Warhol

Starred review from November 25, 2019
Art, commerce, homosexual camp, and the 1960s counterculture were all blithely blenderized by one man’s genius, according to this sweeping biography of pop art master Andy Warhol. Art critic and New York Times contributor Gopnik dives deep into Warhol’s oeuvre, from the famous pieces that mirrored mass-produced imagery—paintings of Campbell Soup cans and Brillo boxes, screen prints of celebrities including Marilyn Monroe—and his semiprurient, militantly unwatchable avant-garde films (Sleep comprised five hours of footage of a naked man sleeping) to his late urine-on-canvas phase. But Warhol’s greatest image was himself, and Gopnik’s fascinating narrative does full justice to the silver-wigged, pixie-ish, satirically vapid provocateur (“verybody’s plastic—but I love plastic,” he pronounced during a Hollywood sojourn) and to the maelstrom of drugs, partying, and crazed excess at the Factory, his New York studio-cum-asylum for artsy eccentrics. One of them, Valerie Solanas, founder of the Society for Cutting Up Men, shot and gravely wounded Warhol—and then asked him to pay her legal bills. Gopnik’s exhaustive but stylishly written and entertaining account is Warholian in the best sense—raptly engaged, colorful, open-minded, and slyly ironic. (“He had become his own Duchampian urinal, worth looking at only because the artist in him had said he was.”) Warhol fans and pop art enthusiasts alike will find this an endlessly engrossing portrait. Photos.

January 1, 2020
An epic cradle-to-grave biography of the king of pop art from Gopnik (co-author: Warhol Women, 2019), who served as chief art critic for the Washington Post and the art and design critic for Newsweek. With a hoarder's zeal, Andy Warhol (1928-1987) collected objects he liked until shopping bags filled entire rooms of his New York town house. Rising to equal that, Gopnik's dictionary-sized biography has more than 7,000 endnotes in its e-book edition and drew on some 100,000 documents, including datebooks, tax returns, and letters to lovers and dealers. With the cooperation of the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, the author serves up fresh details about almost every aspect of Warhol's life in an immensely enjoyable book that blends snappy writing with careful exegeses of the artist's influences and techniques. Warhol exploded into view in his mid-40s with his pop art paintings of Campbell's Soup cans and silkscreens of Elvis and Marilyn. However, fame didn't banish lifelong anxieties heightened by an assassination attempt that left him so fearful he bought bulletproof eyeglasses. After the pop successes, Gopnik writes, Warhol's life was shaped by a consuming desire "to climb back onto that cutting edge," which led him to make experimental films, launch Interview magazine, and promote the Velvet Underground. At the same time, Warhol yearned "for fine, old-fashioned love and coupledom," a desire thwarted by his shyness and his awkward stance toward his sexuality--"almost but never quite out," as Gopnik puts it. Although insightful in its interpretations of Warhol's art, this biography is sure to make waves with its easily challenged claims that Warhol revealed himself early on "as a true rival of all the greats who had come before" and that he and Picasso may now occupy "the top peak of Parnassus, beside Michelangelo and Rembrandt and their fellow geniuses." Any controversy will certainly befit a lodestar of 20th-century art who believed that "you weren't doing much of anything as an artist if you weren't questioning the most fundamental tenets of what art is and what artists can do." A fascinating, major work that will spark endless debates.

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April 15, 2020
The most impressive thing about this new Warhol biography is not its length?more than 900 pages?but the fact that art is discussed on nearly every one of them. Through close attention to Warhol's radical silkscreens, films, and writing, as well as the goings-on at his infamous Factory, prominent art critic Gopnik details how the iconic artist sculpted his persona into a work of user-friendly Pop Art. With each chapter corresponding to roughly a year in the artist's life (though the first 17 are greatly condensed), he's able to slowly disclose the patchwork of Warhol's diverse influences and art-world references. Gopnik links, for instance, Warhol's film Kiss to a 1910s short film of the same name, and the seemingly junk-filled boxes Warhol dubbed Time Capsules to a period work by the German artist Gerhard Richter. Throughout, readers encounters artists like Stuart Davis and Sister Mary Corita, critics like Gregory Battcock and Ray Johnson, spaces like Ferus Gallery and the La MaMa theater. Gopnik's in-depth portrait is for the Warhol-initiated, who will gain new appreciation for the artist as the ultimate aesthetic sponge. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)

February 1, 2020

Several biographies and memoirs of pop art superstar Andy Warhol (1928-87) have been written by people who knew him closely, but this newest portrait--and lengthiest at some 900 pages--may, through its wealth of detail, become the treatment that defines Warhol for a generation not yet born during his lifetime. With the perspective of time and distance, and through extensive research in and support from the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, art critic Gopnik's highly readable account carries the artist's legacy forward into the 21st century. Notable is the concern that Gopnik has to sort fact from fiction, weigh the accuracy of sources, and attempt to understand the reality behind the artist's coy and mysterious public persona. The text weaves juicy gossip (much of it R-rated) about Warhol and his social circle with thoughtful insights about his art practice and creative influences, and Gopnik seems genuinely excited to explore Warhol's story, from working-class Pittsburgh to international jetsetter, and to struggle to understand this enigmatic man. VERDICT Certainly for those fascinated with Warhol, but equally for those seeking an in-depth yet accessible introduction to the artist. [See Prepub Alert, 10/14/19.]--Michael Dashkin, New York

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 1, 2019

Named a resident biography fellow at CUNY's Leon Levy Center for Biography and recipient of a Cullman Fellowship at the New York Public Library, leading art critic Gopnik uses broad access to Warhol's archives to explore the artist's immigrant background, working-class upbringing, experience with commercial art, and more. With a 100,000-copy first printing.

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.