Warhol's Babies:Andy Warhol's America.

"It's not what you are that counts. It's what they think you are" - Andy Warhol

Campbell's soup, Brillo pads, Burger King, Coca-Cola, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, race riots, suicide, and the electric chair. Andy Warhol gave Americans what they already had but, for some reason, were unable to see clearly, It took Warhol, like so many Americans the son of immigrants, to look at all these things with fresh eyes and it didn't matter, least of all to him, if he glorified or critiqued America. He simply showed America to America.

Soup Cans (1962)

In Andy Warhol's America (BBC2/iPlayer) we get a look at both Warhol's life and career and one at how that reflected American society. It's a story that takes in a huge large of contributors (artists, writers, "superstars", mentors, gallerists, poets, art dealers, friends, collaborators, photographers, former police chiefs, Warhol's biographer, Warhol's nephew, Jerry Hall, Eve Ensler, Larry Gagosian, Bianca Jagger, and even Burger King's Head of Global Marketing) and is soundtracked, as you'd imagine Warhol would have approved of, by a range of pop music from different eras:- Shirley Temple, Dr John, Lene Lovich, The Cars, The Temptations, Magazine, Suicide, The Velvet Underground (of course), Sylvester, MIA, China Crisis, and New Young Pony Club with special mentions for both Donna Summer's Love's Unkind and Lou Reed and John Cale's Small Town. 

Oh, and there's even time for a quick run through of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer which was good because I watched it over Xmas. Warhol was born in Pittsburgh. In 1928, in the black and white days, to Slovak immigrant parents. Pittsburgh was a city of fire, of smoke, of furnaces, and of industry. Soot fell from the sky all day and all night long. It was not the American Dream that Andy Warhol wanted.

So he got out of Pittsburgh and moved to New York in 1949. As a promising, and humorous, illustrator New York was a good place to be. It was also a good place to be an artist and an exceptionally good place to be a queer artist. On Madison Avenue, he made himself rich with illustrations, especially of shoes, but the money wasn't making him happy.

He couldn't get laid, he constantly felt betrayed, and be began to feel so low that he could sometimes not be left on his own. He refused to hide his homosexuality and, in fact, flaunted it by painting (not for the last time) huge dicks, sometimes with ribbons wrapped round them as if to signify they were gratefully received gifts.

Penis (1977)

Five Coke Bottles (1962)

In 1962, he painted an image of a Coke bottle and, eventually, mass reproduced silk screens of that Coke bottle and indeed multiple Coke bottles. Next up it was the infamous Campbell's soup cans. To Warhol, and to his family, these products symbolised freedom from labour, they symbolised not being poor. They were part of the American Dream he so lusted after.

But more even than Coke bottles and soup cans, that was personified in the form of Marilyn Monroe who died, aged 36, in 1962. Warhol, of course, made Marilyn the subject of his art - time and time again.

Marilyn Monroe (1967)

It's possible that Warhol even, in a way, identified with Monroe. She'd had 'work' done and so had he. There was also the wigs he'd wear. It's possible that Andy Warhol's greatest ever artwork was himself. He was ever keen to keep an air of mystery about himself as it helped keep that profile up. We see him on a television chat show refusing to speak and instead whispering his answers into the ear of Edie Sedgwick who replies to questions on his behalf.

By the mid-sixties Pop Art was huge and Warhol was the face of the movement, he was its most famous proponent. He used his commission at the New York's World's Fair to add silk screens of the thirteen most wanted criminals in America to Philip Johnson's New York state pavilion. Much to the anger of New York governor Nelson Rockerfeller.

 

13 Most Wanted Men (1967)

"Everything is beautiful" - Andy Warhol

 Electric Chair (1964)

Warhol didn't differentiate between that which might please and that which might offend. To him it was all part of the big American picture. The assassination of Martin Luther King, Vietnam, and dogs set on black people in Birmingham, Alabama (in which he uses, as source material, Charles Moore's photos from Life magazine). He described electric chairs as "beautiful" (if "everything is beautiful then surely that includes execution devices?) and made art of the one from Sing Sing prison where the Rosenbergs were executed in 1953.

Violence hadn't gone away in America since then but it never seemed clear exactly what, if anything, Warhol was saying about it all. In works like Pink Race Riot (and Mustard Race Riot), some felt him to be supportive of the civil rights movement. Others felt he was simply exploiting it to promote himself and his art.

 

Race Riot (Pink) (1964)

Race Riot (Mustard) (1963)

 

Twelve Jackies (1964)

Following John F Kennedy's assassination in Dallas in November, 1963, Warhol turned his attention to JFK's widow Jackie in works like the following year's Twelve Jackies but then he turned inwards, at least by his standards, and instead of looking out at the world he had the world, or at least what he saw as the world that mattered, come and visit him at his Silver Factory.

There he did 'screen tests' for the likes of Lou Reed, Bob Dylan, Dennis Hopper, and Salvador Dali as well as local drug dealers and pimps. They also played Russian roulette and did A LOT of drugs there (one man ended up living in the toilet) but that hardly made them stand out in American society during that era as, by 1967, it was estimated that 31,000,000 Americans were on amphetamines.

 

"Buying is more American than thinking" - Andy Warhol

Out of the Silver Factory, or simply Factory, sprang The Velvet Underground, the band Warhol turned into his own studio band but who would have been nothing without the songwriting genius of Lou Reed and John Cale. It was Warhol, though, who brought Nico in and it was Warhol who got The VU to play a gig at a psychiatrist's convention.

Something I'd like to have witnessed! Continuing to expand his remit, Warhol began to make experimental films. The Chelsea Girls was nearly four hour longs, Tub Girls featured young girls in the bath with their boobs out, and both Sleep and Blow Job are pretty self-explanatory.

 

 

Chelsea Girls (1967)

 

Tub Girls (1966)

 

Sleep (1964)

 

Blow Job (1963)

 

They were pretty much unwatchable and they were certainly, defiantly, uncommercial. The whole scene around the Factory, those there report, was 'vicious', 'competitive', and even 'coercive'. In some ways it comes across as a precursor to reality TV as volatile people desperate for fame, for meaning in their life, compete for attention.

With that already toxic atmosphere and then the introduction of ever stronger drugs the inevitable happened and there was a suicide. Warhol was so upset that he refused to talk about it but it wasn't just Warhol who was upset, some people were upset with Warhol.

 

Not least Valerie Solanas. She had strong ideas about Warhol just as she had strong ideas about all men. As the author of the SCUM (Society for Cutting Up Men) Manifesto, she'd written a script called Up Your Ass and given it to Warhol to have a look at with the idea that he might be able to make a movie of it. He was a busy man and hadn't got round to it. Even going so far as to mislay it. So she shot him.

"The idea is not to live forever. It is to create something that will" - Andy Warhol

A five hour operation saved Warhol's life but he remained weakened for years after. Possibly for the rest of his life. The man who had almost celebrated death had nearly experienced it first hand for himself and he began to move away from the freak scene and into the safer folds of high society.

 

Though not necessarily because of the shooting. But because he was becoming more business like. Because the world was becoming more business like. Warhol started to make what they called "business art". Which, of course, sounds rather terrible - and much of it was.

 

But not all of it. Warhol's first major series since being shot was inspired by President Nixon's visit to China to meet Chairman Mao. Warhol, of course, painted Mao and some of the paintings were big - 12/13ft tall - as if to echo the huge portraits of Mao that could be found around Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

 

Mao (1973)

Warhol's portraits were, however, a little camper than those endorsed by the Chinese state. As the 70s and 80s rolled on, much of Warhol's work was made on the advice of his dealers and was made, quite simply, to make money for them and him. 

But, again, not all of it. Warhol started to paint drag queens (including Wilhelmina Ross in the Ladies and Gentlemen series) who, back then, were marginalised even within the gay community, he painted the Native American sovereignty movement, its leader Russell Means, and the occupation of Wounded Knee in South Dakota, and he hung out in Studio 54 but, by most reports, he never danced. He did business and by that we're not talking 'rough trade'.

 

Ladies and Gentlemen (Wilhelmina Ross) (1975)

The American Indian (Russell Means) (1976)

He loved the 'immortality' that fame appeared to give a person but he knew that though his art would be able to live on he would one day die. As he aged he painted what are described as a Hallowe'enish self-portraits including the below one from 1986.

 

Not long after making that, on the 22nd February 1987 and at the age of 58, he died following what appeared to be a routine operation. I remember hearing the news. I was eighteen years old and I was at a gig in Reading later that week, possibly that same day. The support band, as chance would have it, were called Warhol's Babies and they said a few words about the loss of someone who was clearly a hero to them.

 

Warhol, of course, had no babies, no children, but the art he left us perhaps acts as enough of a legacy as it is. On top of that, it seems to me that we are, all of us, now - with our obsession with celebrities and labels and our gawping fascination with death and violence, very much Warhol's babies anyway. He saw that long before the rest of us.

 

Self-Portrait (1986)

Statuesque?

Why are there so many more statues of men than women in London? Why do even horses outnumber the gender that makes up 50% of the population when it comes to bronze and stone representation in our nation's capital? Why are so many more of those women depicted naked, or semi-naked, when it seems all the men are fully clothed, often in military garb?

Some of the men commemorated in statue form around the country are hardly worth celebrating. The statues of mass murderer and slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol never looked better than when it was being tossed into the bottom of that city's Floating Harbour and he's hardly the only person of dubious morality, to put it mildly, to have been celebrated in this way.

Are statues, in fact, really the best way for us to archive our past? As a teenage boy, I'd been fascinated by the sheer number of statues in London and had suggested to my aghast friend Shep that we tour London with a notepad and pen and note down all the different statues we saw.

He was having none of it but, now, nearly forty years later not only had I dragged him out for a tour of London statues but we'd managed to rope in six more mugs (sorry - friends) for the ride. There was a spin on it too. We were to take in, mostly - you'll note a few unavoidable exceptions, only statues that celebrate women. I'd even hoped that our pub stops would all be in pubs named after notable women but that plan unravelled rather quickly.

I'd woke early and, feeling surprisingly chipper, taken the 63 bus up to Elephant & Castle. From there I walked to Waterloo, had a cream cheese bagel and a hot chocolate from Bagel Factory and sat in the usual place, Benugo on the Waterloo concourse mezzanine, where, soon enough, I was met by Adam, Shep, Dave Fog, and Pam. Then, a pleasant surprise, Neil and Eamon arrived too. Once Mo were there we were ready for the off and, as luck had it, the first statue to fall under our scrutiny was right there in Waterloo station.

Basil Watson's National Windrush Monument was only unveiled, by Prince William, in June of this year and it memorialises, you should hardly need telling, the West Indian immigrants (including the calypsonian Lord Kitchener) who arrived on the HMT Emperor Windrush from 1948 onwards. It's a nice statue that tells a story about an important part of British history and it's also accompanied by a poem which you can read below.

Watson is also responsible for a statue of the Jamaican athlete Merlene Ottey which now stands in that country's national stadium in Kingston. While I was reading my spiel to the others a nearby lady 'corrected' me to tell me about the history of West Indian immigration and the racism these new arrivals experienced. To be honest, I was (and we all were) fully aware of this but her input was, of course, welcome.

We left Waterloo station, and via the above bizarre sculpture outside the Hayward Gallery, we made our way to the South  Bank where, in front of the National Theatre, we found Frank Dobson's London Pride. The bowl one of the women holds on her lap was intended to contain the plant London Pride (saxiffraga x urbium) though Pam quipped that it'd be more suitable for a nice big bag of Doritos.

As we passed Waterloo and Westminster Bridges and the London Eye, and looked across to the sparkly shiny recently gussied up Big Ben, the crowds were absolutely heaving - and not for the last time during the walk. I'm not too fussed about crowds but I know that some others are so I tried to be mindful of that. Thankfully, as you pass the tunnel under Westminster Bridge the crowds begin to thin out.

It's near here we came off the river, briefly, to enter the gardens of St Thomas' Hospital where Martin Jenning's impressive statue of Mary Seacole stands, portrayed "marching defiantly forward". Seacole, who was voted first in a 2003 poll of the 100 greatest black Britons, lived from 1805-1881 and she is famous for creating a "British hostel" in Balaklava during the Crimean War of 1853-1856.

As we carried on along the Covid memorial wall towards Lambeth Bridge, we encountered our first bonus female statue of the day. I'd not planned to take in The Monument to S.O.E. Agents but as it featured Violette Szabo (a French-British spy during World War II who was executed by the Nazis in Ravensbruck concentration camp in 1945, aged 23) it seemed we simply should take time to have a look and even pay our respects.

We crossed Lambeth Bridge into Victoria Tower Gardens and with the Houses of Parliament looming behind us we became distracted by Rodin's Burghers of Calais. There's no women in this group statue but it's pretty impressive all the same so we stopped to have a look.

What we were really here for though, this time, was the Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst Memorial (that's them - above). Made by Arthur George Walker (another man - not many female sculptors so far) and unveiled in 1930. The Pankhursts were, of course, two of the foremost British suffragettes.

Another, Millicent Fawcett, is commemorated nearby in an even more illustrious location. Parliament Square. Which she shares with such big names as Mahatma Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, Disraeli, Winston Churchill, Nelson Mandela, Robert Peel, David Lloyd-George, and George Canning.

Fawcett's statue was actually made by a woman (the artist Gillian Wearing), in 2018, and was raised following a campaign by Caroline Criado Perez. The plinth contains the names of 59 women, and 4 men, who supported women's suffrage. As statues go, it's great - and long overdue.

From Parliament Square, it's a short - and uncomfortably busy - walk to the foot of Westminster Bridge and Thomas Thornycroft's Boudica and her Daughters (made between 1856 & 1883, erected in 1902). It shows the queen of the Celtic Iceni tribe (and her daughters) on a scythed chariot drawn by horses.

It's power slightly diminished by having a stall selling baseball caps and other tourist tat at its foot. We headed back along Birdcage Walk to Queen Anne's Gate, a road lined with blue plaques and fancy porches, and one that also features the oldest statue of our walk so far. The 1705 statue (artist unknown) of Queen Anne shows her wearing a cloak, a brocaded skirt, and a bodice and is made of Portland stone.

Anne ruled from 1702-1714 so the statue was built during her short, but eventful, reign. A reign in which the Act of Union took place, England and Scotland joined forces (for how much longer now we do not know), and the United Kingdom was born.

From Queen Anne and Queen Anne's Gate it was into St.James's Park, a haven for wildfowl. You can often see pelicans but we made do with swans (both black and white), herons, ducks of all description, coots, and a lot of gulls. There were one or two blighters who we were unable to even identify which wasn't bad as we were only in the park for a very short time before coming out on the Mall with views to Buckingham Palace to our right and back to the London Eye on our left.

Another bonus memorial came in the form of a bust to Queen Mary but as we walked in front of the ornate columns of The Mall our next proper stop was to have a look at the 'dear old Queen Mum'. Sadly she has not been depicted either holding a glass of gin, with a copy of the Racing Post tucked under her arm, or even pulling a pint. Which anyone who has ever been in a pub in Britain will know was her forte.

William McMillan's statue of King George VI, covered in pigeon shit incidentally, was unveiled in 1955 by his daughter, Queen Elizabeth II. It was joined, in 2009, by a statue of his wife, the Queen Mother. Depicted at the age of 51. The age she was when her husband died - himself just 56. This was also unveiled by Elizabeth II and surely it won't be long before Charles III is unveiling one of his own mother. Turn up to celebrate that or turn up to protest that. It's your choice.

Just before the ICA, we took the steps past the Duke of York's impressive column (not today, DoY, we're only here for the women) and stopped briefly to try and work out who this woman was sat on a lion beneath a statue of Field Marshall Lord Clyde. Answers were inconclusive but she was certainly not deemed worthy of naming on the plinth.

Florence Nightingale, as part of the nearby Guards Crimean War Memorial, fared better. Like the Pankhurst Memorial, it's the work of Arthur George Walker and went up in 1861.

Passing through the Trafalgar Square Xmas market (where you can buy huge buckets of Nutella amongst other crap) and the foot of St Martin-in-the-Fields we reached the Edith Cavell Memorial. Built in 1920 by Sir George Frampton who's also behind the Peter Pan statue in Kensington Gardens.

Cavell's life is a fascinating, and admirable, one but there's Wikipedia if you want to read a lot about it. I'm keeping it brief - some of my walkers are impatient! So - briefly - Cavell was a nurse in World War I who saved the lives of soldiers from both sides without discrimination. It didn't save her. At the age of 49, she was executed in German occupied Brussels. Before her death she said "patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone". It's a lovely way to look at the world and, considering she was about to be murdered, quite incredible

Further up St.Martin's Lane there's a memorial to Agatha Christie. It's near where The Mousetrap still plays (and has done since 1952) and if you look at the top of the memorial you can see, quite clearly, a depiction of said rodent capturing device. The memorial was made by Ben Twiston Davies.

People were getting thirsty, hungry, and needing the loo so, via Greggs for a vegan sausage roll - standard - thanks Pam, we repaired to The Nell Gwynne Tavern in Bull Inn Court off The Strand. A very small pub but one with a lot of character - and with the heating on. Which met with my approval if not everyone else's.

I had a Soho lager, others chomped on Monster Munch, and we remarked on the signage that showed Nell topless flashing a pert pair of bosoms. We wondered how many more pub signs around the country contained nudity.

It's a Grade II listed pub and Gwynne was an actress in the Restoration period. Much praised by Samuel Pepys, she became the mistress (one of many) of Charles II and died of a stroke in 1687, aged just 37.

It'd been a nice stop and, for Mo, it was her last of the day as, feeling a bit run down, she headed back home. It had been good to see her and I was glad she'd been able to join us. But, as we walked down The Strand, I realised I'd made a mistake. In the theme of The Nell Gwynne Tavern, you could even call it a boob.

I'd been meaning to march my troops round Victoria Embankment Gardens to see the Lady Henry Somerset Memorial (Somerset being a philanthropist, campaigner for women's right, and temperance leader who lived from 1851-1921 and was Julia Margaret Cameron's niece and first cousin of Virginia Woolf's mother) but I'd gone the wrong the way.

Figuring that nobody was going to regret this too much, and nobody looked like they wanted to go backwards, I decided we'd skip this and, instead, head straight to Lincoln's Inn Fields to check out Richard Reginald Goulden's Lady Margaret McDonald Memorial. 

When we arrived there were a couple sat on it but they soon moved when the cameras came out! McDonald (1870-1911) was a feminist, social reformer, and the wife of Labour MP Ramsay McDonald. The couple lived on Lincoln's Inn Fields which is not a bad address. Queues were forming outside of Sir John Soane's House and we left the park to the east and carried on through the now quiet streets of Holborn, inns and temples towering majestically over us.

I'd planned to pop in to the relatively local Princess Louise pub but it'd not been long since our last drink and it seemed to make sense to move on. We even passed the charming Seven Stars on Carey Street without giving in to temptation, before emptying out on to Fleet Street and ascending Ludgate Hill towards St.Paul's Cathedral. Not an easy place to miss.

In front of the cathedral, we'd be reacquainted with an old friend. It was Queen Anne's second appearance of the walk and this statue (built by Francis Bird (1667-1731) was also unveiled during her reign:- in 1713. Made of Carrara marble, in a contemporary baroque style, it was built as part of a Thanksgiving service for the Peace of Utrecht which marked the end of the War of the Spanish Succession.

Round the side of the cathedral you can find George Ehrlich's Young Lovers. Installed in 1993, we arrived to find a pair of young lovers posing for photos in front of it which was sweet. Ehrlich was a Jewish Austrian who fled his home following the Anschluss and became a British citizen.

We left St.Paul's, headed along Cheapside and down the stairs at Holborn Viaduct before heading north up Farringdon Road. There were calls for another pub, and toilet, stop and I remembered that The Betsey Trotwood pub was soon coming up. That'd fit in with theme - but it was closed. The Union Tavern on Lloyd Baker Street was too busy and The Queen's Head on Acton Street was closed for a private party so we, eventually, filled in to The Lucas Arms on Grays Inn Road.

A place I'd only visited recently with some friends before going to see Slady at the nearby Water Rats. At the bar, Pam, Dave Fog, and myself bumped into an old PRS acquaintance, Steve Meixner, and we sat for about forty-five minutes chatting amiably before leaving the pub and heading along Euston Road to our penultimate statue stop.

Faced with Portland stone, St Pancras New Church was built, by William & Henry Willian Inwood - a father and son team, in a Greek Revival style between 1819 and 1822 and uses Ionic order inspired by both the Tower of the Winds and the Erechtheum in Athens. But the reason I'd included the church on our walk was so that we could take in the caryatids (female columns basically) that ape those of the Erechtheum but with the additional feature that these caryatids hold empty jugs and extinguished torches symbolising the end of life.

We were nearing not the end of life (hopefully) but the end of the walk. I had thought of taking the canal path up to Camden but I got the feeling most people would rather get moving so we took, instead, the long straight Eversholt Street up past Euston station and in to Camden proper.

It was heaving and it smelt, according to Dave Fog, of nutella and skunk. We worked our way through the crowds, including some 'punks' you could pay £1 to pose for a photo with - one had a sign reading "GET A PUNK DRUNK FOR £1" - the A of course was in a circle, and into the Stables Market to take a look at Scott Eaton's statue of Amy Winehouse (1983-2011).

Nobody needs me to tell them who Amy Winehouse was but, some observers - when I posted the photo on Facebook - expressed disappointment in how unflattering the statue is. I'm inclined to agree although I think it's nice she got a statue. Even more so it is tragic, as if she was still alive now she would only be 39 years old.

We headed up to the Enterprise for one more drink, said goodbye to Neil and Eamon, and then those of us remaining rocked up in Namaaste in Parkway for what we all agreed was a rather lovely Indian meal. Dave Fog stuck to the soft drinks, the rest of us had a Cobra or two, and I had zardaloo kofte (a potato and apricot dumpling dish that I always have when I visit this place) and a plain nan.

We were running earlier than usual but with train drivers working to rule people wanted to get home so there were no last drinks this time. Pam and I took the Northern Line together. I jumped off at London Bridge, train to Peckham Rye, 63 bus home. I'd planned to open a beer at home and watch some TV but just after 10am I fell asleep and I slept pretty good too.

That's what a day out walking, having a couple of drinks, eating nice food, and, more than anything, being with lovely people will do for you. The day was a tonic for me and I hope it was for everyone else. Even if my walk to look at female statues was attended by three times as many men as it was women!

Thanks to Shep, Adam (and also for the map above), Pam (whom I also thank for contributing photos to this blog), Mo, Dave Fog, Neil, and Eamon for joining me yesterday and thanks also to everyone else who came on an LbF walk in 2022. That's Roxanne, Clive, Michelle, Marianne, and Katie. We'll be back in March 2023 with a spring stroll through Epping Forest from Theydon Bois to Walthamstow. I'll think of a name for it soon and let you all know. In the meantime, happy new year.