Link of Andy Warhols book

http://www.amazon.com/Cats-Name-Sam-Blue-Pussy/dp/039456930X



Book called Cats name same and one blue pussy

Initial Research on Postmoderism - 14th April

what is 'postmodernism', what is 'postmodernist'?

"Postmodernism can be read as modernism taken to its extremes - that is, its extremes of individuality in relation to market choice underpinned by the ever quickening pace of technological change. Rather than the individual acting under a principle of freedom as a critical reflective centre, individuality becames re-packaged for advertising advertising terms of life-style shopping under a principle of market choice where branding becomes more important than content. A feature of modernism, as succintly put by Marx and Engles in the Communist manifesto, was that 'all that is solid melts into air.' Where there had been stability, industrialisation brought change. where it had taken weeks to reach by walking, horse or sail, it took days or mere hours. With the telephone communication across continents became instantaneous. With the internet globalisation increased in pace, reach and complexity. What kind of art, philosophy, research is then appropriate to such conditions? Where postmodernism may be a term to describe contemporary social, economic, cultural and political conditions, a postmodernist perspective seeks to formulate approaches that are appropriate in some way to such conditions.

For Lytotard (1984) what characterises postmodernity is a skepticism or incredulity towards all 'grand narratives', or 'metanarratives', that is, narratives that claim to encompass everything and explain everything. If this is so, then Desartes is not only an architect of modernity through his systematic use of reason but also an architect of postmodernism in his methodical use of doubt towards all prior forms of knowledge, traditional beliefs and views concerning 'truth'. Thus any grand narrative about the purpose of History as progress towards the full realisation of Reason as the basis for a new world of 'freedom' is to be critiqued, whether it is ambitions of Science, Politics or the Economy to bring everything under its control, is to be critiqued as a form of totalitarianism:

One of the main features of postmodernist theory is its suspicion of (and in some cases direct hostility towards) Marxism as a radical theory of social explanation. As a 'mirror image' of capitalism, Marxism is attacked for its modernist assumptions of rationality, social coherence and 'productivism' (that is, its over-reliance on the model of production and the labour-process as an explanatory basis of social life), as well as for its 'macro-theoretical', universalising and totalising methods".

Source: http://www.enquirylearning.net/ELU/content%20resources/Postmod.html

Postmodern Research for Andy Warhol - 13th April

1. To THE BEST OF my knowledge, Andy Warhol never used the word postmodern. Nonetheless, he anticipated, and indeed helped to create, much of what we now mean by that word. In the 1960s, and until his death in 1987, Warhol manufactured a style and a sensibility. It's something he picked up from the culture around him, transmuted in the social and artistic laboratory that he called the Factory, and transmitted back to American culture at large. For this reason, Warhol and his work have an exemplary status, even a privileged one, when it comes to looking at the changes American culture underwent during the second half of the twentieth century. In what follows, I look at the meaning, or the redefinition, of emotion in the postmodern world. I do this, however, not by generalizing from Warhol as a particular case but by looking at him as closely as possible, in his singularity (which in part also means his queerness), and by constructing a narrative about how that singularity has become for us, today, a cultural "universal."

2. In his book The Philosophy of Andy Warhol, Warhol tells the following story: "During the 60s, I think, people forgot what emotions were supposed to be. And I don't think they've ever remembered. I think that once you see emotions from a certain angle you can never think of them as real again. That's what more or less has happened to me. I don't really know if I was ever capable of love, but after the 60s I never thought in terms of 'love' again." (1)

3. What happened during the 1960s? Who is to blame (or credit) for this state of affairs? Who killed the emotions that we used to think were real? Of course, the 1960s were a time of massive change, in America and in other parts of the world as well. In the United States it was the period of the civil rights movement, the women's and gay liberation movements, and the antiwar and anticolonialist movement, together with sweeping changes in sexual and domestic mores. As if to mirror these changes, right-wing social commentators still blame the decade for an alleged decline in social cohesiveness and values. The 1960s were also the time when Andy Warhol himself moved from being a commercial illustrator to being a world-class artist. The social scene around Warhol's Factory at the time is often taken to exemplify the excesses (for good or ill) of the decade.

Andy Warhol Music stuff - 12th April

The Exploding Plastic Inevitable, sometimes simply called Plastic Inevitable or EPI, was a series of multimedia events organized by Andy Warhol between 1966 and 1967, featuring musical performances by The Velvet Underground and Nico, screenings of Warhol’s films, and dancing and performances by regulars of Warhol’s Factory, especially Mary Woronov and Gerard Malanga. Andy Warhol’s Exploding Plastic Inevitable is also the title of a 18 minute film by Ronald Nameth with recordings from one week of performances of the shows which were filmed in Chicago, Illinois in 1966. In December 1966 Warhol included a one-off underground magazine called The Plastic Exploding Inevitable as part of the Aspen No. 3 package.

The Exploding Plastic Inevitable had its roots in an event staged on January 13, 1966 at a dinner for the New York Society for Clinical Psychiatry. This event, called “Up-Tight”, included performances by The Velvet Underground and Nico, along with Malanga and Edie Sedgwick as dancers. Inaugural shows were held at the Dom in New York City in April 1966, advertised in The Village Voice as follows: “The Silver Dream Factory Presents The Exploding Plastic Inevitable with Andy Warhol/The Velvet Underground/and Nico. Shows were also held in The Gymnasium in New York and in various cities throughout the United States.



Source: http://youandianddominoes.wordpress.com/2009/04/28/the-velvet-underground-nico-exploding-plastic-inevitable/

Andy Warhol More Album Covers - 11th April

February 08, 2009|By Aidin Vaziri, Chronicle Pop Music Critic

Andy Warhol may be most famous for silk-screening soup cans, making boring home movies and getting shot, but some of the late artist's most popular work probably resides in your record collection. Warhol's iconic images grace no less than 50 album covers, ranging from obscure jazz and spoken-word titles to seminal pop albums by the Velvet Underground, the Rolling Stones, Diana Ross, the Smiths and Aretha Franklin. To celebrate the "Warhol Live" retrospective that opens Saturday and runs through May 17 at the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, we have a look at some of his finest forays into the LP rack.

The Joe Newman Octet: "I'm Still Swinging"

(1956) While Warhol's quirky ink drawings started appearing on classical and world-music albums as early as 1949, it wasn't until he started getting commissioned jazz covers for Count Basie and Artie Shaw that his sly sensibility came to the surface. This one, for trumpet soloist Joe Newman, contains one of Warhol's earliest attempts at collage art, even if it was done simply to please the suits at RCA, who were used to seeing their musicians' pictures on album sleeves.

Kenny Burrell: "Blue Lights, Volumes 1 and 2"

(1958) With this two-volume Blue Note set by guitarist Kenny Burrell, Warhol finally broke away from simply drawing close-ups of musicians and their instruments and delivered a piece of art as evocative as the music inside. Among the curves and dips, it also reveled in his long-running fetish for high heels.

"The Velvet Underground & Nico"

(1967) Warhol's biggest artistic statement in the music world echoed the Campbell's soup cans that made him famous. He once again takes an ordinary item from the grocery store and blows it up bigger than life with dramatic results. On first printings, fans who followed the instructions to "peel slowly and see" by removing the banana-skin sticker were rewarded with an image of the fruit inside. Better still, while the cover prominently featured Warhol's name, there was no mention of the band anywhere, which could explain why, before it became recognized as such a coveted piece of rock history, the album sold just 5,000 copies.

The Rolling Stones: "Sticky Fingers"

Source: http://articles.sfgate.com/2009-02-08/entertainment/17187065_1_andy-warhol-soup-cans-drawings

Andy Warhol Biography - 10th April

This is a Biography I found on the Internet which had alot of breif information of Andy Warhol, thought it might be useful

Source: http://www.warhol.org/education/pdfs/biography.pdf



Andy Warhol: A Biography

Youth
Andy Warhol was born in 1928 in the industrial city of Pittsburgh. His parents had emigrated from the Carpathian Mountain Region of what is now the Slovak Republic. Warhol attended the Pittsburgh public schools and participated in Saturday morning art classes at Carnegie Institute. His mother encouraged her son’s childhood artistic inclinations. At the age of 17 he was accepted at Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University). He enrolled in the Department of Painting and Design, where he was introduced to skills he would use throughout his working life.

Commercial Art
After graduating from Carnegie Tech in 1949, Warhol moved to New York City and established a career as an illustrator. His drawings were reproduced in fashionable magazines and newspapers. His business expanded quickly, and he recruited assistants, including his mother, who had moved to New York City to live with him. Even though he won design awards and financial reward in the commercial art world, he wanted to be recognized as a fine artist. In the 1950s, fine art such as painting was appreciated for its expressive or inspirational powers, whereas commercial art was valued for its ability to sell products.

Pop Art and the 1960s
In the 1960s, Warhol became known as a Pop Artist. Pop Artists painted people, places and things that Americans saw every day – things that were popular, such as movie stars, food and pictures from the newspaper. Warhol began making fine art directly based on products and advertisements in the late 1950s. He often created multiple paintings or sculptures of the same object. In 1962, he began using a silkscreen process that allowed him to repeat images easily, often on a single canvas.
Warhol’s studio, which he called the “Factory,” became a hangout for poets, musicians, actors and interesting characters. Instead of being distracted by the activity around him, Warhol used the excitement and stream of people to make art and films. He documented the frequent gatherings of beautiful young men and women in film, photography and audiotape. The openness of the Factory came to an abrupt and frightening end in 1968 when Warhol was shot and critically wounded by a visitor.

Late ‘60s and 1970s
After recovering from the attempt on his life, Warhol shifted his focus to a safer crowd of entertainment personalities, fashion moguls and wealthy society beauties. In 1969, he created Interview magazine. The magazine began as a film journal and eventually became a means for him to meet, photograph and interview music celebrities, Hollywood actors and famous athletes. He also painted commissioned portraits of these rich and famous people. Over the course of his career, Warhol used all manner of photographic sources, from film stills to instant photo booth strips, Polaroids, and much later, medical CAT scans.

“Business Art”
When Warhol moved his studio in 1974, he began making Time Capsules, which were cardboard boxes he filled with significant and insignificant mail, messages, souvenirs, and other odds and ends. The boxes were sealed, dated and stored when Warhol decided they were complete. He continued the project until his death in 1987.
Around this time Warhol stopped calling the studio the Factory and began referring to it as the office. He once said, “Business art is the step that comes after art. I started as a commercial artist, and I want to finish as a business artist.” Warhol’s honesty scandalized those with the traditional attitude that considerations of money pollute the purity of art. In the 1980s, Warhol worked on projects for broadcast television, including a regular series on MTV called “Andy Warhol’s Fifteen Minutes.” He also began a new career as a model, endorsing products in print and television ads.

Final Years
Despite his numerous public guises, Andy Warhol the artist continued to make serious art throughout his life. In the 1980s, he returned to hand painting and looked again to commercial imagery and to art history for his subject matter. Collaborations with much younger artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat and Francesco Clemente allowed new, raw expression to enter his art. Andy Warhol died in 1987 as the result of complications following gall bladder surgery.

Films of Andy Warhol : Empire - 8th April

Empire was filmed on the night of July 25-26 from 8:06 pm to 2:42 am, from the offices of the Rockefeller Foundation on the 41st floor of the Time-Life building. According to Gerard 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."

Source: http://www.warholstars.org/filmch/empire.html

Films of Andy Warhol : Sleep - 8th April

Sleep was Andy Warhol's first film. According to Gerard Malanga, Warhol had mentioned to him an idea for making a film of Brigitte Bardot sleeping for eight hours before Warhol actually owned a movie camera. (GMW39)

Although planned as an eight-hour-long movie, Sleep was actually made by looping some of the footage. In Popism, Warhol admits that "I hadn't actually shot that much". This was partially due to the limitiations of his Bolex movie camera which could only shoot 3 - 4 minute lengths of film before requiring reloading. According to Gerard Malanga, "Sleep runs approximately six-and-a-half hours of equivalent shooting time. Andy duplicated an additional ninety minutes from an equal ninety-minute section of the film to stretch it out to eight hours to approximate the scientifically accepted length of time for normal sleep.

Source: http://www.warholstars.org/filmch/sleep.html

What is Pop Art - 7th April

The term "Pop Art" emerged from the pen of English critic Lawrence Alloway in the 1950s to describe what he viewed as a contemporary attitudinal shift in subject matter and techniques of art. Instead of rarefied content like Bible stories, myths, or legends that had traditionally been the subjects of Fine Art, Pop Art saw the increasing spread of corporate marketing through western culture as inspiration to take itself as the subject of artistic scrutiny — and that it was every bit as artistically worthy.

Beginning in England in the mid-1950s and America in early 1960s, Pop Art focused on everyday objects rendered through an adoption of commercial art techniques. In so doing, artists availed themselves of images and ideas culled from popular culture — i.e., movies, comic books, advertising, and especially, television — faithfully reproduced in all their mass produced glory. By making use of what had been dismissed as "kitsch" by the art establishment, Pop artists whose works were displayed in museums effectively thumbed their collective noses at the distinctions between "highbrow" and "lowbrow" art.

Source: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-pop-art.htm

Different Album Covers - 6th April

These are a few of Andy Warhol's album covers he has made during his working life, from some really famous people like John Lennon, to some which i personally have never heard of.

Rolling Stones

Marilyn Monroe

Dana Gillespie

Count Basie

Diana Ross

John Lennon

Andy Warhol Album Covers - 5th April

Andy Warhol is more well known for his popart, but he has also designed album covers for many a different band and solo artist.

Some of the late artist's most popular work probably resides in peoples record collection. Warhol's imagesare on no less than 50 album covers, ranging from jazz and spoken-word titles to pop albums by the Velvet Underground, the Rolling Stones, Diana Ross, the Smiths and Aretha Franklin.

(1956) While Warhol's ink drawings started appearing on classical and world-music albums as early as 1949, it wasn't until he started getting commissioned jazz covers for Count Basie and Artie Shaw that his sly sensibility came to the surface. This one, for trumpet soloist Joe Newman, contains one of Warhol's earliest attempts at collage art, even if it was done simply to please the suits at RCA, who were used to seeing their musicians' pictures on album sleeves.



Source: http://articles.sfgate.com/2009-02-08/entertainment/17187065_1_andy-warhol-soup-cans-drawings

Early Career - 5th April

Today I plan to look and Andy Warhols early life and to start to look at his artwork in more detail and how this made him famous and open up more career paths to the artist.

Warhol showed early talent and studied commercial art at the School of Fine Arts at Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 1949, he moved to New York City and began a career in magazine drawing and advertising. During the 1950s, he gained fame for his ink drawings of shoe advertisements. These were done in a blotted-ink style, and figured in some of his earliest showings at the Bodley Gallery in New York. With the rapid expansion of the record industry and the introduction of the vinyl record, Hi-Fi, and stereophonic recordings, RCA Records hired Warhol, along with another freelance artist, Sid Maurer, to design album covers and promotional materials.

Andy Warhols Personal Life - 4th April

The details of Warhol’s personal history are somewhata mystery. Most of his biographers agree that he was born on August 6, 1928, although some say 1927, 1930, or 1931. Warholonce said, “I never give my background, and anyway, I make it all up differently every time I’m asked.” His father, Ondrej Warhola, arrived in the United States from Czechoslovakia in 1912, and in 1921 he sent for Warhol’s mother, Julia (Zavacky) Warhola. Ondrej Warhola did construction work at first, then later toiled as a coal miner.

Andy Warhol was a high-strung child who suffered from St. Vitus’ Dance, a nervous disorder characterized by a lack of coordination and spastic movements of the arms, legs, and facial muscles. His physical frailty and extremely pale complexion made him a target of abuse and cruel teasing from his peers. When he was 14 years old, his father died. Despite the financial hardship this caused, Warhol was able to come up with the tuition money to attend the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie-Mellon University), where he majored in pictorial design. It was while he was still a student that he made his first mark in the world of art with a shocking painting titled, “The Broad Gave Me My Face, But I Can Pick My Own Nose.”

Source: http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/articles/pages/6391/Warhol-Andy.html

Gathering intial infromation - 3rd April

Today is all about initial research on Andy Warhol, I need this background information on him to make a start on his life as a whole, such as where he grew up and what made him become the person who was and still is so famous.


Andy Warhol, who was born 6th August 1920, was an American painter, print maker and film maker. he was a leading figure in the visual art movement know as popart. One of his pieces has fetched over $100 million.

Andy Warhol was born in Pennsylvania Pittsburgh where he attended the college at the school of fine art. He studied commercial art.

He was known worldwide for his work as a painter, as well as a filmmaker, record producer and author.

His original name was Andrew Worhola, but he changed his name to Worhol after Glamour Magazine published his name without the a, his last name Worhola is Czech.




SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Warhol

Investigation Project

For my investigation Project I am researching the practitioner Andy Warhol, and about what different disciplines in the media he worked in.

Choosing Pratitoners 2 - 2st April

Source www.wikipedia.com (for outline of practitioners)

During the first initial weeks of this project, we where given Different practitioners to study on to help us get an understanding of what kind of person we need to look for. These where:

Frank Miller:

Outline of what he does:

Frank Miller is an American writer, artist and film director best known for his dark, film noir-style comic book stories and graphic novels Ronin, Daredevil: Born Again, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Sin City and 300. He recently directed the film version of The Spirit, shared directing duties with Robert Rodriguez on Sin City and produced the film 300.

We just looked into his different media industries and talked about him in class.

Jeffrey Lewis

Jeffrey Lewis is an American anti-folk singer/songwriter and comic book artist.

we looked at what kinds of things he would sing about. He is well known for his performances of his artwork. he would draw a story before the gig, then show the pictures while singing about them.

He has done low budget Documentaries in drawings. He started doing them on old Record Labels.

He also draws comics.

Choosing Pratitoners 1 - 1st April

July - 2009 - Different Pratitioners

Source www.wikipedia.com (for outline of practitioners)

During the first initial weeks of this project, we where given Different practitioners to study on to help us get an understanding of what kind of person we need to look for. These where:

Frank Miller:

Outline of what he does:

Frank Miller is an American writer, artist and film director best known for his dark, film noir-style comic book stories and graphic novels Ronin, Daredevil: Born Again, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Sin City and 300. He recently directed the film version of The Spirit, shared directing duties with Robert Rodriguez on Sin City and produced the film 300.

We just looked into his different media industries and talked about him in class.

Jeffrey Lewis

Jeffrey Lewis is an American anti-folk singer/songwriter and comic book artist.

we looked at what kinds of things he would sing about. He is well known for his performances of his artwork. he would draw a story before the gig, then show the pictures while singing about them.

He has done low budget Documentaries in drawings. He started doing them on old Record Labels.

He also draws comics.

Initial Research 31st March

In July we started our investigation task.

We first did some initial research on Practitioners that fit more then one media industry, such as music and artwork or tv/films which other specific types.

At first i was confused as to what industry was which as i first thought that being an Director and producer put them in 2 different media industry. i was told this was wrong.

During this time I looked at J. J Abrams, who I thought would be a good candidate for this project, I then found out he has only technically worked in 1 industry so i quickly ruled him out.