Syllabus (MS Word file)

This course is an interdisciplinary disciplinary examination of the work of Andy Warhol, focusing on 1960s projects in film, visual art, writing, fashion, and music. We will look at Warhol’s maddeningly diverse production in relation to the legacy of John Cage, quasi-“underground” interdisciplinary art movements and gay cultures, the interface with mass/pop culture, and the introduction of new reproductive and recording technologies. We will also be using Warhol to consider/critique/ compare different critical methods and models – including visual culture, art history, film studies, cultural studies and queer/gender studies.

Required texts:

Course Reader (available at Paradigm by second week of class) [R]
Gary Garrels, ed., The Work of Andy Warhol (Seattle: Bay Press, 1989) [G]
Stephen Koch, Stargazer: The Life, World & Films of Andy Warhol (NY: M Boyars, 1991)
Andy Warhol, a: a novel (NY: Grove Press, 1968/98)
-- The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (from A to B and Back Again) (NY: Harcourt Brace, 1988)
Andy Warhol and Pat Hackett, Popism: The Warhol Sixties (NY: Harcourt Brace, 1980)

Recommended texts:

Jennifer Doyle, et al, eds., Pop Out: Queer Warhol (Duke UP, 1996) [D]
Colin McCabe, ed., Who Is Andy Warhol? (London: BFI/Indiana UP, 1997) [M]

Requirements:

Regular attendance and participation; brief oral presentation of 2-3 class readings; brief project proposal & bibliography due April 4th; research/critical paper (approx. 20 pages) due May 10th.

Jan 17: Introduction & Overview:

Emile de Antonio, Painters Painting (1972)

Jan 24: Competing Warhols

Douglas Crimp, “Getting the Warhol We Deserve,” Social Text, 1999 [R]
Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, “The Andy Warhol Line” [G]
Simon Watney, “The Warhol Effect” (and discussion) [G]
Stephen Koch, Stargazer (introduction, pp. i-xvii)
Robert Hughes, “The Rise of Andy Warhol” (1982) Art After Modernism [R]
“ Andy Warhol in His Own Words,” Andy Warhol: A Retrospective (1988) [R]
Rec: Simon Watney, “Queer Andy” [D]

Jan 31: Commodity Aesthetics

Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, “Andy Warhol’s One-Dimensional Art, 1956-1966,”
in K. McShine, ed., Andy Warhol: A Retrospective (1988) [R]
Peter Wollen, “Notes from the Underground” (1989) Raiding the Icebox [R]
Res: Rainer Crone, Andy Warhol (NY: Praeger, 1970) rare books

Feb 7: Cultural Politics of Pop

Andy Warhol, Interview with G. R. Swenson (1963) [R]
Roland Barthes, “That Old Thing, Art,” in Post Pop (MIT Press, 1989) [R]
Jean Baudrillard, “Pop—An Art of Consumption?”[1970] Post-Pop [R]
Andreas Huyssen, “The Cultural Politics of Pop” (1975) [R]

Feb 14: Early Warhol

Kenneth Silver, “Modes of Disclosure: The Construction of Gay Identity and the
Ruse of Pop Art,” Hand-Painted Pop (1993)[R]
Trevor Fairbrother, “Tomorrow’s Man,” in Donna De Salvo, ed., Success is a
Job in New York (NY: Grey Art Gallery, 1989) [R]
Richard Meyer, “Boot Camp,” About Face: Andy Warhol Portraits (1999)
Nan Rosenthal, “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: Warhol as Art Director” [G]
Rec: Rainer Crone, “Warhol’s Techniques from Blotted Line to Film” [G]
Res: Rainer Crone, Andy Warhol: The Early Work, 1942-1962 (Rizzoli, 1987)

Feb 21: Pop Iconographies

Thomas Crow, “Saturday Disasters: Trace and Reference in Early Warhol,”
in Serge Guilbaut, ed., Reconstructing Modernism (MIT Press, 1990) [R]
Richard Meyer, “Warhol’s Clones,” Yale Journal of Criticism (Spring, 1994) [R]
Hal Foster, “Death in America,” October 75 (Winter, 1996) [R]
Rec: Trevor Fairbrother, “Skulls” [G]

Feb 28: Popism:

Chuck Workman, Superstar: The Life & Times of Andy Warhol (video)
Andy Warhol, Popism (1980)

Mar 7: Warhol’s Films I

Andy Warhol, Haircut (24 min, 1963); Blow-Job (35 min, 1963) B/W silent
Koch, Stargazer (pp. 3-62)
Jonas Mekas, “Notes After Reseeing the Movies of Andy Warhol,”
in John Coplans, ed., Andy Warhol (NY Graphics Society, 1970) [R]
David James, “Warhol: Producer as Author,” Allegories of Cinema (1989) [R]
Douglas Crimp, “Face Value,” About Face: Andy Warhol Portraits (1999) [R]
Rec: Tom Waugh, “Cockteaser” [D]
Rec: Callie Angell, “Andy Warhol Filmmaker,” The Andy Warhol Museum [R]

Mar 14: Warhol Films II/New York Undergrounds I

Audiotapes: La Monte Young, Tony Conrad, Velvet Underground
Warhol, Screen Text #2 (66 min, 1965) B/W sound
Maciunas et al, FluxFilms (1966)
John Cage, “Composition as Process” (sections I & II, 1958) Silence (1961) [R]
La Monte Young, “Lecture 1960,” TDR 11, no. 2 (Winter, 1965) [R]
La Monte Young, Compositions” (1960) [R]
Henry Flynt, “La Monte Young in New York, 1960-1962,”
in Sound and Light: La Monte Young, Marian Zazeela (Bucknell UP, 1996)

Rec: Douglas Kahn, “The Latest: Fluxus & Music”; Bruce Jenkins, “Flux Films in Three False Starts,” In The Spirit of Fluxus (Walker Art Ctr, 1993) [R]
Rec: Caroline Jones, “Finishing School: John Cage and the Abstract Expressionist Ego,” Critical Inquiry (1996) [R]

Mar 21: Warhol Films III/New York Undergrounds II

Warhol, Vinyl (70 min, 1965), B/W sound
Jack Smith, Flaming Creatures (1965)
Koch, Stargazer (pp. 63-141)
Susan Sontag, “Jack Smith’s Flaming Creatures” (1964) [R]
Michael Moon, “Flaming Closets” October no. 51 (Winter, 1989) [R]
Gregory Battcock, “Four Films by Andy Warhol” (1967);
Gretchen Berg, “Nothing to Lose: An Interview with Andy Warhol” (1967); Kathy Acker, “Blue Valentine”; Parker Tyler, Dragtime or Drugtime” (1967); Tony Rayns, “Death at Work: Evolution and Entropy in Factory Films”; all in Michael O’Pray, ed., Andy Warhol: Film Factory (London: BFI, 1989)

Mar 28: no class (spring break)

Apr 4: Warhol’s Hustlers/Warhol’s ‘Women’/Warhol’s Portraits

Andy Warhol, Beauty #2 (66 min, 1965); My Hustler (67 min, 1965) B/W sound
Susan Sontag, “Notes on ‘Camp’” (1964) Against Interpretation [R]
Robert Rosenblum, “Andy Warhol: Court Painter of the 1970s” (1979) [R]
Hilton Als, “Mother,” The Warhol Look: Glamour, Style, Fashion (1998) [R]
Jonathan Flatley, “Warhol Gives Good Face” [D]
Rec: Jennifer Doyle, “Tricks of the Trade” [D]
Rec: Cecile Whiting, “Warhol, the Public Star and the Private Self,” A Taste for Pop (1997)
Res: Mark Francis & Margery King, The Warhol Look: Glamour, Style, Fashion
(Pittsburgh: The Andy Warhol Museum, 1998)

Apr 11: Warhol’s Philosophy

Andy Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975)

Apr 18: Warhol’s Tape-recorder I

Andy Warhol, a: a novel (Grove Press, 1968/1998) begin
Rosalind Krauss, “Notes on the Index I & II” (1977) [R]
Friedrich Kittler, “Introduction,” Gramophone, Film, Typewriter (1986/1999) [R]

Apr 25: Warhol’s Tape-recorder II

Andy Warhol, a: a novel (Grove Press, 1968/1998) complete
Rec: Reva Wolf, Andy Warhol, Poetry and Gossip in the 1960s (Chicago, 1997)

May 2: Conclusion

Reminder: the final paper (20-25 pages) is due by May 10th; any possible incompletes must be cleared with me beforehand. A short project proposal (1-2 pages) including a bibliography, is due by April 4th (the week after break); I will try to schedule meetings with all students to review their project proposals in early/mid April, in order to suggest resources, readings, etc.

CSDS/CLIT 8910:Warhol: Texts on Reserve (MS word file)