"So many categories!" Andy Warhol would complain, in the course of his daily trawl of antique stores, galleries, auction houses and flea markets. Though best known as an artist, Warhol was also a passionate and informed collector of unlikely antiquities and offbeat Americana. Possession Obsession proposes that collecting was another form of artistic practice for Warhol, certainly one that provides as much insight into his interests, tastes and ideas as his art. Accompanying essays examine the how, why, and what of Warhol's collection, the all-consuming role it played in his life, the aesthetic quality and historical associations of the objects themselves, the psychological and sexual aspects of collecting, other artists' use of collecting and the relationships between collecting and mass culture. Also included are Robert Mapplethorpe's wonderful photographs of Warhol's home, for which Patti Smith provides an introduction.

Possession Obsession: Andy Warhol And Collecting

Arts & Photography

History & Criticism

The Andy Warhol Museum

Impossible to categorize, moving easily between the literary, art and musical worlds, always unpredictable and impassioned, idiosyncratic musician and artist Patti Smith here presents an impressive body of visual art, mostly works on paper. Bringing together approximately 60 works spanning the past 30 years, Strange Messenger collects early pieces as well as new ones inspired by the September 11, 2001, bombing of the World Trade Center, in which Smith expresses her views about violence, religion, war and intolerance. This book marks the first occasion that Smith's drawings have been brought together in a single volume, as well as the first publication of most of the included works.

Patti Smith: Strange Messenger

Greenberg,David

Individual Artists

"Andy Warhol: Revelation, opening October 20, 2019, will be accompanied by this 96 page full-color exhibition catalogue. This publication includes a forward from Patrick Moore, the director of The Andy Warhol Museum, an essay by José Carlos Diaz, chief curator at The Warhol, titled "Into the Sunset" on the spiritual aspects of Warhol's "Sunset" commission in 1967, and an essay by Miranda Lash, curator of contemporary art at the Speed Art Museum, titled "Kitsch You Can Believe In: Warhol's Incessant Last Supper." The book will also feature descriptions of the thematic exhibition sections, along with high quality image plates of selected works and a comprehensive checklist of all the objects featured in the show. The Revelation catalogue will provide a snapshot of the exhibition, which will be the first of its kind to comprehensively examine the Pop artist's complex Catholic faith in relation to his artistic production. In what follows, you will find a summary of the scope and scale of the exhibition's content: Christian motifs frequently appear in both explicit and metaphorical forms throughout the body of Warhol's oeuvre. While his monumental crosses and depictions of Christ directly reference biblical stories, the exhibition will also explore his coded depictions of spirituality such as an unfinished film reel depicting the setting sun, originally commissioned by the de Menil family and funded by the Roman Catholic Church. Born in Pittsburgh to a devout Byzantine Catholic family, Warhol grew up attending multiple weekly services at his local church with his mother, Julia Warhola. He would stare for hours at the icon paintings of Christ and the saints that hung in the elaborate iconostasis, or icon screen, at the front of the nave. In the Warhola family's Carpatho-Rusyn neighborhood, life revolved around the church community, and the young artist was deeply affected by this environment. Using The Warhol's robust holdings of the artist's early works, the exhibition will trace the influence of his religious roots in Pittsburgh to his Pop career in New York City. Throughout his life as a celebrity artist, Warhol retained some of his Catholic practices when his peers were distancing themselves from their religious backgrounds. Yet, his relationship with Catholicism was far from simple. As a queer man, Warhol may have felt a sense of guilt and fear towards the Catholic Church, which kept him from fully immersing himself in the faith. Nevertheless, he used various media to explore this tension through his art. From iconic portraits of celebrities to appropriated Renaissance masterpieces, Warhol flirted with styles and symbolism from Eastern and Western Catholic art history, carefully reframing them within the context of Pop. Through this process, the artist elevated kitsch and mundane images from mass media, and transformed them into sacred high art. The exhibition will feature over 100 objects from the museum's permanent collection, including archival materials, drawings, paintings, prints and film. Rare source material and newly discovered items will provide an intimate look on Warhol's creative process. Through both obscure works such as the "sunset" film commission from 1967 and late masterpieces like the pink Last Supper (1986), the exhibition will present a fresh perspective on the artist. Andy Warhol: Revelation is curated by José Carlos Diaz, chief curator at The Andy Warhol Museum. After opening at The Warhol, Andy Warhol: Revelation will travel to the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky and be on view from April 3 through August 21, 2020"--

Andy Warhol: Revelation

José Carlos Diaz

Miranda Lash

Contemporary artists revisit Warhol's 1985 love letter to America Originally published in 1985, Warhol's Americafeatures photographs both taken and collected by the artist during his cross-country travels and in-person encounters over the previous decade. The book, an idiosyncratic love letter to America, finds Warhol reflecting on everything from travel, beauty and fame to politics, technology and the American Dream. Three decades later, Fantasy Americainvites artists Nona Faustine, Kambui Olujimi, Pacifico Silano, Naama Tsabar and Chloe Wise to revisit this seminal publication and contribute their own art. All New York-based, they, like Warhol, are cross-disciplinary artists drawn to repetition, seriality and image appropriation in their work. Against the backdrop of nationwide protests in the wake of George Floyd's murder, the Black Lives Matter movement, the COVID-19 pandemic and the presidential election, these essays and artworks probe and challenge our perceptions of what America is and what it can become.

Fantasy America

Alan Pelaez Lopez

Jessica Lanay Moore

Collections, Catalogs & Exhibitions

Review\nAbout how Marisol influenced [Warhol], not vice versa. -- Karen Chernik ― Hyperallergic\nMarisol shares the stage with Warhol ― but instead of drowning her out, he amplifies her. They worked on some of the same subjects...They had an intriguing way of speaking a little and suggesting a lot that nurtured a sense of glamour and mystery and that some experts say Warhol may have picked up from her. -- Joseph B. Treaster ― New York Times: Arts\nA testament to both artists’ friendship as well as to their shared artistic interests, and convincingly positions Marisol as an artist of equal savvy, with a cult of personality all her own. -- Katie White ― Artnet\nGives Latin-American contributions to Pop their due. -- Ted White ― New York Times: Arts\nA tale of two Pop artists in 1960s New York 
This book charts the emergence of Marisol Escobar (1930–2016) and Andy Warhol (1928–87) in New York during the dawn of Pop art in the early 1960s. Through essays, interviews and prose, the book explores the artists’ parallel rise to success, the formation of their artistic personas, their savvy navigation of gallery relationships and the blossoming of their early artistic practices from 1960 to 1968. The exhibition features key loans of Marisol’s work from major global collections, along with iconic works and rarely seen films and archival materials from the Andy Warhol Museum’s collection. By situating Marisol's work in dialogue with Warhol’s, this new collection of writing seeks to reclaim the importance of her art; reframe the strength, originality and daring nature of her work; and reconsider her as one of the leading figures of the Pop era.

Marisol and Warhol Take New York