Reviews – The Andy Warhol Diaries (Netflix Series), Andy Warhol’s America (BBC) and Warhol by Blake Gopnik (Penguin)
My Warhol fascination began when I was in junior school, and I was browsing the art books in the town library. I was dimly aware of his name, and I think I could relate it to his iconic images, but I cannot say for sure now. I was nine, nearly ten, and I decided to take out a huge book, titled simply ‘Warhol’ featuring images of his work, and also – equally fascinating – images of his studio and entourage.
This was not just a coffee table picture book, it was also a great read, and I was captivated by the accounts of his Silver Factory, The Velvet Underground, Edie Sedgwick, and the whole bizarre circus that surrounded him. I was possibly a little young to take in some of the finer points, too, and I revisited the book a few more times, taking it out of the library maybe three or four times over the next few years, and reading and watching whatever I possibly could on the subject.
I developed a similar fascination with the other ‘Factory’, that being Tony Wilson’s Factory Records, and over the years, have amassed quite a collection of books about both.
I was in Waterstones just before Christmas last year, browsing for Christmas presents – for others and for myself – and I bought myself a copy of Blake Gopnik’s Warhol biography. This book delves deeply into Warhol’s life and psychology, and I enjoyed it immensely, but I wouldn’t quite give it five stars. As a biography, it is good, but falls short of being great, somehow. Without the fascinating subject matter, I feel it wouldn’t quite have carried me along (I will add that I have read biographies of people I had little or no interest in that I absolutely loved, just because I liked the writing itself). But maybe that’s just me.
I did get caught up on one very tiny thing, that even at the time I thought was a silly reason to find fault with an author, but all the same I did. Gopnik uses the word ‘posh’ as a descriptive term, and – not that I’d ever considered the matter before – but it instantly seemed wrong as I guess I think of it more as an informal or conversational term – something you’d read in a blog post or hear someone say, but not find used as an adjective in a formal piece of writing. And yes, I agree that I am being picky. That was my instant reaction when I read it, though.
I’m not a big watcher of things. In fact, if you look through this blog, you will find more than one rant about people watching TV. So perhaps, if you were to misunderstand my point, you might be surprised to find that I am reviewing two television series here.
What horrifies me about TV is that it is the majority of peoples’ main activity outside work. (I use the word ‘activity’ loosely here.) I just find that so depressing. I will watch things if I think they’re worth it, though – and I was definitely always going to watch The Andy Warhol Diaries. In fact, I have watched it twice.
I will explain:
I have terrible ADHD. I have learned how to manage it, and if I’m watching something, unless it’s a Sunday night and I’ve been up for three days, I generally have to be doing some non mentally taxing work, or drawing or painting as well. I struggle to just watch. Also, I can’t really watch things with other people. This is because a two hour documentary, say, will often take me five hours to watch. This is partly because I will sometimes have to rewatch bits that I realise I’ve totally missed whilst I’ve been engrossed in whatever other activity I’m occupying myself with, and/or because I get inspired to write something, or I have to sample part of it, or I just have to keep making notes of things to do later that it has given me ideas to do. Basically, I am a difficult customer. But an appreciative one, I think.
This series is brilliant. It works on so many levels. Visually, as an insight into Warhol as a person, and just as good entertainment. Also, it’s extremely poignant.
While there’s reams of content out there that focuses on Warhol in the sixties, in his silver factory days, The Andy Warhol Diaries, as a piece about the actual diaries, is mainly concerned with Warhol’s life in the eighties, and we learn not about the much talked about cold and heartless ‘Drella’ figure, but about Warhol as a vulnerable human being, and his struggles with coming to terms with – if he ever did – being just that.
I recommended this series to my friend Chris, and he sent a recommendation back at me – the BBC series Andy Warhol’s America.
Chris said that of the two, he enjoyed the diaries better, but that both were a good watch, and I would agree with this. Andy Warhol’s America is more along the lines of the reams of other content that I mentioned previously, but it does bring its own insights to the table. I will say as well, that of all twentieth century artists, I think Warhol is my favourite, because his art conveys the time it is from in a way that nothing else has managed to do. The BBC documentary demonstrates that perfectly in a way that the diaries series does not. But they are about different things. What both do – and much previous content does not do – is truly reveal Andy Warhol as a person as opposed to just as a personality. And not just the sad parts.
One of my favourite moments is when an interviewer asks Warhol what ‘Pop’ means to him.
His reply is something like “Uh, I always thought it meant ‘dad’”, and then he giggles at his own joke.
