Extending his 15 minutes of fame: why Andy Warhol still has the power to inspire
When he appears in Nicole Flattery's recently published novel Nothing Special, Andy Warhol is a spectral presence. "I never saw him enter but I felt the atmosphere change when he did," writes Flattery from the watchful perspective of the book's teenage narrator.
The Coming A novel for adults set in the mid-1960s, with some flashes to the present, follows Mae, a lonely teenager who drops out of school after finding herself drawn into the new world of the notorious factory of Warhol in Manhattan. While artistry, drama, and debauchery happen around her between the artist and her bandmates, Mae has the more prosaic craft of a typist. She transcribed recordings of conversations that would form the basis of a: A Novel, Warhol's (true) experimental book from 1968.
"I I feel things work out if you don't see that person often," Flattery says of his version of Warhol. "It's in their interest to stay out of your line of sight. They will only have power if they make themselves a distant and inaccessible figure. it is omnipresent in the public imagination. In fact, his recent obsession with theater, film, and books can make you feel like you're never more than 6 feet away from a Warhol-related event.
Opening March 31 at London's Fashion and Textile Museum is Andy Warhol: The Textiles, a survey of his lesser-seen textile designs made when he was a successful commercial artist in the 1950s and early 1960s. In April, the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris will open an exhibition of the mid-century paintings 1980s that he made with Jean-Michel Basquiat. Last year, The Collaboration, Anthony McCarten's play, which premi...
When he appears in Nicole Flattery's recently published novel Nothing Special, Andy Warhol is a spectral presence. "I never saw him enter but I felt the atmosphere change when he did," writes Flattery from the watchful perspective of the book's teenage narrator.
The Coming A novel for adults set in the mid-1960s, with some flashes to the present, follows Mae, a lonely teenager who drops out of school after finding herself drawn into the new world of the notorious factory of Warhol in Manhattan. While artistry, drama, and debauchery happen around her between the artist and her bandmates, Mae has the more prosaic craft of a typist. She transcribed recordings of conversations that would form the basis of a: A Novel, Warhol's (true) experimental book from 1968.
"I I feel things work out if you don't see that person often," Flattery says of his version of Warhol. "It's in their interest to stay out of your line of sight. They will only have power if they make themselves a distant and inaccessible figure. it is omnipresent in the public imagination. In fact, his recent obsession with theater, film, and books can make you feel like you're never more than 6 feet away from a Warhol-related event.
Opening March 31 at London's Fashion and Textile Museum is Andy Warhol: The Textiles, a survey of his lesser-seen textile designs made when he was a successful commercial artist in the 1950s and early 1960s. In April, the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris will open an exhibition of the mid-century paintings 1980s that he made with Jean-Michel Basquiat. Last year, The Collaboration, Anthony McCarten's play, which premi...
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