Me and Andy

Andy died and stopped taking my calls, but an autobiography of sorts came with the exhibition of his self-portraits.

The galleries succeed in chronological order, starting with offensively blank sketches of a nose-picking boy and finishing with the blazing 1986 self-portraits with fright-wig. The linking corridor contains polaroid and photobooth images and his books.










It's only in his latter screenprint portraits (1981 on) that Andy faces the camera, canvas or viewer face-on and unobscured by sunglasses, shadows or maximum-contrast to soften or abstract his gaze. Andy's gaze, finally encountered, shocks wit its emptiness and deadness. In one full-figure, bleached-out painting he's a blank, idiot, frozen marionette.

The last, most honest and visceral self-portraits slather paints through screens, and further smear the image with a slashing implement. Andy appears in a mad perverse fright wig, a bone structure cast in relief by age and pain, and equipped with that unblinking stare. His exposed face has a hunted, trapped-in-the-headlights look.




Andy always claimed to be 'deeply superficial' and deflected attempts to seek meaning or authenticity behind his images. His critics who have him an exploiter of raw talent missed the point. After his near-fatal shooting by Valerie Solanis in 1968, this practising Catholic lived 20 years in pain and alienation, a story told in his diaries and the lines of his raw-boned face. Some of this is documented in Victor Bockris' biography of Andy, written with the benefit of Andy's diaries.

John Cale and Lou Reed collaborated on a simple memorium to Andy in Songs for Drella, one of which below.

Open House

Please
Come over to 81st street I'm in the apartment above the bar
You know you can't miss it, it's across from the subway
and the tacky store with the Mylar scarves

My skin's as pale as outdoors moon
My hair's silver like a Tiffany watch
I like lots of people around me but don't kiss hello
And please don't touch

It's a Czechoslovakian custom my mother passed on to me
The way to make friends Andy is invite them up for tea
Open house, open house

I've got a lot of cats, here's my favorite
She's lady called Sam
I made a paper doll of her - you can have it
That's what I did when I had St.Vitus dance

It's a Czechoslovakian custom my mother passed on to me
Give people little presents so they remember me
Open house, open house....

This is about 1975/6, Andy still an inveterate starfucker, and one of my favourite of his celeb portraits.