EASTSIDER ANDY WARHOL

EASTSIDER ANDY WARHOL
Pop artist and publisher of Interview magazine

4-7-79

He is the great enigma¹ of American art. Some of his most famous paintings are exercises in monotony. His movies often put the viewer to sleep. As a conversationalist, he can be low-keyed to the point of dullness: speaking softly in a slow-paced, emotionless voice, he relies heavily on short sentences, long pauses, and an abundance of "ums" and "uhs." However, he has one asset that overshadows everything negative that might be said or written about him: his name happens to be Andy Warhol.

The only time I met Warhol in person was at a book publication party several months ago. He came by himself, spoke² to hardly anyone, and spent most of his brief visit flitting quietly about the room, avoiding people's eyes and taking snapshots of the more celebrated³ guests. With his pale complexion⁴, narrow frame, and hair like bleached⁵ straw, he looked not unlike a scarecrow. Everywhere he went, heads turned to catch a glimpse. That has been the story of Warhol's life ever since he rose to international prominence⁶ in the 1960s.

Although he did not feel like talking when I met him, Andy — never publicity-shy — agreed to a telephone interview at a later date. Reached at the offices of his Interview magazine off union Square, he answered all my questions briefly⁷, and in a voice so low that he could barely be heard.

Interview, the monthly tabloid-shaped magazine that he publishes, is Warhol's most visible creative project at the moment. "It's been going for about seven or eight years," he said. "I started it for Brigid Berlin. Her father ran the Hearst Corporation. She didn't want to work on it." The person on the cover of each issue is identified only on the inside, and many of the faces are difficult to recognize. Some are genuine celebrities⁸, such as Truman Capote, who has a regular column. Others are young unknowns who have caught Warhol's fancy. The ultramodern layout includes many full-page ads for some of the most expensive shops in Manhattan. The interviews, interspersed⁹ with many photos, lean heavily on show business personalities¹⁰, models, artists, writers and fashion people. In most cases, the "interviews" are actually group discussions — often with Andy himself taking part — that are printed verbatim. Even the most mundane¹¹ comments are not cut.

The reason? "I used to carry a tape recorder with me all the time, so this was a way to use it," said Warhol. But in truth, the literal transcriptions are another example of the naturalism that characterizes much of his work. When he turned his attention from painting and drawing to filmmaking in 1963, he became notorious for such movies as Sleep, which showed a man sleeping for six hours, and Empire, which he made by aiming his camera at the Empire State Building and keeping the film running for eight straight hours.

According to Warhol, many people have turned down his request for interviews. "It's hard to get Robert Redford. … We choose people who like to talk a lot." The type of reader he seeks to attract is "the rich audience. People who go to places like Christie's and Fiorucci's. … It's fun to go to those places and get invited to parties. I love fashion parties. Shoe parties are even better."

His affection for shoes dates back to 1949, when, in his first year in New York, he got a job in the art department of a shoe store. His designs and magazine illustrations caught on so fast that within a year, he was able to purchase the town house on the Upper East Side, where he still lives with his mother. "But mostly I live with my two dachshunds. They've taken over."

Certain facts abut¹² Andy Warhol's early life remain a mystery because he has always objected to questions that he considers irrelevant¹³ to an understanding of him as an artist. It is known that he was born somewhere in Pennsylvania, sometime between 1927 and 1931, to a family of immigrants from Czechoslovakia named Warhola.

By his mid-20s, Warhol was one of the most sought-after commercial artists in the field. His silk-screen prints of Campbell's soup cans made him famous with the general public, and by the mid-1960s he was clearly the most highly celebrated "plastic artist" — a title he relishes¹⁴ — in the English-speaking world.

In recent years, his creative output has been reduced somewhat, as the result of the severe wounds he sustained in June, 1968, when a deranged¹⁵ woman shot him in his office. Nevertheless, he continues to mount gallery exhibitions, write books and paint portraits. The Whitney Museum (75th St. at Madison Ave.) will have a show of his portraits in December.

Asked about the East Side, Warhol said that one of his favorite activities is to go window shopping. "When you live on the East Side, you don't have to go far. Because usually everything happens here." When he goes to the West Side, it's often to visit Studio 54. "I only go there to see my friend Steve Rubell. Afterwards, we usually go to Cowboys and Cowgirls."

About the only medium that Warhol has not worked in is television. "Oh, I always wanted to, yeah," was his parting comment. "It just never happens. The stations think we're not Middle America."

1 enigma   

n.谜，谜一样的人或事

参考例句：

• I've known him for many years,but he remains something of an enigma to me.我与他相识多年，他仍然难以捉摸。
• Even after all the testimonies,the murder remained a enigma.即使听完了所有的证词，这件谋杀案仍然是一个谜。

2 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

3 celebrated   

adj.有名的，声誉卓著的

参考例句：

• He was soon one of the most celebrated young painters in England.不久他就成了英格兰最负盛名的年轻画家之一。
• The celebrated violinist was mobbed by the audience.观众团团围住了这位著名的小提琴演奏家。

4 complexion   

n.肤色；情况，局面；气质，性格

参考例句：

• Red does not suit with her complexion.红色与她的肤色不协调。
• Her resignation puts a different complexion on things.她一辞职局面就全变了。

5 bleached   

漂白的，晒白的，颜色变浅的

参考例句：

• His hair was bleached by the sun . 他的头发被太阳晒得发白。
• The sun has bleached her yellow skirt. 阳光把她的黄裙子晒得褪色了。

6 prominence   

n.突出；显著；杰出；重要

参考例句：

• He came to prominence during the World Cup in Italy.他在意大利的世界杯赛中声名鹊起。
• This young fashion designer is rising to prominence.这位年轻的时装设计师的声望越来越高。

7 briefly   

adv.简单地，简短地

参考例句：

• I want to touch briefly on another aspect of the problem.我想简单地谈一下这个问题的另一方面。
• He was kidnapped and briefly detained by a terrorist group.他被一个恐怖组织绑架并短暂拘禁。

8 celebrities   

n.（尤指娱乐界的）名人( celebrity的名词复数 )；名流；名声；名誉

参考例句：

• He only invited A-list celebrities to his parties. 他只邀请头等名流参加他的聚会。
• a TV chat show full of B-list celebrities 由众多二流人物参加的电视访谈节目

9 interspersed   

adj.[医]散开的；点缀的v.intersperse的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• Lectures will be interspersed with practical demonstrations. 讲课中将不时插入实际示范。
• The grass was interspersed with beds of flowers. 草地上点缀着许多花坛。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

10 personalities   

n. 诽谤，（对某人容貌、性格等所进行的）人身攻击； 人身攻击；人格, 个性, 名人( personality的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• There seemed to be a degree of personalities in her remarks.她话里有些人身攻击的成分。
• Personalities are not in good taste in general conversation.在一般的谈话中诽谤他人是不高尚的。

11 mundane   

adj.平凡的；尘世的；宇宙的

参考例句：

• I hope I can get an interesting job and not something mundane.我希望我可以得到的是一份有趣的工作，而不是一份平凡无奇的。
• I find it humorous sometimes that even the most mundane occurrences can have an impact on our awareness.我发现生活有时挺诙谐的，即使是最平凡的事情也能影响我们的感知。

12 abut   

v.接界，毗邻

参考例句：

• The two lots are abut together.那两块地毗连着。
• His lands abut on the motorway.他的土地毗邻高速公路。

13 irrelevant   

adj.不恰当的，无关系的，不相干的

参考例句：

• That is completely irrelevant to the subject under discussion.这跟讨论的主题完全不相关。
• A question about arithmetic is irrelevant in a music lesson.在音乐课上，一个数学的问题是风马牛不相及的。

14 relishes   

n.滋味( relish的名词复数 )；乐趣；（大量的）享受；快乐v.欣赏( relish的第三人称单数 )；从…获得乐趣；渴望

参考例句：

• The meat relishes of pork. 这肉有猪肉味。 来自辞典例句
• The biography relishes too much of romance. 这篇传记中传奇色彩太浓。 来自辞典例句

15 deranged   

adj.疯狂的

参考例句：

• Traffic was stopped by a deranged man shouting at the sky.一名狂叫的疯子阻塞了交通。
• A deranged man shot and killed 14 people.一个精神失常的男子开枪打死了14人。