Read I'll Be Your Mirror: The Selected Andy Warhol Interviews for Free Online

painting. I want my paintings to sell for $25,000.
    POET. What a good idea. What are you working on now?
    ANDY Death.
    POET, ( transfixed ) Hmmmm.
    ANDY. The girl who jumped off the Empire Building, a girl who jumped out of a window of Bellevue, the electric chair, car crashes, race riots.
    POET. Where do you get your photographs?
    ANDY. My friends clip them out of newspapers for me.
    POET. Do you think Marisol has affairs with people?
    ANDY. Nobody knows.
    POET. When can I see your death pictures?
    ANDY. In November. I’m having a show in Paris 4 . . . ( with despair ) I haven’t done them yet. I will have to do all of them in one day. Tomorrow . . . I don’t know why I’m having a Paris show. I don’t believe in Europe.
    POET. How do you think Oldenburg compares with Marisol?
    ANDY, ( impatiently ) Ohhhh . . . You can’t ask me questions like that.
    POET. Would you like to meet Elizabeth Taylor?
    ANDY, ( ecstatic ) Ohhhh, Elizabeth Taylor, ohhhh. She’s so glamorous.
    POET. Tell me more about your painting.
    ANDY. It’s magic. It’s magic that makes them.
    The End

----
    1 Catherine Morrison, "My 15 Minutes." The Guardian , 14 Feb. 2002.
    2 Larry Rivers. Artist, 1923-2002.
    3 Marlborough Gallery, New York City.
    4 Galerie Ileana Sonnabend, Paris, January–February, 1964.

5 “Pop Goes the Artist”
RUTH HIRSCHMAN (NOW RUTH SEYMOUR)
Fall 1963
Transcription of KPFK radio broadcast, published in
Annual Annual , 1965, The Pacifica Foundation,
Berkeley, Ca.
    In September of 1963, following the filming of Sleep, Warhol made a crosscountry car trip to Los Angeles for his second show at the Ferus Gallery. He was accompanied by the actor Taylor Mead, the artist Wynn Chamberlain, and Warhol’s assistant, poet Gerard Malanga. Warhols stay in Los Angeles was packed with parties and openings. He was invited to a party at Dennis Hopper’s house and was introduced to stars such as Troy Donahue and Sal Mineo; he attended the opening of Marcel Duchamp’s retrospective at the Pasadena Art Museum; and he made a movie during his stay, Tarzan and Jane Regained . . . Sort of, starring Mead and the New York underground filmmaker Naomi Levine.
    The Ferus show featured portraits of Elvis Presley in the main gallery, which were printed on one continuous roll of canvas and left to gallerist Irving Blum to cut and stretch at will. Although Warhol’s reputation was quickly growing and the Pop phenomenon had spread to the West Coast, the paintings appeared too machine-made for the general public and were coolly received; subsequently, nothing sold. Andy later pointed out that they were money hanging on the wall but, at the time, people couldn’t see it.
    A few days after the opening, KPFK Arts Director Ruth Seymour (then Ruth Hirschman) interviewed Warhol and Mead at Pacifica s North Hollywood studios. Seymour, who joined KPFK at the end of 1961, regularly interviewed artists and intellectuals coming through Los Angeles, such as filmmaker Jean Renoir, poet Charles Bukowski, and author Erskine Cald-well. In the early ‘60s, KPFK was the only radio station of its kind in Southern California. Seymour was responsible for the stations arts coverage:
    “I made the decisions about what arts programs went on the air and chose what I thought was important and timely.” Her interview with Warhol and Mead lasted about half an hour.
    The day the interview was scheduled, Seymour showed up with her five-year-old daughter in tow, who was too ill to go to school. “I cant tell you the look on their faces when I drove up with this sick little girl” Seymour recalls. “They were not pleased, to say the least. It was clear that they were going to be interviewed by this suburban mom: la vie famille vs. the two gay, decadent avant-gardists.” Seymour settled her daughter into a corner of the studio with crayons and a coloring book and set to work.
    The interview began roughly, with Warhol incorrectly giving Youngstown, Ohio as his place of birth.