An exhibition of music: Andy Warhol Live

I’ve always had a fascination with Andy Warhol. I don’t remember when exactly I first encountered the man’s genius; I was a kid, I’m sure. Over time I learned snippets of the man and his work: the “fifteen minutes of fame” that he predicted everyone would have; the Campbell’s Soup Can painting, his famous silkscreen of Marilyn Monroe…Over the years I learned more and more about the New York Pop Artist and the legendary cult of personality that grew from his art studio, the Factory.

Eventually I acquired a casual knowledge of Warhol. I imagine, given Andy Warhol’s opinions about celebrity and fame, his views on pop culture and history, that this is the sort of notoriety he’d have anticipated: that people would know of him, without necessarily knowing anything about him. It seems to be the only type of history our collective conscious seems capable of sustaining, these days. Is that how Warhol would have intended to be remembered, or merely how he would have expected to be remembered?

Essentially, there is more that I don’t know than there is that I know about Andy Warhol. But as I have an unlimited sense of curiosity, when the ‘Warhol Live’ exhibit opened at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, I made plans to go at the first opportunity. The more I toured the exhibit, the more I learned about Andy Warhol, the influence music had on him, and the influence that he, in turn, had on music.

When he was a child, Warhol was bedridden much of the time. To cheer him up, he had photos of famous movie stars surrounding his bed, and he occupied his time by drawing. Very early on he was enraptured with stars, such as Shirley Temple, Judy Garland and later on, her daughter, Liza Minnelli. The Warhol Live exhibit opens very simply, in a small room playing songs from movie musicals. There’s a brass plaque from Paramount Pictures; Lithos of Elvis, and portraits of Judy Garland and Liza Minnelli. Most telling of all is a simple, autographed picture of Shirley Temple, signed “To Andrew Warhol from Shirley Temple”. One gets a sense, in that first gallery, of how it all began; of how the seemingly insignificant moments of Warhol’s childhood came together to turn him into the legend he became.

The exhibit is as much about Warhol’s life, as his art.

The second gallery focuses on Warhol and Dance, with drawings, sketches and drawings of Warhol’s “Sprite Musicians”, and illustrations such as “Dance Diagram (2) The Foxtrot”, as well as images of Rudolph Nureyev, Bobby Short and his painting of dancer Martha Graham, “Letter to the World”. What struck me most in that gallery wasn’t Warhol’s photographs, paintings and illustrations, but the collection of playbills and ticket stubs from the concerts, plays and performances he attended, while living in New York City.

“There are beautiful sounds in rock. Very lazy, dreamlike noises. You can forget about the lyrics in most songs. Just dig the noise, and you’ve got our sound…We’re musical primitives.” – Andy Warhol