Remembering Artists From Another Time: Andy Warhol

Warhol in his studio. Photo: Richard Schulman.

Fictional Truths

My period of making portraits appear in the rear view mirror like a collection of a rogues gallery and the inimitable. My camera has interacted with a lot of art, an army of artists, and art-world figures.

It is something that rests comfortably in the shadows of my archives.

One evening, I huddled with cultural icons of another era: Senator Edward Kennedy, Jackie Kennedy Onassis, Andrew Wyeth and Andy Warhol. The Red Sea parted; the waltz of fame ensued, looking part Fantasia; part Charlton Heston’s The Ten Commandments.

It was me being a Zelig for a few seconds. It was among a few days that I was tapestried in moments, not mine. History is home to many interpretations: I have an affinity for looking back into my history through a slew of negatives and positives.

So many places and faces, I have spent years meandering silently aside the ancient and contemporary phenomena: The inside of my mind appears like bountiful holiday sparklers. In person, I may appear achingly shuffling, like a Mynah bird in heat on heroin and steroidal treats. Yet it is merely me making sense of time behind my camera. So many types of fame in view, so much posturing. I do not belong, in milieus not mine. My future with celluloid captures was only a vehicle to somewhere. Somewhere is a place where a dream is a reality. Time is truly a slice of evidence.

I have traveled in ancient and contemporary architectural history: Turkey’s Basilica Cistern, Rome’s Aqua Virgo and Vicus Caprarius, Corbusier, Mies, Gehry and Oscar. I have composed apertures with a Kennedy, Miles, Warhol, Niemeyer, Hollywood’s Douglases, Astaires, and Kellys and other dream/reality milestones. The fame game became a stamp in time, but not my camera’s intention. The intention was to feel a bit the Earth’s rotation. It was great to be young and walking in history’s formidable footprints.

There was a man who knew everything about Bernini. I have never known the meaning of being an expert. I did not know him, but envied him. I dreamed my camera might photograph the history of that knowledge. My camera would become an expert in all things seen. The man who knew everything about Bernini–knew the secrets–secret moments alone to caress the Berninis I merely imagined.

There was a time when everyone knew of Bernini. There was a time when everyone knew of Andy Warhol. If Bernini was a populist pioneer, Warhol was a distant cousin. Bernini had the Pope and the Cardinal Borghese. Warhol had a different kind of guile for a different age. They were both icons of their times. They both blurred the lines of the private and public. They both dominated the visual culture. If imagined together, I am certain it would have been a marriage of unconditional love.

For a time, I merely wanted my camera to draw a visual line between the two. If the world could see my fingerprints atop the Berninis, they would see the evidence of the caress: The enviable position of caressing magic. If people could see the giant Andy Warhol painting of Mao Zedong in an art collector’s home, they would understand the furiously envious yelp heard throughout the home: I caressed the painting as if it were mine. Mao was mine for fractional seconds. I have spent a considerable amount of time caressing the brilliance of others.

Warhol invited me to his Montauk estate. I dreamed that Bernini invited me to his Via della Mercede in Rome. In both matters, I have and would have passed. I am not a mingler. I shared these fantasies with a famous art curator. He said “Not to worry about mingling, you will find your special moments in time”. His good friend was a photographer of Donatello’s sculpture. The curator outrageously said that my portraits of artists remind him of those Donatello portraits: Light caressing life.

I told him that it is not about the light for me. I only wanted to be somewhere. He warned me about the necessity of patience. “You will be where you need to be in time”. There is never enough time, I thought. I told him that my light and the photographer’s Donatello light are not manufactured–they come from a special place: From the wind of another time: A time when I might pause and press my fingers on greatness. I am an Ostrich…