The world of popular culture and the icons that decorate its platform fascinated Andy Warhol from childhood. It was a form of escapism from a life in poverty in Pittsburgh, in the throes of the Great Depression. His adoration continued well into his adult life, which has made him one of the most influential artists to date. Warhol’s visual art and films, currently exhibited at the TIFF Bell Lightbox until the end of January, present an interesting study in how Warhol looked at people, often in novel and somewhat unnerving ways.
Warhol’s love for popular culture resonates in his work and is particularly evident throughout the TIFF exhibition space. With the collage-like arrangement of Warhol’s art, personal objects, and memorabilia, the exhibit itself reflects on his artistic influences and personal tastes. In particular, his silkscreen prints of icons from the past century such as Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, and Mick Jagger present an interesting case study of people, portraiture, and culture. Warhol preferred working with photographic silk screening, making his prints very easy to reproduce and giving a level of immortality to these icons in a way that contrasts his work with film, particularly in his silent film series Screen Tests.
Warhol handpicked hundreds of people off the street who he thought possessed a certain “star quality” for this series, created between 1964 and 1966. Some of these subjects were also famous in their own right, including Bob Dylan and Dennis Hopper. They all waltzed into his famous silver studio (known as “The Factory”), sat in front of a 16mm Bolex camera, and had their portrait captured on film over the space of a few minutes. Some of these people, such as Mario Montez and Mary Woronow, eventually became stars of numerous Warhol films. Screen Tests provided a different meaning to the idea of portraiture and its representation. Warhol’s silkscreen prints, meanwhile, present a single dimension of his subjects that is less intimate and taken from famous photographs, newspaper clips, and other forms of media found in popular culture. Looking at the prints and films side-by-side, you get a feeling of how Warhol both considered and crafted stardom.
The screen tests provide a more intimate look at their subjects, something that the wider media at the time of their creation could not completely access. Lou Reed and Bob Dylan’s screen tests completely obliterate their bad boy images. You see two vulnerable boys, barely able to look you in the eye. Dylan is silently hostile and poignantly sad, as if on the verge of saying something that he simply can’t. It’s as if the camera forces him to stop. Nico, who provided vocals on tracks for The Velvet Underground, is poised and calm with a constant look of thinking about something. Edie Sedgwick, Warhol’s most famous muse, looks lost in the tangles of the Warhol Factory and fame. The Screen Tests are raw, unapologetic, and challenge you to hold your gaze on the subject. They’re unsettling because you are staring back at another human from half a century ago; it doesn’t feel like I’m staring at Lou Reed-the-rock-‘n’-roll-god, but Lou Reed-the-human-being, the boy who was exposed to electric shock treatment, in his first screening. The demeanour, restlessness, and expression captured on film are a beautiful look at the human condition, which obliterate the idea of stars as gods. As each screen test ends, the film fades from its subject, erasing the idea of immortality.
Warhol’s early films were made with no script at all. Most of the time he would have his film running for hours, such as with Empire, an eight hour and five minute silent film of the Empire State Building changing slowly throughout the day. His later work began to take on elements of traditional cinema with scripts and music, but always starred members of the Warhol Factory. “Our movies may have been home movies, but then our home wasn’t like anybody else’s,” Warhol once wrote in response to critics. Warhol’s films are unlike those of other filmmakers and truly can be seen as home movies, giving the public a very coveted taste of the inside of the famous Factory.
Andy Warhol: Stars of the Silver Screen at the TIFF Bell Lightbox is on until January 24, 2016, with the Screen Tests showing on January 23, 2016
