A: You take some chocolate…and you take two pieces of bread…and you put the candy in the middle and you make a sandwich of it.
And that would be a cake.
The Philosophy of Andy Warhol, 1975, Penguin Books, IBSN: 978-0-141-18910-9, by Andy Warhol is constructed along much the same lines. The central chapters can be considered the, sometimes, bizarre core of Warhol’s philosophy while the chapters at the beginning and end are the practical foundations securing it all together.
Warhol’s The Philosophy of Andy Warhol is indeed a cake, maybe a black forest cake, light in parts while heavy in others, overall a sweet thing to consume.
Warhol’s Central Ideology
The philosophical core of the autobiography reads like a collection of sound-bites, some interconnecting, others tangential. Reading through, moving amongst the anecdotes and aphorisms, some hit while others slide past. Warhol is an honest man, his descriptions of inner thoughts and perceptions are candid and unblinking, ranging from moments of elucidation to mildly eccentric digressions on the seemingly trivial and banal.
Warhol could not deny the mundane or taciturn any more than he could deny the purportedly significant themes in life, both are as valid a part of his ethos and one another. As in Warhol’s body of artistic work, the audience takes the Brillo boxes with the silkscreen skulls, the figure of Marilyn Monroe with that of Chairman Mao. It is all together.
Warhol’s egalitarian ideology is present in the choice of subjects which divide his autobiography, titles include realms of experience as diverse as Beauty and Death, Time, Fame and Economics; Atmosphere and something called Underwear Power. Which is, in fact, about shopping for underwear and the philosophies inherent within such an act.
The Relationship between Art and Life
The decision to lay out the autobiography in this mode, with irreverence and parity, is perhaps the overarching philosophy of Warhol’s work. These themes are at the very foundations of his artistic convictions, ‘why do people think artists are special?’ he asks, ‘it’s just another job’. Warhol furthers this thesis by recounting a trip taken early one morning:
'I was dropping her off at two thirty in the morning after a very social party and she made me take her to Times Square to find a record store that was open so she could buy Blonde on Blonde and get back in touch with “real people.” Some people have deep-rooted long-standing art fantasies and they really stick with them’
To Warhol, those at the party were as real as those depicted on Dylan’s record, and the artistic qualities of those on the record were present in those at the party. There was no distinction.
Warhol ‘The Man’
The above exchange is an illustration of the nature of the two sections bordering the restless centre of Warhol's autobiography. Here, Warhol employs cohesive narrative structure, relating conversations between himself and others and recounting his childhood and early years in the art world. These passages secure a more comprehensive view of Warhol and his many intricacies and preoccupations, allowing a certain level of intimacy with his sometime iconic reputation.
One short section, titled ‘Love: Prime’ relates a critical biography of a character named “Taxi”, Edie Sedgwick under pseudonym, which is the most complete character study outside of Warhol’s own. This piece belies the self-described ‘fascination’ Warhol had with her which ‘was probably very close to a certain kind of love.’ An emotion whose depth is unrivaled in much of the rest of Warhol’s relationships except for, perhaps, his ‘wife’, the tape recorder.
Andy Warhol was an artist involved in the Pop Art movement of the sixties and seventies, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol was his only book.
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