Petworth show explores both sides of Andy Warhol

SussexWorld

Guest curator Professor Jean Wainwright believes Newlands House Gallery in Petworth is the perfect venue for her new exploration of one of the 20th century’s most influential artists, Andy Warhol (1928-1987).

Transcript

00:00Good afternoon. My name is Phil Keurig, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers. Lovely this

00:07afternoon to speak to Jean Waynton Wright. And this is such an interesting exhibition which you

00:12are curator for, guest curator, Andy Warhol, 1928-1987. It's a summer exhibition running until

00:21September the 14th at Newlands House Gallery in Padworth. Now, Jean, why Andy Warhol? Why should

00:29we be remembering him for nearly 40 years after he died? What's his significance to us now, do you

00:35think? Very interesting question, because he is significant. And why I called it My True Story is

00:44you can walk round and you can have your own story about Andy Warhol. Whether it's looking at that

00:53Mona Lisa four times, Mona Lisa's in the press at the moment, because of course, he's going to be

00:59given her own room at the Louvre. There's this whole story behind that work. But there's also,

01:06I think, all the time now, we're discovering aspects of Warhol that perhaps we didn't know about. We

01:13know he wore a wig and glasses. We know he was a party animal. We know that he was connected with

01:21pop art. He was the ultimate pop artist. But in this exhibition, we've got interviews with his

01:28family, his two brothers now sadly dead. But, you know, their interviews reveal a part of him just

01:36being an ordinary guy, really. And it's quite easy when we look at celebrities or very well-known people

01:45that we form a kind of opinion of them. But actually, there is all these things under the

01:52surface. So I was trying to, in this exhibition, give people all these different aspects of Warhol and

02:00say, well, yes, he did illustrations, he did drawings. But he also did these wonderful screen

02:07prints, many of which you probably won't have seen. And also, at the end of the exhibition,

02:13there is this fabulous film that he made of his mother that was part of a whole trilogy of films

02:21that he was working on. But I also wanted to give him a contemporary relevance because Warhol was

02:30always working with artists. He loved artists coming to the factory. And of course, we know about

02:40John Miskell Basquiat. But I thought, why not show contemporary artists that have been influenced by

02:46him as well, that they have been, you know, they probably would have been at the factory if they'd

02:53been around because they're really influenced and they've taken elements of Warhol's work.

02:58And, and in the exhibition, they're kind of integrated into the exhibition. And I think again,

03:07talking to those artists, it's because Warhol for them had something that really intrigued them that

03:13they could take and make their own.

03:17And it must have been such an fascinating exhibition to curate because he's such a fascinating character,

03:23isn't it? And you were talking just now about the fact that there are two, there's probably more than

03:27two Andy Warhol's, isn't it? There's a public persona and the very frightened private guy with his phobias

03:35and complexity.

03:36I agree totally. I think the thing is, I was once told by Glenn O'Brien, who was the work for interview magazine,

03:45Warhol's interview magazine, don't try and plot Warhol. Don't try and track Warhol. In other words, what he was saying,

03:52whatever you know about him, you know, you are actually going to get tripped up because you think

04:00you captured him. And then he dissipates, you know, he's, he's off doing something else. You go, Oh, but I thought

04:07he was this. And now he's that. And also Glenn said something really fascinating. I thought we were talking

04:15about how Warhol responded. Why was Warhol so popular? Why did people want him to be an artist?

04:21And Glenn said, well, of course, one of his gifts was he said, he always said everything was great.

04:27But he said, the thing was, we knew what he meant by that. Was it great? Which meant fantastic. Or was it

04:35great? Which meant not really good at all. But the wonderful thing was, he was always saying it was

04:41great. So he couldn't argue with it. And I suppose to bring it back to your question. Although he claimed

04:51or let someone else claim for him that his work was about surface, you can actually think so much

04:58about every work in the exhibition. You know, why is there a drawing of a child with a cat on their lap,

05:07but cats barely visible? And yet he loved cats and had lots of cats. There's always some kind of quirky

05:13little thing in his work. Or why have we got feet on a piano and then all the piano on the Steinway

05:20piano and the keys look broken? Or a foot with a little ribbon around it? Or...

05:27So he's always wrong footing then, isn't he?

05:30He's always wrong footing. He is indeed. He's kind of like saying, look and look again,

05:35because you think it's about surface, but actually, there's so much more to it in the composition,

05:44in the subject matter that he chose. The sitting bull, which has never been seen before,

05:50is quite extraordinary because it shows his working methods as well. And you see how he works

05:59through an idea. So he takes a photograph, which is a very famous photograph, the historic sitting bull,

06:07and then he does something to it. So he's all, even when he copies something, if you like,

06:13he makes it his and recognizable as a war hole. And I think that's what, you know, contemporary

06:21people and contemporary artists, they want to do that as well. They want their, you know,

06:28their Instagram feed to be unique or whatever, you know.

06:32Well, it sounds like a fascinating exhibition. It's going to prompt endless discussion. It's

06:38at Newlands House Galler in Petworth, running until September 14th. Jean, really lovely to meet

06:43you and to speak to you. Thank you. Thank you.

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