jackie Curtis 1974 Roy Lichtenstein 1975 Jamie Wyeth (c. 1976) Jack Nicklaus 1977 Muhammad Ali 1977 Self-Portrait 1977 Willie Shoemaker 1977
Drag Queen (Marsha P. Johnson) 1974 Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph
Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm
10.8 x 8.6 cm (2001.2.1446) (1998.1.2952) (1998.1.2984) (2001.2.1231) (2001.2.1220) (1998.1.2865) 2001.2.1218)
(2001.2.1755)
Joseph Kosuth 1974 Corice Arman 1976 Jamie Wyeth (c. 1976) Jack Nicklaus 1977 Muhammad Ali 1977 Self-Portrait with Skull 1977 Self-Portrait 1977–78
Drag Queen (Monique) 1974 Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph
Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 8.6 x 10.8 cm
10.8 x 8.6 cm (2001.2.1280) (2000.2.128) (2000.2.789) (2001.2.1233) (2001.2.1221) (1998.1.2866) (1998.1.2864)
(2001.2.1719)
Kasumi Teshigahara 1974 Farah Dibah Pahlavi (Shahbanou [Queen] of Arnold Schwarzenegger 1977 Jack Nicklaus 1977 Muhammad Ali 1977 Self-Portrait 1977 Barbara Allen 1977–78
Drag Queen (Orange Dress Leaf Print) 1974 Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Iran) 1976 Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph
Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm
10.8 x 8.6 cm (2001.2.1132) 10.8 x 8.6 cm (2000.2.892) (2001.2.1234) (2001.2.1223) (1998.1.2876) (1998.1.2934)
(2001.2.1773) (2000.2.618)
Kasumi Teshigahara 1974 Ashraf Pahlavi (Princess of Iran) 1977 Jerry Zipkin 1977 Nude Model (Female) 1977 Self-Portrait 1977 Carolina Herrera 1978
Drag Queen Pairs (Lurdes and Ivette) 1974 Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Gardner Cowles 1976 Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph
Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm
10.8 x 8.6 cm (2001.2.1165) 10.8 x 8.6 cm (2000.2.355) (2001.2.1377) (2001.2.1477) (1998.1.2877) (2000.2.520)
(2001.2.1779) (2000.2.999)

298 299
Carolina Herrera 1978 Joseph Beuys 1979 David Whitney 1980 Roger Thomas 1980 Diana Ross 1981 Self-Portrait 1981 Self-Portrait in Drag 1981 Ron Duguay 1982
Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph
10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 8.6 x 10.8 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm
(2000.2.522) (1998.1.2955) (1998.1.2970) (2001.2.1356) (2000.2.279) (1998.1.2872) (1998.1.2924) (2001.2.1240)

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 1978 Joseph Beuys 1979 David Whitney 1980 Sandro Chia 1980 Dracula 1981 Self-Portrait 1981 Self-Portrait in Drag 1981 Rupert Smith 1982
Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph
10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm
(2001.2.1241) (1998.1.2956) (1998.1.2971) (2000.2.788) (2001.2.1541) (1998.1.2873) (1998.1.2925) (2001.2.1348)

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 1978 Joseph Beuys 1979 Debbie Harry 1980 Sean McKeon 1980 Duane Hanson 1981 Self-Portrait 1981 Self-Portrait in Drag 1981 Antonio Lopez 1983
Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid photograph
10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm
(2001.2.1242) (2001.2.1250) (2000.2.320) (2001.2.1291) (1998.1.2958) (1998.1.2874) (1998.1.2926) (2001.2.1286)

Self-Portrait in Santa Costume 1978 Joseph Beuys 1979 Debbie Harry 1980 Self-Portrait in Drag 1980 Emily Landau 1981 Self-Portrait in Drag 1981 Self-Portrait in Drag 1981 Antonio Lopez 1983
Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid photograph
10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm
(1998.1.2868) (2001.2.1251) (2000.2.321) (1998.1.2906) (2000.2.552) (1998.1.2903) (1998.1.2927) (2001.2.1287)

Shaun Cassidy 1978 Maja Sacher-Stehlin 1979 Debbie Harry 1980 Self-Portrait in Drag 1980 Francesco Clemente 1981 Self-Portrait in Drag 1981 Self-Portrait in Drag 1981 Body Builder (Keith Peterson) 1983
Polaroid SX-70 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph
10.8 x 8.9 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 8.6 x 10.8 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm
(2001.2.1794) (2000.2.664) (2000.2.323) (1998.1.2907) (2000.2.818) (1998.1.2904) (1998.1.2928) (2001.2.1579)

Bianca Jagger 1979 Martha Graham 1979 Georgia O’Keeffe 1980 Self-Portrait in Drag 1980 Francesco Clemente 1981 Self-Portrait in Drag 1981 Self-Portrait in Drag 1981 Debbie Harry and Stephen Sprouse 1983
Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph
10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 8.6 x 10.8 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm
(2000.2.346) (2000.2.335) (2000.2.120) (1998.1.2908) (2000.2.820) (1998.1.2905) (1998.1.2929) (2001.2.1884)

Edward Kennedy 1979 Martha Graham 1979 Gianni Versace 1980 Self-Portrait in Drag 1980 Francesco Clemente 1981 Self-Portrait in Drag 1981 Self-Portrait in Drag 1981 Diana Vreeland 1983
Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid SX-70 photograph
10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm. 10.8 x 8.9 cm
(2000.2.877 (2000.2.336) (2000.2.835) (1998.1.2910) (2000.2.821) (1998.1.2911) (1998.1.2930) (2001.2.1841)

Eva Beuys 1979 Martha Graham 1979 Gianni Versace 1980 Sylvester Stallone 1980 Giorgio Armani 1981 Self-Portrait in Drag 1981 Self-Portrait in Drag 1981 Hinton Battle, Alphonso Ribero and
Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Unidentified Model 1983
10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm Polaroid SX-70 photograph
(2001.2.1161) (2000.2.337) (2000.2.837) (2000.2.885) (2000.2.829) (1998.1.2912) (1998.1.2931) 10.8 x 8.9 cm
(2001.2.1888)
Eva Beuys 1979 Max Weishaupt 1979 Gordon Locksley 1980 Sylvester Stallone 1980 Santa Claus (John Viggiano) 1981 Self-Portrait in Drag 1981 Self-Portrait in Drag 1981
Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Howard E. Rollins 1983
10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph
(2001.2.1162) (2001.2.1382) (2001.2.1283) (2000.2.886) (2001.2.1481) (1998.1.2913) (1998.1.2932) 8.6 x 10.8 cm
(2001.2.1830)
Farrah Fawcett 1979 Mildred Scheel 1979 Hildegard Schwaninger 1980 Sylvester Stallone 1980 Jon Gould 1981 Self-Portrait in Drag 1981 Self-Portrait in Drag 1981
Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Ina Ginsburg 1983
10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph
(2000.2.201) (2000.2.670) (2000.2.683) (2000.2.887) (2001.2.1271) (1998.1.2914) (1998.1.2933) 10.8 x 8.6 cm
(2000.2.515)
Farrah Fawcett 1979 Neil Sedaka 1979 Hildegard Schwaninger 1980 Sylvester Stallone 1980 Madonna and Child 1981 Self-Portrait in Drag 1981 Uncle Sam 1981
Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph James Brown and Unidentified Model 1983
10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph
(2000.2.203) (2000.2.873) (2000.2.684) (2000.2.889) (2001.2.1703) (1998.1.2915) (2001.2.1537) 10.8 x 8.6 cm
(2001.2.1835)
Farrah Fawcett 1979 Neil Sedaka 1979 Karen Kain 1980 William S. Burroughs 1980 Madonna and Child 1981 Self-Portrait in Drag 1981 Body Builder (Keith Peterson) 1982
Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Jean-Michel Basquiat 1983
10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph
(2000.2.204) (2000.2.876) (2000.2.361) (1998.1.2964) (2001.2.1706) (1998.1.2916) (2001.2.1473) 10.8 x 8.6 cm
(2000.2.814)
Fritz Scholder 1979 R.C. Gorman 1979 Karen Kain 1980 William S. Burroughs 1980 Mario Valentino 1981 Self-Portrait in Drag 1981 Ina Ginsburg 1982
Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph John Sex 1983
10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph
(2000.2.806) (2000.2.802) (2000.2.362) 2000.2.771) (2001.2.1367) (1998.1.2917) (2000.2.514) 10.8 x 8.6 cm
(2001.2.1827)
Henry Geldzahler 1979 Truman Capote 1979 Karen Kain 1980 William S. Burroughs 1980 Paola Dominguin 1981 Self-Portrait in Drag 1981 Jane Fonda 1982
Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph John Sex and Kim Alexis 1983
10.8 x 8.6 cm 8.6 x 10.8 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm Polaroid SX-70 photograph
(1998.1.2972) (1998.1.2974) (2000.2.363) (2000.2.772) (2001.2.1798) (1998.1.2918) (2000.2.343) 10.8 x 8.9 cm
(2001.2.1823)
Henry Geldzahler 1979 Truman Capote 1979 Karen Kain 1980 Witch 1980 Robert Rauschenberg 1981 Self-Portrait in Drag 1981 Jean-Michel Basquiat 1982
Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Julian Schnabel 1983
10.8 x 8.6 cm 8.6 x 10.8 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph
(1998.1.2973) (1998.1.2975) (2000.2.364) (2001.2.1530) (1998.1.2953) (1998.1.2919) (2000.2.813) 10.8 x 8.6 cm
(1998.1.2949)
Henry Geldzahler 1979 Truman Capote 1979 Mr. Shapiro 1980 Witch 1980 Robert Rauschenberg 1981 Self-Portrait in Drag 1981 Lorna Luft 1982
Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Julian Schnabel 1983
10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph
(2000.2.777) (2000.2.780) (2001.2.1342) (2001.2.1532) (2000.2.768) (1998.1.2920) (2000.2.584) 10.8 x 8.6 cm
(1998.1.2950)
Jessyka Beuys 1979 Wenzel Beuys 1979 Oliver Stahel 1980 Conrad Black 1981 Self-Portrait 1981 Self-Portrait in Drag 1981 Marisa Berenson 1982
Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Julian Schnabel 1983
10.8 x 8.6 cm 8.6 x 10.8 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 8.6 x 10.8 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph
(2001.2.1163) (2001.2.1384) (2001.2.1365) (2000.2.958) (1998.1.2867) (1998.1.2921) (2000.2.106) 10.8 x 8.6 cm
(2000.2.765)
Jessyka Beuys 1979 Wenzel Beuys 1979 Ric Ocasek 1980 Conrad Black 1981 Self-Portrait 1981 Self-Portrait in Drag 1981 Querelle 1982
Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Keith Haring and Juan Dubose 1983
10.8 x 8.6 cm 8.6 x 10.8 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 8.6 x 10.8 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph
(2001.2.1164) (2001.2.1385) (2001.2.1309) (2000.2.959) (1998.1.2870) (1998.1.2922) (2001.2.15611) 10.8 x 8.6 cm
(1998.1.2988)
John Reinhold 1979 Self-Portrait 1979-1980 Rodney Ripps 1980 Conrad Black 1981 Self-Portrait 1981 Self-Portrait in Drag 1981 Ron Duguay 1982
Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Polaroid Polacolor 2 photograph Keith Haring and Juan Dubose 1983
10.8 x 8.6 cm 8.6 x 10.8 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 8.6 x 10.8 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph
(2001.2.1334) (1998.1.2875) (1998.1.2981) (2000.2.960) (1998.1.2871) (1998.1.2923) (2001.2.1239) 10.8 x 8.6 cm
(1998.1.2989)

300 301
Keith Haring and Unidentified Model 1983 Unidentified Models from Total Beauty 1983 James Galanos 1984 Unidentified Man (Paul), 1984 Tina Chow 1985 Self-Portrait (Fright Wig) 1986 John Waters n.d. Horse 1965
Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid photograph black and white 16mm film transferred to
10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm digital file, sound, 100 min
(2001.2.1860) (2001.2.1846) (2001.2.1264) (2001.2.1922) (2000.2.215) (1998.1.2895) (1998.1.2993.3) scenario by Ronald Tavel, with Larry
Latreille,, Gregory Battcock, Tosh Carillo, Dan
Kim Alexis 1983 Unidentified Models from Total Beauty 1983 James Galanos 1984 Unidentified Woman 1984 Armand Arman 1986 Self-Portrait (Fright Wig) 1986 John Waters n.d. CassidyEdie Sedgwick, Gerard Malanga and
Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid photograph Ronald Tavel.
10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh
(2001.2.1866) (2001.2.1848) (2001.2.1267) (2001.2.1936) (1998.1.2978) (1998.1.2896) (1998.1.2993.5) Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy
Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
Kim Alexis, Lisa Sliwa and Curtis and Unidentified Models from Total Beauty 1983 Jean-Paul Gaultier 1984 Unidentified Woman 1984 Armand Arman 1986 Self-Portrait (Fright Wig) 1986 Mick Jagger n.d.
Guardian Angels 1983 Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid photograph Vinyl 1965
Polaroid SX-70 photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm black and white 16mm film transferred to
10.8 x 8.9 cm (2001.2.1858) (2001.2.1899) (2001.2.1937) (1998.1.2979) (1998.1.2897) (1998.1.3003.3) digital file, sound, 67 min
(2001.2.1876) scenario by Ronald Tavel, with Gerard
Wayne Gretzky 1983 Jerry Hall 1984 Unidentified Woman 1984 Ernesto Esposito 1986 Self-Portrait (Fright Wig) 1986 Nico n.d. Malanga, Ondine, John MacDermott, Tosh
Lidija and Unidentified Model 1983 Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid photograph Carillo, Larry Latreille and Edie Sedgwick
Polaroid SX-70 photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh
10.8 x 8.9 cm (2001.2.1213) (2000.2.212) (2001.2.1938) (2000.2.1031) (1998.1.2898) (1998.1.2994.4) Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy
(2001.2.1887) Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
Wayne Gretzky 1983 Kenny Scharf 1984 Unidentified Woman 1984 Ernesto Esposito 1986 Self-Portrait (Fright Wig) 1986 Nico n.d.
Miguel Bose 1983 Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid photograph Space 1965
Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm black and white 16mm film transferred to
10.8 x 8.6 cm (2001.2.1215) (2000.2.750) (2001.2.1943) (2000.2.1032) (1998.1.2899) (1998.1.2994.5) digital file, sound, 66 min
(1998.1.2944) scenario by Ronald Tavel, with Ronald Tavel,
William S. Burroughs and Unidentified Model Levis 1984 Unidentified Woman 1984 Ernesto Esposito 1986 Self-Portrait (Fright Wig) 1986 Nico n.d. Eric Andersen, Edie Sedgwick, Donald Lyons,
Miguel Bose 1983 1983 Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid photograph Gino Piserchio, Dorothy Dean, Danny Fields,
Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm Roger Trudeau and Ed Hennessey
10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm (2001.2.1568) (2001.2.1945) (2000.2.1033) (1998.1.2900) (1998.1.2994.8) The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh
(2001.2.1249) (2001.2.1832) Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy
Levis 1984 Victor Hugo 1984 Ernesto Esposito 1986 Self-Portrait (Fright Wig) 1986 Sandra Brant n.d. Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
New York City Breakers and Unidentified Andre Walker 1984 Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid photograph
Model 1983 Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm Camp 1965
Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm (2001.2.1573) (2001.2.1907) (2000.2.1034) (1998.1.2901) (1998.1.2998.15) black and white 16mm film transferred to
8.6 x 10.8 cm (2001.2.1926) digital file, sound, 66 min
(2001.2.1834) Levis 1984 Bruce Weber 1985 Jock Soto 1986 Self-Portrait (Fright Wig) 1986 Self-Portrait n.d. with Gerard Malanga, Paul Swan, Jane
Arian 1984 Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Holzer, Jack Smith, Tally Brown, Philip Van S.
Pia Zadora 1983 Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm (Fu-Fu) Smith, Mar Mar, Mario Montez, Jody
Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm (2001.2.1576) (1998.1.2986) (1998.1.2946) (1998.1.2902) (1998.1.2990.2) Babb, Donyale Luna, Tosh Carillo, Danny
10.8 x 8.6 cm (2001.2.1941) Williams and Bob Heide
(2000.2.377) Mark Sink and Unidentified Man 1984 Bruce Weber 1985 Keith Haring 1986 Ulrick Trojaborg 1986 Self-Portrait n.d. The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh
Benjamin Liu 1984 Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid photograph Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy
Princess Caroline of Monaco 1983 Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm (2001.2.1905) (1998.1.2987) (2000.2.762) (1998.1.2942) (1998.1.2997.7)
10.8 x 8.6 cm (2001.2.1923) Mario Banana #1 1964
(2000.2.306) Martin Blinder 1984 Dolly Parton 1985 Maria Shriver 1986 Alba Clemente 1987 Stevie Wonder n.d. colour 16mm film transferred to digital file,
Charles Ludlam 1984 Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid photograph silent, 4 min at 16 frames per second
Princess Caroline of Monaco 1983 Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm with Mario Montez
Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm (2001.2.1258) (2000.2.133) (2000.2.140) (2000.2.265) (1998.1.2997.6) The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh
10.8 x 8.6 cm (2001.2.1820) Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy
(2000.2.308) Nick Rhodes 1984 Dolly Parton 1985 Peter Halley 1986 Andy Warhol n.d. Terry Southern n.d. Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
Cheryl Tiegs 1984 Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid photograph Polaroid photograph
Princess Caroline of Monaco 1983 Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm Mario Banana #2 1964
Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm (2001.2.1910) (2000.2.136) (2000.2.769) (1998.1.3000.20) (1998.1.2997.10) black and white 16mm film transferred to
10.8 x 8.6 cm (2000.2.374) digital file, silent, 4 min at 16 frames per
(2000.2.310) Sean Lennon 1984 Joan Collins 1985 Peter Schuyff 1986 Bill Wyman n.d. Truman Capote n.d. second
Debbie Harry 1984 Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid photograph Polaroid photograph with Mario Montez
Robert Mapplethorpe 1983 Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh
Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm (2000.2.1) (2000.2.311) (1998.1.2939) (1998.1.2997.5) (1998.1.2997.3) Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy
10.8 x 8.6 cm (2000.2.324) Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
(2000.2.809) Sean Lennon 1984 Joan Collins 1985 Self-Portrait (Fright Wig) 1986 Brigid Berlin n.d. Unidentified Male n.d.
Diane Von Furstenberg 1984 Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid photograph Polaroid photograph The Life of Juanita Castro 1965
Robert Mapplethorpe 1983 Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm black and white 16mm film transferred to
Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm (2000.2.4) (2000.2.312) (1998.1.2887) (1998.1.2996.8) (1998.1.2993.2) digital file, sound, 66 min
10.8 x 8.6 cm (2000.2.197) scenario by Ronald Tavel, with Marie
(2000.2.810) Stephen Sprouse 1984 Lana Turner 1985 Self-Portrait (Fright Wig) 1986 Brigid Berlin n.d. Unidentified Male n.d. Menken, Marina Ospina, Elektrah (Marcia
Diane Von Furstenberg 1984 Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid photograph Polaroid photograph Lobel), Jenny Burn, Waldo Diaz Balart,
Robert Mapplethorpe 1983 Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 8.3 x 10.8 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm Harvey Tavel, Amanda Cheryl, Bonnie
Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm (2000.2.855 (2000.2.3710 (1998.1.2888) (1998.1.2998.10) (1998.1.2993.4) Gerr, Isabelle Collin Dufresne (Ultra
10.8 x 8.6 cm (2000.2.200) Violet), Isadora Rose, Elizabeth Sow, Carol
(2000.2.812) Unidentified Man 1984 Lana Turner 1985 Self-Portrait (Fright Wig) 1986 Carol Coleman n.d. LoBrodicco and Ronald Tavel
Frederick Weisman 1984 Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor Type 108 photograph Andy Warhol: Film and Video Kiosks The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh
Robert Miller 1983 Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm Overall: 4 1/4 x 3 3/8 in. (10.8 x 8.6 cm.) 10.8 x 8.6 cm Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy
Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm (2001.2.1896) (2000.2.372) (1998.1.2889) (2000.2.467) Harlot 1964 Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
10.8 x 8.6 cm (2001.2.1374) black and white 16mm film transferred to
(2001.2.1300) Unidentified Man 1984 Lesley Frowick (Halston’s Niece) 1985 Self-Portrait (Fright Wig) 1986 Charlie Watts n.d. digital file, sound, 66 min 30 sec More Milk Yvette 1965
Grace Jones 1984 Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid photograph with Mario Montez, Carol Koshinskie, Gerard black and white 16mm film transferred to
Self-Portrait (Hand) 1983 Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm Malanga, Philip Fagan, White Pussy, Ronald digital file, sound, 66 min
Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm (2001.2.1914) (2000.2.61) (1998.1.2890) (1998.1.2997.4) Tavel, Billy Linich (Name) and Harry Fainlight with Mario Montez, Richard Schmidt, Paul
10.8 x 8.6 cm (2000.2.381) The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Caruso, Donald Newlove and Larry Bucetti
(1998.1.2869) Unidentified Man 1984 Lesley Frowick (Halston’s Niece) 1985 Self-Portrait (Fright Wig) 1986 Count Basie n.d. Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh
Grace Jones 1984 Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid photograph Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy
Steven Wynn 1983 Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm. 10.8 x 8.6 cm Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm (2001.2.1915) (2000.2.62) (1998.1.2891) (1998.1.2997.11) Henry Geldzahler 1964
10.8 x 8.6 cm (2000.2.384) black and white 16mm film transferred to Hedy 1966
(2001.2.1376) Unidentified Man 1984 Pat Hearn 1985 Self-Portrait (Fright Wig) 1986 Dick Cavett n.d. digital file, silent, 99 min at 16 frames per black and white 16mm film transferred to
Grace Jones 1984 Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid photograph second digital file, sound, 66 min
Unidentified Guardian Angel 1983 Polaroid SX-70 photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm with Henry Geldzahler scenario by Ronald Tavel, music by John
Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph 10.8 x 8.9 cm (2001.2.1925) (2000.2.261) (1998.1.2892) (1998.1.2997.8) The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Cale and Lou Reed, with Mario Montez,
10.8 x 8.6 cm (2001.2.1930) Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Arnold Rockwood, Jack Smith, Ingrid
(2001.2.1878) Unidentified Man 1984 Pat Hearn 1985 Self-Portrait (Fright Wig) 1986 Fred Hughes n.d. Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. Superstar, Mary Woronov, Harvey Tavel,
Grace Jones 1984 Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph Polaroid photograph Ronald Tavel, Randy Bourscheidt, Roderick
Unidentified Guardian Angel 1983 Polaroid SX-70 photograph 10.8 x 8.6 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm 8.6 x 10.8 cm 10.8 x 8.6 cm Clayton, James Fox Claire and David Myers
Polaroid Polacolor ER photograph 10.8 x 8.9 cm (2001.2.1927) (2000.2.263) (1998.1.2894) (1998.1.3000.5) The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh
10.8 x 8.6 cm (2001.2.1931) Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy
(2001.2.1879) Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.

302 303
Factory Diaries 1971–76 Andy Warhol’s T.V., (Season 1) 1980–82 Stickley, Audra Cassell, Herman (p. 30) (p. 66, below) (p. 94) p. 133 (pp. 254–5)
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh colour ¾ inch video transferred to digital Johnson, Betty Du Chantier, Ralph Ai Weiwei Leila Davies Singelis Billy Name Ai Weiwei Ai Weiwei
Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy file, sound, 30 min (each) Cooper II and Latasha Spencer 1985 S.A.C.R.E.D. 2011–13 (detail) Jones St. Sunday 1952 American 1940– Descending Light 2007 Golden Age 2015
Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. Conceived by Andy Warhol. Directed by 6 dioramas; fibreglass, iron gelatin silver print Andy Warhol Arranging Flower Paintings on glass crystal, lights, and metal wallpaper
Don Munroe. Produced by Vincent Fremont. Episode 1 377.0 x 197.0 x 148.4 cm (each) 20.8 x 20.3 cm the Factory Floor 1964 400.0 × 663.0 × 461.0 cm dimensions variable
David Bowie and Group at the Factory, Executive Producer Andy Warhol Robin Leach, Jerry Hall, Andy Warhol, Ai Weiwei Studio The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Gift of gelatin silver photograph Installation view, Mary Boone Gallery, Ai Weiwei Studio
September 14, 1971 1971 The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Debbie Harry, the Pyramid Club, Leila Davies Singelis Courtesy Billy Name New York, 2007
black and white ½ inch reel-to-reel video Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Jelly Joplin, Hapi Phace, John Kelly, (p. 37) Ai Weiwei Studio (p. 262)
transferred to digital file, sound, 14 min Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. Dagmar Onassis, the Lady Bunny, Dean Andy Warhol (p. 68) (p. 96) Andy Warhol
with David Bowie, Vincent Fremont, Johnson, Terry Toy, Area, 4D, Katharine American 1928–87 Andy Warhol Nat Finkelstein (pp. 142–3, pp. 202–3) Wild Raspberries from Time Capsule 12 1959
Andy Warhol, Allen Midgette, Michael Episode 1: Debbie Harry, Andy Warhol, Hamnett, Marla Kay, Anna Johnson, Self-Portrait 1963 Contact Sheet, China 1982 American 1933–2009 Ai Weiwei offset lithograph and Dr. Martin’s Aniline dye
Netter, Pat Hackett and Glenn O’Brien Chris Stein and Lisa Robinson 1980 Eric Perram, Tracy Johns, Paulina photobooth photograph black and white contact sheet Andy Warhol with Holly Solomon Silkscreens, Trace 2014 on paper with tissue inserts and buckram
Maurice Braddell, Jane Forth, Pat, Episode 2: Paloma Picasso, John Porizkova, Sally Kirkland, The Parachute 5.1 x 4.1 cm 21.59 x 27.94 cm The Factory, NYC 1965 Installation view, @Large: Ai Weiwei on board cover
Father Ryan at the Factory, August 24, Richardson, Georgia O’Keefe, Juan Club, Bryan Adams, John Oates, Andy The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual gelatin silver photograph Alcatraz, Alcatraz Island, San Francisco, 2014 44.8 x 28.6 x 0.6 cm
1971 1971 Hamilton and Andy Warhol 1980 Warhol, Billy Bryans, Lorraine Segato, Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Arts, Inc. Courtesy Estate of Nat Finkelstein The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh;
black and white ½ inch reel-to-reel Episode 4: Joanne Winship, Zandra Moon and Dweezil Zappa, Curiosity Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. (p. 150) Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy
video transferred to digital file, sound, Rhodes, Joan Quinn and Ron Link 1980 Killed the Cat, Tama Janowitz, Lip (p. 70) (p. 97) Andy Warhol Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
14 min Episode 7: David Hockney, the Saint, Synca, Carla Steimer 1986 (p. 38, left) Andy Warhol Marcel Duchamp Atomic Bomb: Red Explosion 1965 TC-12.188
with Andy Warhol, Father Ryan, Maurice Bruce Mailman and Ron Chereskin 1981 Andrej Warhola, date unknown Bianca Jagger, Liza Minnelli, and Jacqueline French 1887–1968 silkscreen on canvas
Braddell, Jane Forth, Paul Morrissey, Episode 8: John Waters, Divine and Van Episode 2 Collection of the Paul Warhola Family Onassis c. 1976–79 Fountain 1917/64 264.0 x 204.5 cm (p. 263, above)
Pat Hackett, Vincent Fremont, Holly Smith 1981 Grace Jones, Kenny Scharf, Andy gelatin silver print ceramic Saatchi Collection, London Andy Warhol
Woodlawn, Johnny and Michael Netter Episode 14: Mariel Hemingway, Andy Warhol, Marc Jacobs, Peter Beard, Keith (p. 38, right) 40.64 x 50.8 cm 36.0 x 48.0 x 61.0 cm Cat seated on blanket (possibly Hester)
Warhol, Bob Colacello, Brigid Berlin, Haring, Kevin Dillon, John C. McGinley, Ai Qing at Beiwei Hotel, Beijing, 1980 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel p. 153 1955–59
Evelyn Kuhn, December 15, 1976 (Polaroid Jim Fouratt and Marc Almond 1982 Francesco Quinn, Angel Estrada, William Ai Weiwei Studio Arts, Inc. Ai Weiwei chromogenic color print
Portrait Session) 1976 Episode 17: Kansai Yamamoto, Andy S. Burroughs, Chris Stein, Elizabeth (pp. 100–1) Straight 2012 4.8 × 7.0 cm
colour ½ inch video transferred to Warhol and Carolina Herrera 1982 Peña, Gregory Abbott, Das Furlines, (p. 39) (p. 71) Ugo Mulas Ai Weiwei Studio, Beijing The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh;
digital file, sound, 60 min Episode 18: Andy Warhol, the Red Bar, Judd Nelson, Isabel & Ruben Toledo, Ai Weiwei Ai Weiwei Italian 1928–73 Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy
with Evelyn Kuhn, Andy Warhol, Peter Ralph Mann, Rockets Redglare, Thomas Angel Colon, Carla Steimer, Tama Last Dinner in the East Village 1994 65kg Zhang Huan 1994 Andy Warhol Silkscreening Campbell’s Soup (p. 179, left) Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
Beard, Jonas Mekas, Ronnie Cutrone Leeser, Liza Minnelli, Brigid Berlin, the Janowitz and Steve Stein 1987 from the Beijing Photographs series 1993–2001 from the Beijing Photographs series Can in the Factory 1964 Andy Warhol T928
Columbia University boathouse, Steven gelatin silver photograph 1993–2001 gelatin silver photograph Room Service Tray 1983
Andy Warhol, Geri Miller, Candy Darling Kiesling, Danceteria, Jim Fouratt, Philip Episode 3 Ai Weiwei Studio gelatin silver photograph Courtesy Ugo Mulas Archive gelatin silver print (p. 263, below)
at the Factory (c.1971–72) Glass and Lidija Cengic Hauck 1982 Regina Beukes, Miriam Bendahan, Ai Weiwei Studio 20.2 x 25.4 cm Andy Warhol
black and white ½ inch reel-to-reel Suzanne Lanza, Andy Warhol, the (p. 40) (p. 103) The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Postcard (to Truman Capote and Mrs.
video transferred to digital file, sound, Andy Warhol’s T.V., (Season 2) 1983 Fleshtones, Moto Fashion by Michael Interview Vol. 1, no. 11 (1970) (p. 74) Ai Weiwei Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation Capote) from Time Capsule 55 1950s
13 min colour 1 inch video transferred to digital file, Schmidt and Anita Martire, the Tunnel, printed ink on newsprint Christopher Makos Lower East Side Restaurant 1998 for the Visual Arts, Inc. typewritten and printed ink on coated paper
with Andy Warhol, Geri Miller, Michael sound, 30 min (each) Rudolph, the Gold Bar, Thomas Leeser, 43.2 × 29.8 cm American 1948– from the New York Photographs series 2001.2.978 8.6 × 13.7 cm
Netter, Pat Hackett, Jane Forth, Candy Produced for Madison Square Garden Carla Steimer, Alan Jones, the Mudd The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Andy Warhol in Tiananmen Square 1982 1983–93 The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh;
Darling, Paul Morrissey and Vincent Network. Conceived by Andy Warhol. Club, Brook Larsen, Robert Longo, Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy gelatin silver photograph gelatin silver photograph (p. 180) Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy
Fremont Directed by Don Munroe. Produced by Heather Watts, Michael Torke, Jack Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. Courtesy Christopher Makos Ai Weiwei Studio Christopher Makos Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
Vincent Fremont. Executive Producer Andy Soto, Victor Love, Bo Diddley, Jeffrey American 1948– TC55.35
Factory Moving, August 21, 1974 1974 Warhol. Theme music by Walter Steding. W. Reynolds, Suzan Hanson, Eric Fraad, (p. 42) (p. 75) (pp. 106–7) Photographing a Nude for His Torso Series 1977
black and white ½ inch reel-to-reel Announcers Debbie Harry, Leza van Beuren Christopher O’Riley, Saqqara Dogs Andy Warhol Ai Weiwei David McCabe gelatin silver photograph (p. 265)
video transferred to digital file, sound, The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh (Ruby Ray, Bond Bergland, Sync 66, Natalie 1962 8th Street Subway Station 1987 English 1940– Courtesy Christopher Makos The Barrison Sisters, published in Sex and
15 min Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Hearn Gadbois), Bobbi Humphrey and silkscreen ink on linen from the New York Photographs series David Dalton, Chuck Wein, Edie Sedgwick, Sex Worship by O. A. Walls (1922)
with Ronnie Cutrone, Barbara Allen, Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. Ian McKellen 1987 210.8 x 26.4 cm 1983–93 Gerard Malanga, Billy Name and Larry (p. 214)
unknown photographer and Vincent The Andy Warhol Foundation, Pittsburgh; gelatin silver photograph Latreille with Andy at the Factory, Spring 1965 Andy Warhol (p. 267, above left and right)
Fremont (voice) Episode 2: Andy Warhol, Maura Episode 4 Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Ai Weiwei Studio gelatin silver photograph Sleep 1963 Best in Children’s Books
Moynihan, Carol Alt, Ron Greschner, Eleanor Antin, Debbie Harry, Chris Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. Courtesy David McCabe 16mm film, black and white, silent, 5 hours 21 Andy Warhol illustrated The Little Red Hen,
Andy Paints Mao, December 7, 1972 1972 Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Stein, Jerry Hall, Ric Ocasek, (p. 76) minutes at 16 frames per second pp. 77–84, 1958
black and white ½ inch reel-to-reel Valentine Lawford, Horst and Duran Boomerang, Hipsway (Grahame (p. 44) Nat Finkelstein (pp. 108–9) The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Nelson Doubleday, Inc. (Garden City, NY)
video transferred to digital file, sound, Duran (Simon LeBon, Nick Rhodes) Skinner, Pim Jones, Harry Travers), L.K. William John Kennedy American 1933–2009 Ugo Mulas Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation printed ink on paper with buckram board
67 min Episode 6: Steve Adell, Sparks (Russell Aubrey, Stephen Pell, Peter Kwaloff, American 1930– Andy Warhol with The Velvet Underground, Italian 1928–73 for the Visual Arts, Inc. 21.6 × 14.0 × 1.9 cm
and Ron Mael), Andy Warhol, Maura John Epperson, Edgar Oliver, Janis Untitled (Warhol Filming Taylor Mead’s Ass Gerard Malanga and Mary Woronov at The Andy Warhol and Gerard Malanga, New York The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Gift of
Ultra Violet Album Cover Design Session, Moynihan, Andy Summers, John Sex, Wikoff, Paul Shaffer, Tommy Tune, Suite II of IV) 1964, printed 2010 Factory 1966 1964 (p. 218) Matt Wrbican
August 22, 1973 1973 Frank Zappa, Richard Berlin, Carlene Lilliane Montevecchi, Julie Brown, gelatin silver fibre print gelatin silver photograph gelatin silver photograph David McCabe
black and white ½ inch reel-to-reel Carter, Lara Teeter, Keith Parnas and the Ramones, Top Cat Studios, Konk, 40.6 × 50.8 cm Courtesy Estate of Nat Finkelstein Courtesy Ugo Mulas Archive English 1940– (p. 267, below, left)
video transferred to digital file, sound, Pee Wee Herman Elizabeth Cannon fashions, Boom (Paul The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Gift of Marisol and Andy Warhol in Front of the Julia Warhola
32 min Episode 8: Dianne Brill, Steve Richman, Lekakis), Michelangelo Signorile, John Kiwi Arts Group (p. 84) (p. 121) Empire State Building 1965 American 1892–1972
with Andy Warhol, Ultra Violet and Fabrice, Toukie Smith, Suzie Gilder, Sex, Michael Todd Room, Courtney Billy Name Ai Weiwei gelatin silver photograph Holy Cats by Andy Warhol’s Mother 1960
Ronnie Cutrone Johnna Johnson, Chris Royer, Jerry Love, Robbie Nevil, Andy Warhol’s (p. 46) American 1940– Tai Lake (Taihu) 1980 Courtesy David McCabe offset lithograph on colored paper with
Hall, Jean Pagliuso, Katy K., Bill Copley, memorial service, Brigid Berlin, John The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B Andy Warhol in the Silver Factory 1964 watercolour and ink on paper buckram board cover
Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Phyllis Kind, Joe Dakota, Michael Smith Richardson and Yoko Ono 1987 and Back Again) 1975 gelatin silver photograph Stockamp Tsai Collection, New York (p. 231) 23.2 x 14.9 x 0.5 cm
Westwood at the Factory, June 11, 1973 and William Wegman Published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Courtesy Billy Name Billy Name The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh;
1973 Episode 9: Tery Ferman, Rob Lowe, New York and London (p. 122) American 1940– Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy
black and white ½ inch reel-to-reel James Brown, Alexandra Condon, LA List of comparative works printed ink on paper with buckram board (p. 89, above) Ai Weiwei, Xu Bing, Zeng Xiaojun (editors) The Velvet Underground and Nico at the Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
video transferred to digital file, sound, II, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol, cover and printed, coated paper jacket Ai Weiwei Black Cover Book 1994 Dom 1966
14 min Darius Azari, Shaun Hausman, Eric (p. 7) 21.9 x 14.6 x 2.5 cm Whitewash 1993–2000 22.8 x 17.8 x 1.1 cm (closed) gelatin silver photograph (p. 267, below, right)
with Gerry Goldstein, Vivian Westwood, Goode, Christopher Goode, Joanna Seymour Rosen The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; M+ Sigg Collection, Hong Kong Ai Weiwei Studio Courtesy Billy Name Best in Children’s Books 33
Malcolm McClaren, Bob Colacello, Pat Fields, Lester Persky and C. David American 1935–2006 Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Andy Warhol illustrated Sophocles the Hyena,
Hackett, George Abagnalo and Jude Heyman Installation view of Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. (p. 89, below) (pp. 124–5) (p. 232) pp. 85–104, 1960
Jade Soup Cans, Ferus Gallery, Los Angeles, 1992 1998.3.2452.1a-b Fred W. McDarrah Ai Weiwei Andy Warhol’s Time Capsule 44 and its printed ink on paper with buckram board
Andy Warhol’s Fifteen Minutes 1985–87 Collection of SPACES – Saving and Andy Warhol stands amid his Campbell’s Remembering 2009 contents, 1973 cover
Andy Paying Bills, April 24, 1972 1972 colour 1 inch video transferred to digital file, Preserving Arts and Cultural Environments (p. 47) Tomato Juice Box installation at the Stable Haus der Kunst, Munich 2009 mixed archival material dating 1890–1973 21.6 × 14.6 × 1.6 cm
black and white ½ inch reel-to-reel sound, 30 min (each) Ai Weiwei’s Blog: Writings, Interviews, and Gallery (33 East 74th Street), New York, New Ai Weiwei Studio The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; The Andy Warhol Museum; Gift of Matt
video transferred to digital file, sound, Andy Warhol T.V. Productions for MTV (pp. 10–11) Digital Rants, 2006–2009 2011 York, April 21, 1964 Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Wrbican
10 min Network. Conceived by Andy Warhol. Ai Weiwei Edited and translated by Lee Ambrozy (p. 126, above) Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
Directed by Don Munroe. Produced by Chinese 1957– Published by MIT Press, Cambridge, MA (p. 90, above) Ai Weiwei (p. 268, above)
Patti D’Arbanville with Andy 1973 Vincent Fremont. Executive Director Andy Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn 1995 Billy Name Sunflower Seeds 2010 (p. 242) Andy Warhol
black and white ½ inch reel-to-reel Warhol. Associate Producer Fred Hughes. 3 gelatin silver photographs (pp. 52–3) American 1940– Installation at the Tate Modern, London, 2010 Collectibles from Andy Warhol’s collection Harlot 1964 (still)
video transferred to digital file, sound, Writers Don Monroe, Andy Warhol, Vincent 148.0 x 121.0 cm each (triptych) Ai Weiwei Exterior of the First Factory, 231 East 47th The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; 16mm film, black and white, sound, 66
34 min Fremont. Original music by Chris Stein. Ai Weiwei Studio Last Photo in the East Village 1994 Street 1964 (p. 126, below) Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy minutes
with Andy Warhol, Patti D’Arbanville, Announcer Debbie Harry from the Beijing Photographs series 1993–2001 gelatin silver photograph Ai Weiwei Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh;
Pat Hackett, Bob Colacello, Vincent The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh (p. 13) gelatin silver photograph Courtesy Billy Name Circle of Animals (in Bronze) 2010 Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy
Fremont and Archie Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Ai Weiwei Ai Weiwei Studio Installation at the São Paolo Biennial, São (p. 243) Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. Han Dynasty Urn with Coca-Cola Logo 1994 (p. 92) Paolo, 2010 Ai Weiwei
Lunch – Factory III, April 15 1975 paint, Han dynasty earthenware jar (p. 59) Allan McCollum Colour Test 2006 (detail) (p. 268, below)
black and white ½ inch reel-to-reel Pilot Ai Weiwei Studio Ai Weiwei American 1944– (p. 132, pp. 234–5) Pieces of Qing Dynasty temples and paint Andy Warhol
video transferred to digital file, sound, Nick Rhodes, Andy Warhol, Stephen Sunflower Seeds 2010 Over Ten Thousand Individual Works 1987–88 Ai Weiwei 44 pieces, dimensions variable Flyer (Andy Warhol presents Mario Montez as
32 min Sprouse, Debbie Harry, Ariane, Christiaan, (p. 26) Image courtesy Ai Weiwei Studio (detail) Fairytale: 1001 Qing Dynasty Wooden Chairs Ai Weiwei Studio Harlot) from Time Capsule 17 1965
with Angelo Donehia, Billy Baldwin, Michael McGale, Salvator Xuereb, Postcard, Andy Warhol holding a copy of a: a Installation at Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, 2007 printed ink on paper
The Lanes, Dahlia, Paloma Picasso, Katherine Hammond, Nick Camen, novel c. 1968 (p. 65) Eindhoven, Holland, 1989 Installation at Documenta 12, Kassel, (pp. 244–5) 27.9 × 21.6 cm
Marcel Berro, Leo Lerman, Nina Linda Mason, Smutty Smiff, Bryan The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Ai Weiwei acrylic enamel on cast hydroca Germany, 2007 Andy Warhol’s Time Capsules, The Andy The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh;
Farmanfarmaian, Jay Mellon, Chris Adams, Randal Krebs, Charlie Clough, Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Mirror 1987 5.08cm diameter, lengths variable, Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, 1994 Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy
Makos, Brigid Berlin, Pat Hackett, Dianne Brill, John O’Leary, Phoebe Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. from the New York Photographs series each unique The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
Ronnie Cutrone, Bob Colacello, Fred Cates, Ric Ocasek, Susan Hess, Tyler 1983–93 Courtesy the artist Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy
Hughes, Andy Warhol, Andre Leon Tally, K. Smith, the Apollo, Emanon Johnson, (p. 27) gelatin silver photograph Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
Peter Lester and Madeline Netter Ralph Cooper Senior, Howard B. Sims Ai Weiwei holding a copy of Weiwei-isms 2012 Ai Weiwei Studio
Senior (‘Sandman), Phyllis Yvonne Courtesy Larry Warsh

304 305
Principal Partner’s
At Mercedes-Benz we celebrate the convergence of art,
innovation and exceptional experiences. Therefore it is with Presented by Principal Partner

message
great pleasure that we support the National Gallery of Victoria’s
exhibition Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei, which celebrates the vision of
two defining artists of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Mercedes-Benz is proud to support the NGV in presenting
outstanding art of international significance.

Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei celebrates both artists’ foremost works.

The exhibition is an opportunity for Mercedes-Benz to again Major Partners Airline Partner Learning Partner

promote the incredible talent of Warhol, who forever captured

the iconic design of Mercedes-Benz vehicles in his Cars series,
1986–87. The new commissions and immersive installations
included in Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei align with the ambition of
Mercedes-Benz to offer the best in artful experiences of the
present and be at the forefront of future developments.

Mercedes-Benz is thrilled to be Principal Partner of a major

exhibition at the NGV for the ninth consecutive year. We trust Partner Major Donors
that you and your family will enjoy Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei and
this significant publication, which will provide testament to the
substance of the exhibition long after its conclusion.
Loti & Victor Smorgon Fund Vivien & Graham Knowles
Horst von Sanden
Managing Director, Mercedes-Benz Cars
Chief Executive Officer, Mercedes-Benz Australia/Pacific
Tourism and Media Partners

Supporters This exhibition is presented in conjunction with This project is supported in part by an award
from the National Endowment for the Arts

306 307
Acknowledgements
National Gallery of Victoria Misha Agzarian, Head of Fundraising and staff
Romina Calabro, Head of Corporate Partnerships and staff
Katherine Chien, Senior Coordinator, Corporate Partnerships

and contributors
Council of Trustees
Professor Su Baker Alice Crockett, Corporate Partnerships Officer
Leigh Clifford AO Holly Barbaro, Contractor
Dr Susan Cohn Marion Joseph, Senior Publicist and staff
Peter Edwards Sharon Wells, Media and Publicity Consultant
Lisa Gay Jane Zantuck, Head of Marketing and staff
Corbett Lyon Hilary Sadek, Senior Marketing Coordinator
Vicki Pearce Antonia Lawson, Events Manager and staff
Andrew Sisson Donna McColm, Head of Audience Engagement
Michael Ullmer Kate Ryan, The Truby and Florence Williams Curator of
Children’s Programs and staff
Executive management team Helen Creber, Senior Public Programmer and staff
Tony Ellwood, Director Samantha Potts, Front of House Manager and staff
Andrew Clark, Deputy Director Emily Miller, Senior Coordinator, NGV Members and staff
Dr Isobel Crombie, Assistant Director, Curatorial and Elisha Buttler, Senior Audience Engagement Officer
Collection Management Gina Panebianco, Head of Education and staff
Toby Newell, Manager, Retail Operations and Merchandise and staff
Curatorial team Sienna Thompson, Product Development Coordinator
Tony Ellwood, Director Trish Little, Cataloguer and staff
Andrew Clark, Deputy Director Joy Kremler, Cataloguing and Digitisation Officer
Dr Isobel Crombie, Assistant Director, Curatorial and Lucy Hastewell, Head of Assets, Facilities and Information
Collection Management Services and staff
Max Delany, Senior Curator, Contemporary Art Tony Henshaw, Manager, Facilities and staff
Don Heron, Head of Exhibitions Management, Design and David Brereton, IT Manager and staff
Multimedia Paul Lambrick, Financial Controller, Finance and staff
Alison Lee, Manager, Governance, Policy and Planning and staff
Project team Georgia Jones, Personal Assistant to the Deputy Director
Nicole Monteiro, Exhibitions Manager and staff Angela Baker, Human Resources Manager and staff
Claire Richardson, Senior Exhibition Coordinator Paul Reynolds, Manager, Library and staff
Ingrid Rhule, Manager, Exhibition Design Manager and staff
Mark Patullo, Senior Collection Designer Contemporary Art curatorial team
Peter King, Exhibition Designer Simon Maidment, Curator, Contemporary Art
Cherie Schweitzer, Exhibition Designer Jane Devery, Curator, Contemporary Art
Miguel Cochofel, Exhibition Graphic Designer Serena Bentley, Assistant Curator, Contemporary Art
Jackie Robinson, Manager, Graphic Design and staff Charlotte Cornish, Intern
Dirk Hiscock, Graphic Designer Simon Lawrie, Intern
Jasmin Chua, Publications Manager and staff Christopher Williams-Wynn, Intern
Nadiah Abdulrahim, Publications Coordinator
Mark Gomes, Editor The NGV also acknowledges the following individuals:
Michael Varcoe-Cocks, Head of Conservation and staff Melissa Castan, Deputy Director, Castan Centre for Human
Paula Nason, Coordinating Registrar, Exhibitions Rights Law, Monash University
Michael Burke, Manager, Art Services Professor Gerry Simpson, Kenneth Bailey Professor of Law,
Holli Taylor, Coordinator, Logistics and Collections Operations University of Melbourne
Sarah Stratton, Manager, Directorate and staff Professor Christopher Mackie, Professor of Public Scholarship,
Matthew Lim, Manager, Multimedia and staff School of Humanities and Social Sciences, La Trobe University
Timothy Hofman, Multimedia Technical Manager and staff Nur Shkembi, Curator, Islamic Museum of Australia
Rowan McNaught, Senior Web Designer Nick Henderson, Committee Member, Australian Lesbian and
Benjamin Walbrook, Senior Audiovisual Producer Gay Archives
Garry Sommerfeld, Manager, Photographic Services and staff Tom Nicholson
Justine Frost, Imaging Technician Emily Floyd
Philip White, Imaging Technician Michael Short, The Age

308 309
The Andy Warhol Museum Ai Weiwei Studio Contributors

This exhibition is made possible by the Leadership team Eleonora Brizi John J. Curley is Associate Professor of Art History at Wake
support of The Fine Foundation and the Eric Shiner, Director Chen Chao Forest University, Winston-Salem, United States, and author of
National Endowment for the Arts. Patrick Moore, Managing Director Cui Xing A Conspiracy of Images: Andy Warhol, Gerhard Richter, and the
Rachel Baron-Horn, Director of Finance and Operations Dong Ke Art of the Cold War (2013).
Board of Directors Karen Lautanen, Director of Development Gui Nuo
Michele Fabrizi (Board Chair) Maria Bernier, General Counsel Josh Harks Max Delany is Senior Curator, Contemporary Art, at the National
Judith M. Davenport Hu Xiaoxuan Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.
Randall S. Dearth Curatorial team Zeng Yilan
Ralph Goetz Bartholomew Ryan, The Milton Fine Curator of Art Jiang Li Caroline A. Jones is Professor of Art History at Massachusetts
Gail Hashimoto Jessica Beck, Assistant Curator of Art Tom Lau Chi Kan Institute of Technology, Cambridge, United States. Her books
Maureen B. Kerr Matt Wrbican, Chief Archivist Darryl Leung include Sensorium: Embodied Experience, Technology, and
Ann M. McGuinn Geralyn Huxley, Curator of Film and Video Li Dongxu Contemporary Art (as editor, 2006), Eyesight Alone: Clement
Jacqueline C. Morby Greg Pierce, Associate Curator of Film and Video Edmond Li Wing Tat Greenberg’s Modernism and the Bureaucratization of the Senses
Kathleen Patrinos Tresa E. Varner, Curator of Education & Interpretation Jennifer Ng (2005) and Machine in the Studio: Constructing the Postwar
Donna Peterman Nicole Dezelon, Associate Curator of Education Eric Gregory Powell American Artist (1996).
Jay Reeg Ben Harrison, Curator of Performing Arts Song Xiaojing
Susan Baker Shipley Siri Smith Gao Minglu is Research Professor, Contemporary Chinese
Dmitri D. Shiry Publications team Sun Mo Art, at the Henry Clay Frick Department of History of Art and
R. Damian Soffer Abigail Franzen-Sheehan, Director of Publications Kimberly Sung Architecture, University of Pittsburgh, United States.
Judith Evans Thomas Gregory J. Burchard, Senior Manager of Rights, Reproductions Jennifer Tran
Jamee W. Todd and Photographic Services Xu Ye Anna Poletti lectures in the Literary Studies program at Monash
Kiya Tomlin Signe Watson, Publications Intern University, Melbourne, and was recently a visiting researcher at
Larry Wasser The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh.
Doris Carson Williams Project team
Keny Marshall, Director of Exhibitions Eric Shiner is Director of The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh,
Emeriti Alissa Osial, Exhibitions Coordinator and a leading authority on Andy Warhol. He led The Warhol team
Milton Fine Amber Morgan, Director of Collections and Registration in creating Andy Warhol: 15 Minutes Eternal (2012–14), the largest
Vincent P. Fremont Caitlin Gongas and Sarah Patrello, Associate Registrars travelling exhibition of Warhol’s work in Asia.
Juliet Lea H. Simonds John Jacobs, Collections Associate
Erin Byrne, Lead Cataloger John Tancock received his PhD from the Courtauld Institute of
Ex Officio Kristen Britanik, Digital Project Manager Art, London, and is currently active as a curator and specialist in
William E. Hunt John Volocko, Scanning Technician contemporary Chinese art.
Jo Ellen Parker
Eric Shiner External affairs team Larry Warsh is a publisher and art collector and an early
Joel Wachs Rick Armstrong, Communications Manager champion of Ai Weiwei. He has collaborated on several
Jessica Warchall, Assistant Communications Manager significant projects with Ai, including the world tour of the Circle
Katie Watson, Visitor Services Manager of Animals series in 2011, and as editor of Weiwei-isms in 2012.
Paul Matarrese, Museum Store Manager
Donald Warhola, Liaison to the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Kathryn Weir directs the Cultural Development department of
Visual Arts the Centre Pompidou, Paris, whose interdisciplinary exhibitions
and programs cross contemporary art, film, dance, performance,
visual culture and contemporary ideas. She was a member of
the curatorium of the 5th, 6th and 7th Asia-Pacific Triennials at
Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, between
2006 and 2013, and her recent curatorial projects include
Sublime (2014–15), Tracey Moffatt: Spirited (2014) and Sculpture is
Everything (2012).

Matt Wrbican is Chief Archivist at The Andy Warhol Museum,

Pittsburgh, and an acknowledged authority on the Warhol
archives. In 2015 he curated Warhol by the Book and co-curated
Pearlstein, Warhol, Cantor: From Pittsburgh to New York and Andy
Warhol: Stars of the Silver Screen at The Andy Warhol Museum.

310 311
Published by the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, (pp. ii–iii)
in collaboration with The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh Nat Finkelstein
Andy with Spray Paint and Moped, The Factory,
First published in 2015 by New York City 1965
the Council of Trustees of Courtesy Estate of Nat Finkelstein
the National Gallery of Victoria
180 St Kilda Road (pp. iv–v)
Melbourne, Victoria 3004, Australia Ai Weiwei in studio, Beijing, 2006
www.ngv.vic.gov.au
(pp. viii–ix)
The Andy Warhol Museum Ai Weiwei
117 Sandusky Street Chandelier, 2015, installation view, Galleria Continua,
Pittsburgh, PA 15212 Beijing, 2015
United States of America
www.warhol.org (pp. xii–xiii)
Andy Warhol
This publication is copyright and all rights are reserved. American 1928–87
Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, Shadows 1978
no part may be reproduced or communicated to the public synthetic polymer paint on linen
by any process without prior written permission. Enquiries 198.1 x 350.5 cm
should be directed to the publisher. The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh
Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Warhol
© National Gallery of Victoria 2015 Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. (1998.1.229)

Published for the exhibition Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei, (front endpaper)

NGV International, 180 St Kilda Road, Melbourne, Andy Warhol
11 December 2015 – 24 April 2016, and The Andy Warhol Flowers 1970 (detail)
Museum, Pittsburgh, June – August 2016. colour screenprints on paper
(1–10) 91.4 x 91.4 cm (each)
Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei has been organised The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh
by the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Warhol
and The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh. Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. (1998.1.2395.1–10)

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry: Photography and copyright credits:

Title: Andy Warhol Ai Weiwei / Max Delany and Eric Shiner
(editors). Andy Warhol Artwork © 2015 The Andy Warhol Foundation
ISBN: 9780724104192 (paperback) for the Visual Arts, Inc./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New
Other contributors: York/ Licensed by Viscopy, except film-based works © The
John J. Curley, Caroline A. Jones, Gao Minglu, Anna Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, PA, a museum of Carnegie
Poletti, John Tancock, Larry Warsh, Kathryn Weir, Institute, all rights reserved.
Matt Wrbican.
Subjects: Warhol, Andy, 1928-1987. All Ai Weiwei works © Ai Weiwei
Ai, Weiwei, 1957-
Artists, American--20th century. All Andy Warhol images courtesy The Andy Warhol Museum,
Artists, Chinese--20th century. Pittsburgh, and all Ai Weiwei images courtesy Ai Weiwei
Artists, Chinese--21st century. Studio, unless stated otherwise:
Art, Modern--20th century.
Art, Modern--21st century. Mary Boone Gallery, New York p. 133; Bridgeman Images
Other Creators/Contributors: p. 97, 150; © courtesy Brant Publishing p. 40; © Dan Chung/
Delany, Max, editor. The Guardian p. 154; Delahunty Fine Art, London p. 72, 80, 81;
Shiner, Eric, editor. © Succession Marcel Duchamp. ADAGP/Licensed by Viscopy
Andy Warhol Museum. p. 97; © The Estate of Nat Finkelstein p. ii–iii, 76, 96;
National Gallery of Victoria. © William John Kennedy p. 44; Peter Macdiarmid/Getty
Dewey Number: Images p. 240; © Christopher Makos p. 74, 180; © David
759.07 McCabe pp. 106–7, 218; © Allan McCollum p. 92; Fred W.
McDarrah/Getty Images p. 89; © MIT Press p. 47; © Ugo
Mulas Heirs pp. 100–1, 108–9; © Billy Name, courtesy Lid
Publications Manager: Jasmin Chua Images p. 84, 90, 94, 231; National Gallery of Australia,
Publications Coordinator: Nadiah Abdulrahim Canberra p. 145, 149, 156–9, 204; Gilles Sabrie/Getty Images
Graphic Designer: Dirk Hiscock p. 126; © Leila Davies Singelis p. 66; © SPACES – Saving and
Editor: Mark Gomes Preserving Arts and Cultural Environments p. 7; Stockamp
Proofreader: Paige Amor Tsai Collection p. 121, 128–9; The John P. Robarts Library,
Pre-press: Justine Frost and Philip White University of Toronto p. 265; © Estate of Edward Wallowitch
Printed in Hong Kong by Australian Book Connection p. 256, 276–7; © Abby Warhola pp. 22–3, pp. 50–1; Images
Text stock: 157gsm Japanese White A and 160gsm Sun Uncoated courtesy The Andy Warhol Foundation p. 68, 70; Larry Warsh
p. 27, 126, 138–9
All reasonable efforts have been made to obtain permission to
use copyright material reproduced in this publication. In cases
where this has not been possible, owners are invited to notify
the Publications Department at the National Gallery of Victoria.

The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors

and do not necessarily reflect those of the National Gallery of
Victoria, The Andy Warhol Museum or the publisher.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

312