“Gee”:

A bland and indifferent farrago with the shade of Andy Warhol

“You need to let the little things that would ordinarily bore you suddenly thrill you”

[The location for this psychic happening is a rather bowdlerised version of Warhol’s New York Factory Studio at 231 East 47th Street. I am very mindful of his cautious and often minimalist approach to interviews so I will, of course, push him as hard as I can for answers. As the séance starts it is clear that he is completely indifferent and totally bored, so let the banality begin]

DT: Andy let me say at the outset that it’s very kind of you to host me here at the oracular “Factory”. Of course I’ve read so much about it over the years.

AW: Well that’s so nice of you to say and I’m glad you are here, even though I know nothing about you.

DT: Well that’s not a problem at all and best to keep it at that. I have found that anonymity has always been a good strategy with these psychic events, given some of the shades I have had to deal with.

AW: Oh really, such as who?

DT: Well, Nick Tosches for one. He wasn’t the easiest subject to work with to say the least and made the conversation very prickly. Though I got my own back as he was fading away coughing, puffing and cursing me as I chastised him about his chain smoking.

AW: Why did you do that?

DT: He was aggressive the whole time of the discussion, finally insulting me as a cocksucker. Having said that the guy still had class, even as an abject shade.

AW: Wow, that was very cruel.

DT: Never forget he was and I underscore was, a hard nut who gave as good as he got and more. Anyway, let’s turn our attention to the matter at hand.

AW: Which is?

DT: Banality, or if you like a self-conscious form of taste whereby something as dismally utilitarian and disposable as the repetitious image of a soup can is elevated to the stature of art.

AW: What do you have in mind?

DT: You’ll see.

AW: Gee, that’s interesting.

DT: Maybe.

*

[The subject at hand is very simple. It is the agon of a deliberate and self-conscious anti-taste associated with a cultivated banality in the fashionable name of “pop art”. The discussion is explicitly around what is arguably Warhol’s visual signature, Campbell’s soup cans. Moreover I am interested in the self-similarity, repetition and overall blandness that is Warhol’s entire anti-aesthetic in the name of the ordinary, another word for the disposable]

DT: Ok, Andy, here’s my thing. Your work is about obsessive blandness and repetition. For instance there is absolutely no distinction in visuality apart from the title of the soup cans in question, such as Clam Chowder, Mulligatawny, Split Pea, Ham and Bacon, etc. They are all, in their own way, interchangeable, an indifference to difference, despite the arduous proliferation of choice. I’m sure you loved that.

AW: Uhh, sure.

DT: Would you like to explain more about interchangeability as an aesthetic. I’m very interested in that?

AW: Umm, no.

DT: Why not?

AW: I said why.

DT: Oh, yeah, in your minimalist way. Care to repeat it?

[There is no response. As it turns out that as a consequence of Warhol’s churlishness, indifference and boredom, he unexpectedly disappears in a blast of whiteness, very much resembling the colour of his hair, to have lunch at a simulacrum of “Nells”, the famous and indeed infamous diner in New York for the raffish and the glamorous alike. It is a considerable number of days until contact is made once more with his shade]

*

DT: So, where have you been?

AW: Well, I had to spend a little time at Studio 54, as is customary in New York afterlife.

DT: Studio 54 indeed. Who was there, may I ask.

AW: Usual crowd, Halston, Jerry Hall, Grace, Steve Rubell, Ahmet

DT: [Interrupts] Yeah, yeah I get the picture, a cavalcade of New York’s finest, if that is the right word.

AW: Gee, you really are jaded aren’t you.

DT: You could say that.

AW: Mhmm. Anyway.

[ At this juncture in the séance it is clear that Warhol is completely indifferent and totally bored. Unsurprisingly he vanishes un-announced in an acrid, metallic reek of smoke that is strongly reminiscent of burning Brillo pads. How suitably gauche]

*

The final and decisive words for this event are spoken by none other than Joe Dallesandro, a leading figure of and stud for hire in The Factory. He is rolling drunk and crashes a small party of Factory denizens hosted by Nell, the owner and proprietor of legendary “Nells” Bar in New York. The pissed and pissed off Dallesandro brusquely interrupts conversations and brags about his various roles in Warhol’s films, his drug habits and the size of his penis. How very droll. I have to repeatedly remind him that the subject of this event is in fact Warhol, not him. However this admonition is to no avail so at this juncture I decide to abruptly bring the whole thing to an end. Dallesandro again interrupts, elbowing his way in to have the last say. I completely ignore him. Dissolving into the void, his final words are heard slowly growling through clenched, raspy teeth: “Fuck Campbell’s fucking soup and fuck you!” And with this he would seem to have made his point, denying Warhol the last word. Now that I think of it, he wouldn’t have cared less.

*