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拍品专文
'Among other things, drag queens are living testimony to the way women used to want to be, the way some people still want them to be, and the way some women still actually want to be. Drags are ambulatory archives of ideal moviestar womanhood. They perform a documentary service, usually consecrating their lives to keeping the glittering alternative alive and available for (not-too-close) inspection'
(A. Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: (From A to B and Back Again), New York 1975, p. 54).
'Drag queens are reminders that some stars still aren't just like you and me... real girls we knew couldn't seem to get excited about anything, and the drag queens could get excited about anything'
(A. Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: (From A to B and Back Again), New York 1975, p. 55).
Exuding glamour and mimicking the celebrity aura embodied in his famous portraits of the 1960s, Andy Warhol's Ladies and Gentlemen is a series of powerfully expressive works depicting drag queens. Rendered in broad, gestured swathes of acrylic paint, in this bold grouping from the series, Warhol mirrors the vibrant characters and glamorous makeup of his sitters in rich browns, oranges, greens, reds and blues. Against muted backgrounds, these drag queens rendered in such a sumptuous palette jump off the surface of the canvas, and engage directly with the viewer.
In 1975 Bob Colacello, the future editor of Warhol's Interview magazine, went to The Gilded Grape on Eighth Avenue and West 45th Street in search of drag queens willing to pose for 'a friend' for fifty dollars. Although Warhol's social circle at 'The Factory' from the early 1960s included drag queens such as Candy Darling and Ondine whom he had used for female roles in several of his films including most famously Chelsea Girls of 1966 and Women Revolt of 1972, for this project Warhol was not looking for stars but for wannabes - those 'drag queens [who] could get excited about anything' (A. Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: (From A to B and Back Again), New York 1975, p. 55).
Having an abiding interest in drag culture, Warhol embarked on his own series of Polaroid self-portraits dressed in drag in 1981 which was a direct reference to Man Ray's 1920s portrait of Marcel Duchamp as Rrose Sélavy. Man Ray was a prominent figure throughout Warhol's career, whom the artist photographed in 1973. Man Ray's Turin-based art dealer Luciano Anselmino subsequently commissioned these into a 100 edition print. It was when Warhol went to Italy to sign these works that Anselmino commissioned another larger series of works which resulted in the Ladies and Gentlemen series. Ladies and Gentlemen was exhibited only once during Warhol's lifetime at the Palazzo di Diamante in Ferrara, Italy, with the works presented here shown again at the celebrated show 'Andy Warhol in Venice' organized by the artist's close friend and champion on the Italian Contemporary art scene, Carlo Monzoni, at the Abbazia di San Gregorio in 1988.
Turning his attention to the drag queens of New York City's party scene, Warhol's Ladies and Gentlemen is rooted in the legacy of his iconic paintings of female stars such as Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor - figures held up as the epitome of beauty and glamour in our culture. For such pictures as his Marilyn and Liz, Warhol had adapted ready-made publicity images that, through his cropping and silkscreening, took on a seriality and repetition which conveyed a sense of distance or removal from the viewer. By contrast, in Ladies and Gentlemen, Warhol used the same technical approach as in his commissioned portraits of Hollywood celebrities by taking Polaroid shots of his subjects. This proximity to his sitters allowed him a more nuanced degree of creative control, which in this case, he channeled into photographs from the neck up and in three-quarter angle, also having the drag queens 'vogue' in a variety of expressions from femme-fatale to coquette. After enlarging the images for the silkscreening process Warhol prepared his canvases with bold colour blocks to echo the contours of their visage. Here in these examples from the series, Warhol takes a more gestured approach to his colour application.
By treating these drag queens with the same sort of impersonal distance that he approaches all his subjects, Warhol presents their aspiration for beauty and glamour without judgment. Ever the mirror of contemporary life, Warhol does not 'flatter' his subjects by depicting them as though they really are women. Between the punning title and the deliberate inclusion of 'tells' such as their hands, Warhol does not hide the fact that these drag queens are in fact men. 'Drag queens are reminders that some stars still aren't just like you and me' and they too can strive for the glamour and beauty epitomized by Marilyn and Liz - everyone can have their fifteen minutes of fame' (A. Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: (From A to B and Back Again), New York 1975, p. 55). As Warhol philosophized, 'among other things, drag queens are living testimony to the way women used to want to be, the way some people still want them to be, and the way some women still actually want to be. Drags are ambulatory archives of ideal moviestar womanhood. They perform a documentary service, usually consecrating their lives to keeping the glittering alternative alive and available for (not-too-close) inspection' (A. Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: (From A to B and Back Again), New York 1975, p. 54).
(A. Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: (From A to B and Back Again), New York 1975, p. 54).
'Drag queens are reminders that some stars still aren't just like you and me... real girls we knew couldn't seem to get excited about anything, and the drag queens could get excited about anything'
(A. Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: (From A to B and Back Again), New York 1975, p. 55).
Exuding glamour and mimicking the celebrity aura embodied in his famous portraits of the 1960s, Andy Warhol's Ladies and Gentlemen is a series of powerfully expressive works depicting drag queens. Rendered in broad, gestured swathes of acrylic paint, in this bold grouping from the series, Warhol mirrors the vibrant characters and glamorous makeup of his sitters in rich browns, oranges, greens, reds and blues. Against muted backgrounds, these drag queens rendered in such a sumptuous palette jump off the surface of the canvas, and engage directly with the viewer.
In 1975 Bob Colacello, the future editor of Warhol's Interview magazine, went to The Gilded Grape on Eighth Avenue and West 45th Street in search of drag queens willing to pose for 'a friend' for fifty dollars. Although Warhol's social circle at 'The Factory' from the early 1960s included drag queens such as Candy Darling and Ondine whom he had used for female roles in several of his films including most famously Chelsea Girls of 1966 and Women Revolt of 1972, for this project Warhol was not looking for stars but for wannabes - those 'drag queens [who] could get excited about anything' (A. Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: (From A to B and Back Again), New York 1975, p. 55).
Having an abiding interest in drag culture, Warhol embarked on his own series of Polaroid self-portraits dressed in drag in 1981 which was a direct reference to Man Ray's 1920s portrait of Marcel Duchamp as Rrose Sélavy. Man Ray was a prominent figure throughout Warhol's career, whom the artist photographed in 1973. Man Ray's Turin-based art dealer Luciano Anselmino subsequently commissioned these into a 100 edition print. It was when Warhol went to Italy to sign these works that Anselmino commissioned another larger series of works which resulted in the Ladies and Gentlemen series. Ladies and Gentlemen was exhibited only once during Warhol's lifetime at the Palazzo di Diamante in Ferrara, Italy, with the works presented here shown again at the celebrated show 'Andy Warhol in Venice' organized by the artist's close friend and champion on the Italian Contemporary art scene, Carlo Monzoni, at the Abbazia di San Gregorio in 1988.
Turning his attention to the drag queens of New York City's party scene, Warhol's Ladies and Gentlemen is rooted in the legacy of his iconic paintings of female stars such as Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor - figures held up as the epitome of beauty and glamour in our culture. For such pictures as his Marilyn and Liz, Warhol had adapted ready-made publicity images that, through his cropping and silkscreening, took on a seriality and repetition which conveyed a sense of distance or removal from the viewer. By contrast, in Ladies and Gentlemen, Warhol used the same technical approach as in his commissioned portraits of Hollywood celebrities by taking Polaroid shots of his subjects. This proximity to his sitters allowed him a more nuanced degree of creative control, which in this case, he channeled into photographs from the neck up and in three-quarter angle, also having the drag queens 'vogue' in a variety of expressions from femme-fatale to coquette. After enlarging the images for the silkscreening process Warhol prepared his canvases with bold colour blocks to echo the contours of their visage. Here in these examples from the series, Warhol takes a more gestured approach to his colour application.
By treating these drag queens with the same sort of impersonal distance that he approaches all his subjects, Warhol presents their aspiration for beauty and glamour without judgment. Ever the mirror of contemporary life, Warhol does not 'flatter' his subjects by depicting them as though they really are women. Between the punning title and the deliberate inclusion of 'tells' such as their hands, Warhol does not hide the fact that these drag queens are in fact men. 'Drag queens are reminders that some stars still aren't just like you and me' and they too can strive for the glamour and beauty epitomized by Marilyn and Liz - everyone can have their fifteen minutes of fame' (A. Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: (From A to B and Back Again), New York 1975, p. 55). As Warhol philosophized, 'among other things, drag queens are living testimony to the way women used to want to be, the way some people still want them to be, and the way some women still actually want to be. Drags are ambulatory archives of ideal moviestar womanhood. They perform a documentary service, usually consecrating their lives to keeping the glittering alternative alive and available for (not-too-close) inspection' (A. Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: (From A to B and Back Again), New York 1975, p. 54).