The Factory (Studio)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The building of the factory from 1968 in 33 Union Square West in Decker Building , the studio was on the 6th floor

The Factory (Eng. "The Factory"), sometimes also called the Silver Factory , were various studios of the Pop Art artist Andy Warhol in New York City . With the choice of words for his studios, Warhol initially aimed both at the old factory buildings, in which the first two “factories” were located, and at the way in which he “produced” his art.

Naming

The name is derived from two meanings: on the one hand, from the fact that the approximately 300 m² loft had previously been used as a space for the manufacturing industry, and on the other hand, to make it clear that the art products that were manufactured there are mechanically like the Goods produced on an assembly line should be in the sense of the Pop philosophy.

Buildings and history

The first, founded in 1962. The factory was located in the East 87th Street, known as the "Firehouse", an abandoned fire station ; Andy Warhol worked here from early to late 1963. The actual, legendary Silver Factory was located in New York from early 1964 to early 1968 at 231 East 47th Street between 2nd and 3rd Avenue in Manhattan , between the headquarters of the United Nations and the Grand Central Terminal . She then moved to 33 Union Square West in February 1968 before the old building was demolished.

After the landlord was forced to move out, everything changed: Under the increasing influence of employees Paul Morrissey and Frederick Hughes, the factory was finally transformed from a bohemian-like experimental field and drug trading center into a “clean” office with security and camera surveillance. In July 1968, the Warhol actress and suffragette Valerie Solanas broke into the new building, which was still open at the time, and shot at Warhol, who had refused to film a script for her Society for Cutting Up Men (SCUM) manifesto . The relaxed sixties “factory years” were finally over and the once spontaneously thrown together studio gave way to a financially oriented, high-gloss art company including a board of directors and managing directors. Because "art is business" , as Warhol once dryly put it.

Interior design

The interior of the factory was, based on an idea by employee and photographer Billy Linich (later known as Billy Name ), lined with aluminum foil and sprayed with silver paint. The large windows facing the street were covered with silver foil, so that day and night could no longer be distinguished from one another with artificial lighting. The factory had a freight elevator and - indispensable for the telephone addict Warhol - with a pay phone . Billy Linich / Name temporarily converted the rear part into a darkroom , which he soon made his permanent residence.

audience

The Factory was the place where visual artists, musicians, dancers, actors, self-promoters, homosexuals , drug freaks and - to sum it all up - Warhol's “superstars” met. Initially, Warhol literally "produced" his art here with his first assistant, employee and tireless " girl for everything " Gerard Malanga : serial screen prints and objects. Later, the factory , but above all the famous red sofa in the middle of the room, served as a location and scenario for a number of Warhol films. Warhol's employees in the 1980s included the German painter Ingeborg zu Schleswig-Holstein , whom he had met in Düsseldorf.

Numerous stars and starlets from the film, art and music scene as well as the New York and Boston high society met here: Warhol's first "muse" Edie Sedgwick , Mick Jagger , Bob Dylan , Jim Morrison and Salvador Dalí gave each other, mostly at night , the handle in the hand. The factory also served as a rehearsal room for the rock band The Velvet Underground, which was sponsored and produced by Warhol, with their blonde, German-born Chanteuse Nico .

literature

  • Nat Finkelstein: Andy Warhol. The factory years 1964-1967 . London / New York 1989; second much expanded edition by Powerhouse Books, New York 2000, ISBN 1-57687-090-1
  • Debra Miller: Billy Name: Stills from the Warhol films . Prestel, Munich 1994, ISBN 3-7913-1367-3
  • Stephen Shore (photos), Lynne Tillman (text): The Velvet Years. Warhols's Factory 1965-67. Pavilion Books, 1995, ISBN 1-85793-323-0 (English)
  • Asai Takashi (Ed.): Billy Name: Andy Warhol's Factory photos . Exhibition catalog of Parco Gallery Tokyo; Uplink, Tokyo 1996; second edition 1997, ISBN 4-900728-07-1
  • Billy Name, Dave Hickey, Collier Schorr: All Tomorrow's Parties: Billy Name's Photographs of Andy Warhol's Factory . Distributed Art Publishers, 1997, ISBN 1-881616-84-3 (photographs from the second factory )
  • Germano Celant (Ed.): Andy Warhol, a factory . Exhibition catalog, Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern, 1998, ISBN 3-7757-0773-5
  • David McCabe: A year in the life of Andy Warhol , Phaidon, London, 2003, ISBN 0-7148-4322-9

Web links