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Description: Andy Warhol Screen Tests: The Films of Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonné, Vol. 1
~The Warhol Film Project was the brainchild of John G. Hanhardt, formerly curator and head of film and video at the Whitney Museum of American Art and now chief curator of media at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. I would like to express my personal gratitude to John Hanhardt for his vision and persistence during the initial years of this project, for his...
PublisherYale University Press
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Acknowledgments
The Warhol Film Project was the brainchild of John G. Hanhardt, formerly curator and head of film and video at the Whitney Museum of American Art and now chief curator of media at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. I would like to express my personal gratitude to John Hanhardt for his vision and persistence during the initial years of this project, for his excellent advice, and for having given me one of the most interesting jobs in the world.
My colleagues at The Museum of Modern Art receive the greatest credit and congratulations for their work in preserving and restoring the Warhol films, as well as my deep appreciation for the unhesitating assistance and unprecedented access they have extended to the catalogue raisonné project over the years. I am indebted to Mary Lea Bandy, Celeste Bartos chief curator of film and media, for her decisive leadership and unwavering support. Peter Williamson, film conservator, has overseen the lab work on the restored titles; his technical expertise and his meticulousness have been real assets for Warhol’s cinema, obvious in the beauty of the new prints. Jon Gartenberg, former assistant curator, handled the initial cataloguing of the Warhol Film Collection and has maintained an enthusiastic interest in the films ever since. I would like to thank Artie Wehrhahn, vault manager, as well as Mary Keene, John Weidner, Phyllis Monahan, Dave Freidman, and the entire staff of MoMA’s Celeste Bartos Film Preservation Center for their kind assistance and hospitality during the months spent viewing, cataloguing, and photographing the Warhol Film Collection at their facility in Pennsylvania. I would also like to express my gratitude to a number of other MoMA colleagues for their help and facilitations: Stephen Higgins, curator, Anne Morra, assistant curator, Larry Kardish, senior curator, and Charles Silver, associate curator of research and collections; Kitty Cleary, Brian Coffey, and Bill Sloan of MoMA’s Circulating Film Library, Greg Singer, projectionist, and Don Finnamore, archival editor. John Johnson, senior film cataloguer, was an avid fan of the Warhol films and a valued friend; this volume is dedicated to his memory.
This project would not have been possible without the support and cooperation of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc., which has generously funded both the catalogue raisonné project at the Whitney and the preservation of the films by MoMA. Archibald L. Gillies, former president of the Warhol Foundation, has been a wonderfully enthusiastic advocate for this project; the current president, Joel Wachs, has been no less supportive and encouraging. The late Frederick W. Hughes, chairman emeritus, was a key supporter of the Warhol Film Project. Vincent Fremont was also a great help during the research phase of this project, especially in facilitating access to Warhol’s business papers. Pamela Clapp, program director, has been a steadfast source of encouragement for this book and its author; I would like to thank her personally for her level-headed guidance, her patience, and her support. I would also like to thank Eileen Clancy, former director of film and video at the Warhol Foundation, for her energetic work on behalf of the films and in support of this project; in 1997, Eileen organized the donation and transfer of all of Warhol’s film materials to The Museum of Modern Art, as well as the donation of the film rights to The Andy Warhol Museum. The early inventories and cataloguing of the Warhol films initially held by the Warhol Foundation were conducted by Mirra Bank Brockman, Terry Irwin, and Adrian Marin; Paul Morrissey provided crucial assistance in identifying reels. Emily Todd, former program officer, Dara Meyers-Kingsley, former director of the film and video collections, and Jane Rubin, former administrator of the collections, also gave important assistance to this project. I would also like to thank Timothy Hunt, sales agent for prints and photography; Claudia Defendi, chief curator and curator of prints; Martin Cribbs, former licensing director; Yona Backer, program officer; K. C. Maurer, chief financial officer; Scott Ferguson, collections management; and Heloise Goodman, William Ganis, and Jim Hubbard for their collegiality and for the myriad acts of assistance, both large and small, they have given to the work of this project over the years.
I would like to express my personal appreciation to two valued colleagues at the Warhol Foundation, Neil Printz and Sally King-Nero, respectively editor and executive editor of the catalogue raisonné of Warhol’s paintings and sculpture. Fellow Warholists, we have spent many hours in detailed discussions of Warhol’s work and history, trading information and ideas, commiserating on the difficulties of our work, and sharing its pleasures. Neil Printz has been a particularly inspiring friend; he was the first to read the manuscript, for which he offered many helpful suggestions and corrections, and his influence can be found throughout this text.
The Warhol Film Project at the Whitney is immensely indebted to the staff of The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh for its assistance and support over many years of research. Matt Wrbican, assistant archivist, has been unfailingly accommodating and cheerful in providing access to the Warhol Time Capsules and other primary materials in the Archives Study Center at the Warhol Museum. Matt’s amazingly detailed knowledge of Warhol’s life, work, and papers is unsurpassed on this planet; both he and John Smith, archivist, have been great assets to me and to many other Warhol scholars as well. Geralyn Huxley, curator of film and video, and Greg Pierce, film and video technician, have been valued colleagues; I want to express my gratitude to them for their support and enthusiasm. I would also like to thank Tom Sokolowski, director of the Warhol Museum, for his graciousness and his advocacy, and give a special note of thanks to three former members of the museum’s staff, Margery King, Mark Francis, and Richard Hellinger.
At the Warhol Film Project at the Whitney Museum, I have been fortunate to work with exceptionally gifted and dedicated assistants, to whom I owe a great debt. Matthew Buckingham, research assistant, helped to collect, collate, and organize large portions of primary research at both the Archives Study Center of The Andy Warhol Museum and MoMA’s Celeste Bartos Film Preservation Center; he also designed and built the unique camera stand used to make the frame enlargements from the Warhol films, and then photographed most of the preserved films for the catalogue raisonné. Luke Sieczek, photography coordinator, completed the photography of Warhol’s unrestored camera originals at MoMA’s Film Preservation Center, developing an uncanny ability to extract beautiful frame enlargements from films he was able to see only on rewinds. Amy Herzog, curatorial assistant, created the database used to organize the Warhol film materials for the catalogue raisonné; she also researched the digital reproduction of the film images for publication, transformed vast quantities of cataloguing data into manuscript, completed exhibition histories for a number of the films, and read this manuscript in its early stages. Lauren Cornell, curatorial assistant, has continued Amy Herzog’s work, including supervision of digital scanning, compilation of illustrations for the catalogue, fact-checking, proofreading, and seeing the manuscript through its final phases into publication. I have also been lucky to have a number of talented interns who generously volunteered their time to help with the work of this project; my grateful thanks go to Andrew Cappetta, Allison Chapas, Steven Freid, Roy Grundmann, Erin Kenny, Jean Yen-chun Ma, Eliot Nolen, Christiana Perella, and Gretchen Skogerson.
My valued colleagues, both current and former, at the Whitney Museum of American Art have assisted the Warhol Film Project through all its phases. I particularly want to thank the Alice Pratt Brown directors, David A. Ross, Maxwell L. Anderson, and especially Adam D. Weinberg, for their encouragement. Special thanks goes to Willard Holmes, former deputy director, for heroic assistance in the arena of administration. Chrissie Iles, curator and fellow Warhol fan, has been an enthusiastic champion of the catalogue raisonné project, as has Henriette Huldisch, assistant curator. The staff of the former film and video department have been indispensable allies as well; many thanks to Richard Bloes, Gary Carrion-Murayari, Nathalie Dubuque, Christopher Eamon, Lucinda Furlong, Mindy Krazmien, Tanya Leighton, Deborah Meehan, Glenn Phillips, Maria-Christina Villaseñor, and Matthew Yokobosky. Much appreciation goes to Mary DelMonico, Anita Duquette, Kate Norment, Sheila Schwartz, Dale Tucker, Makiko Ushiba, Nerissa Vales, Garrett White, Rachel Wixom, and all the staff in the museum’s publications department for their encouragement and help. And I would like to acknowledge the following Whitney colleagues, past and present, for their expertise and their kind support: Randy Alexander, Hillary Blass, May Castleberry, Martha Coletar, Susan Courtemanche, Steve Dennin, Adrienne Edwards, Bridget Elias, Scott Elkins, Thelma Golden, Peter Guss, Barbara Haskell, Mary Haus, Nick Holmes, Sang Lee, Carol Mancusi-Ungaro, Dana Miller, Nelson Ortiz, Jane Otto, Kathryn Potts, Marla Prather, Suzanne Quigley, Veronica Roberts, Larry Rinder, Debbie Rowe, Carol Rusk, Paul Sharpe, Joan Simon, Stephen Soba, Susan Spencer-Crowe, Elisabeth Sussman, Elvin Topac, Eugenie Tsai, and Alexandra Wheeler.
Thanks also to the staff and librarians at Anthology Film Archives, the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library at Columbia University, the Billy Rose Theatre Collection at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, and the Mid-Manhattan Library.
Foremost among the many Warhol colleagues and contemporaries who assisted with the research into the Screen Tests, I want to thank Billy Name (Linich), whose generous spirit, steadfast support, and profound understanding of Warhol and his films have been a fount of wisdom and encouragement for this project for many years. Gerard Malanga was exceptionally helpful in delineating the history of this film series and identifying individual Screen Tests. Joe Campbell, Bibbe Hansen, Bob Heide, Allen Midgette, and Ronald Tavel have also been especially generous with their time and memories. A great many other people were kind enough to provide information or share their recollections of the 1960s with me at one point or another, and I want to thank all who contributed to this volume, including anyone inadvertently left off this list: Olga Adorno, Eric Andersen, Marty Andrews, Steve Balkin, Timothy Baum, Irving Blum, Randy Bourscheidt, John Cale, Katha Dees Casey, Lawrence Casey, Lucinda Childs, David Dalton, Walter De Maria, Isabel Eberstadt, Nicholas Ekstrom, Kenward Elmslie, Marisol Escobar, Rosebud Felieu-Pettet, Julie Finch, Nat Finkelstein, Eileen Ford, Megan Sermoneta Friedman, Henry Geldzahler, John Gilman, Allen Ginsberg, Grace Glueck, Samuel Adams Green, John Gruen, Pat Hackett, Pat Hartley, Stephen Holden, Jane Holzer, Dale Joe, Ray Johnson, Ivan Karp, Celene Keller, Billy Klüver, Frederick Kraushar, Kenneth Jay Lane, Sarah Dalton Legon, David McCabe, Fred McDarrah, Taylor Mead, Jonas Mekas, François de Menil, Edgar Munhall, Ron Padgett, John Palmer, Robert Pincus-Witten, James Rosenquist, Bruce Rudow, Edita Sherman, Stephen Shore, Harold Stevenson, Tony Towle, Maureen Tucker, Ultra Violet, Amos Vogel, Chuck Wein, Jane Wilson, Susanna De Maria Wilson, Mary Woronov, and Marian Zazeela.
This book and its author have been enriched by interactions with the by-now worldwide network of Warhol scholars, critics, historians, curators, writers, collectors, and other enthusiasts. In particular, I am grateful to Ochiishi Augustmoon, Fred Camper, Douglas Crimp, Jennifer Doyle, Jonathan Flatley, Peter Gidal, Jim Hoberman, Branden W. Joseph, David James, Wayne Koestenbaum, Tan Lin, Jay Reeg, Esther Robinson, Keith Sanborn, P. Adams Sitney, Amy Taubin, Lynne Tillman, Steven Watson, and Reva Wolf for their insights, intelligence, and support. The work of many academics, curators, and writers has been an important resource for the Warhol Film Project; in particular, and in lieu of a bibliography in this volume, I want to acknowledge the contributions made by Paul Arthur, Nicholas Baume, Yann Beauvais, Victor Bockris, Bradford Collins, Gary Comenas, Erin Cramer, David Curtis, Donna de Salvo, Trevor Fairbrother, Paul B. Franklin, Kenneth Goldsmith, Vivienne Greene, Roy Grundmann, Juan Guardiola, Pat Hackett, Bill Horrigan, David Joselit, Stephen Koch, Margia Kramer, Olivier Landemaine, Miles McKane, Richard Meyer, Annette Michelson, Debra Miller, Michael O’Pray, Carel Rowe, Steve Seid, Marc Siegel, Art Simon, Patrick Smith, Eric Thiese, Matthew Tinkcom, Tom Waugh, and Mark Webber.
I also want to express my gratitude to the many people who gave assistance to this project in ways too varied and numerous to enumerate here: Richard Abate, Peggy Ahwesh, Richard Barsam, Robert Beavers, Jennifer Berman, Sarah Boxer, Blake Boyd, Valerie Breuvart, Adelaide de Menil Carpenter, Melissa Casey, Miles Champion, James Dowell, Nuria Enguita, Simon Field, Charles Griemsman, Robert Haller, Pablo Helguera, David Hunter, Fredericka Hunter, Stanley Jensen, Francene Keery, Lauren Kern, L. Brandon Krall, James Kruel, Audrey Kupferberg, Kevin Kushel, Ed Leffingwell, Karin Lemstrom-Sheedy, Tom Levin, Saul Levine, Micah Lexier, Jane Lombard, Janice Londraville, Gregory Mair, Dan Marmostein, Anthony McCall, Gillian McCain, Legs McNeil, Patrick Moore, Jose Muñoz, Kay Murray, Vance Muse, Akio Obigane, Edward Oleksak, Doris Palca, Irene J. Patrick, Beatrice Phear, Tony Pipolo, Amos Poe, Robert Polito, Richard Polsky, Richard J. Powell, Donald L. Rheem III, Tiavi Rudow, Paul Ryan, Mark Zane Safron, Joel Samburg, Andrew Sayers, Tony Scherman, Ed Schott, Mark Schwartz, Jonathan Scull, M.M. Serra, Judith Stein, David Sterritt, Dan Streible, Jerry Tartaglia, Amanda Urban, David Watson, Dewey Webb, Joan Weakley, Thea Westreich, Nadia Williams, Mitchell Woo, and Andrew Wylie. Special thanks for legal advice to Ellis Levine, John Thomas, John Delaney, Michael Stout, and Kay Murray. Ken Taranto and Beata Jacubek did a wonderful job creating the high resolution digital scans used in this publication; I would like to thank them for their expertise and their patience. Miko McGinty, the designer of this book, made important contributions to the organization and clarity of its contents; I am grateful to her and to her assistants, Rita Jules and Tina Henderson, for their beautiful work. I would also like to thank Eric Himmel, Deborah Aaronson, Dorothy Fink, and the rest of the staff at Harry N. Abrams for their enthusiasm and for their work on this publication.
Finally, I want to express my gratitude to friends and family who have provided encouragement and support during my years of work on the catalogue raisonné: Alice Angell, Roger and Carol Angell, Richard Bloes, Elliot Caplan, Nikki Di Franks, Christopher Eamon, Roy Grundmann, Branden Joseph, Steve Kokker, Deborah Meehan, Leanne Mella, Barbara Niemczyk, Neil Printz, Kariska Puchalski, Esther Robinson, Felicity Scott, Gretchen Skogerson, Gordon Stewart, and my late mother and stepfather, Evelyn Nelson and Clifford Nelson.
Acknowledgments
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