The Secret Beneath My Skin

Koestenbaum, Wayne: Andy Warhol, New York Penguin; Penguin Lives Ser. 2001
ISBN: 0670030007 Fine

224 pp., illus., bib. notes; 20 cm. "A Lipper/Viking book." SIGNED. Boldly signed by author on the title page, no dedication. Tight, clean copy. Dust jacket protected in a mylar book cover. "The sixties were the 'sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll' era, and Andy Warhol was its cultural icon. Painter, filmmaker, photographer, philosopher, Warhol was both celebrity and celebrant, the man who put the 'pop' in art. His studio, The Factory, where his free-spirited cast of 'superstars' mingled with the rich and famous, was ground zero for the explosions that rocked American cultural life. And yet for all his fame, Warhol was an enigma: a participant in the excesses of his time who remained a faithful churchgoer, a nearly inarticulate man who was also a great aphorist ('In the future everybody will be world famous for fifteen minutes'), an artist whose body of work sizzles with sexuality but whose own body was a source of shame and self-hatred. In his bravura account of Warhol's life and work, scholar and culture critic Wayne Koestenbaum gets past the contradictions and reveals the man beneath the blond wig and dark glasses. Nimbly weaving brilliant and witty analysis into an absorbing narrative, Koestenbaum makes a convincing case for Warhol as a serious artist, one whose importance goes beyond the sixties. Focusing on Warhol's provocative, powerful films (many of which have been out of circulation since their initial release), Koestenbaum shows that Warhol's oeuvre, in its variety of form (films, silkscreens, books, 'happenings'), maintains a striking consistency of theme: Warhol discovered in classic American images (Brillo boxes, Campbell soup cans, Marilyn's face) a secret history, the erotic of time and space. / Wayne Koestenbaum is the author of The Queen's Throat, a groundbreaking study of sexuality and the human voice, which was a National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist; Jackie Under My Skin: Interpreting an Icon; and Cleavage: Essays on Sex, Stars and Aesthetics. An accomplished poet whose works include Ode to Anna Moffo and, most recently, The Milk of Inquiry, he is professor of English at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York." - Publisher. SIGNED First Edition, First Printing Fine Hard Cover 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall Collectible

[SW: Movements::Pop Art & Happenings Genre & Subject::Gay & Lesbian]

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