When Life Goes to Work

Warhol seems more alive, more present, closer to us than ever. One need only think of the title of the present conference—“Andy Eighty?”—which calls him by his first name, referring to and questioning the assumption that we can entertain an intimate relationship with him. But why does Warhol’s production still seem so topical, so up to date? What is it that allows for this particular past to reach into our present with such insistence? I will begin with the premise that the border between his “work” and what could be called his public display of an “attitude towards life” is fundamentally unstable and blurred. It is indeed impossible to restrict Warhol’s production to objects, paintings, and films alone. I would like to suggest that not only the statements in his Philosophy (1975) or Diaries (1989) but also the way he constructed his public persona must be considered as integral parts of his artistic proposition. Naturally, statements made by artists must always be taken with a grain of salt. We do not find here the “true meaning” of their work. Artists’ remarks need to be decoded and interpreted, since they usually belong to a carefully designed “pose” that is staged and authentic, deliberate and accidental, strategic and unconscious at the same time. The innumerable eyewitness accounts of Warhol (by ex-assistants, ex-It girls, ex-coworkers, etc.) must likewise be treated with caution. They too are personally motivated projections that produce an illusion of proximity; but they also reveal something about how Warhol cultivated a certain attitude towards life and work. Let me give you an example. According to eyewitness Bob Colacello, Warhol could not relax and hated vacations.1 Even having fun meant working, since he used every social occasion (such as parties) in order to “get more portraits” or “more ideas” or to “sell more ads for Interview.” Colacello’s description is of course partly tainted by his own frustrations; it is as though he needed to retroactively justify why he was compelled to stop working for Warhol. But this

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