Sometimes a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do. For example, this girl needed to check out the brand new Andy Warhol exhibit at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts and she needed to do it right away. So despite the fact that no one was available to accompany her, she went. By herself. And it was awesome. (and lets shift out of third person gear...) I must say- I'd never visited a museum alone before but it turned out to be surprisingly...relaxing. It was a total "me" moment and you've just gotta have those every once and awhile. But since I didn't get to share the experience with anyone, I'm gonna have to share it with you. You don't mind, right? I knew Andy Warhol was unconventional, but I didn't realize the extent of his eccentricities until my recent trip to the Frist. For example, did you know:
-Good Mr. Warhol produced and directed over 100 films (though I can't imagine they were the kind of films anyone would want to see). His 1964 film Empire is eight hours of footage of the Empire State Building. Eat shows a man eating a mushroom for 45 minutes. Sleep is a six hour film that chronicles poet John Giorno (you guessed it) sleeping.
-From 1973 to his death in 1981, Warhol created over 600 "time capsules" which documented correspondence, food, souvenirs and objects from his daily life.
-Though he had many world famous friends, his constant companion was none other than his handy dandy audio recorder, which he used to document all of his conversations. And referred to as his "wife".
Just a few gems for you to ponder. After viewing so much of his original work (including a few of his films and exhibitions), I think it's safe to say the man was either hopelessly unbalanced or an honest to goodness genius. Or maybe he was both. Either way, his art was both groundbreaking and outrageously successful...his painting "Eight Elvises", below, sold for $100,000,000- a feat only a handful of artists (Jackson Pollack, Piccasso, Van Gogh, Renoir, Gustav Klint and Willem de Kooning to be exact) had previously achieved. He's a legend. A wacky legend, but a legend nonetheless.
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