Wednesday, May 26, 2010

HOLY TERROR : ANDY WARHOL CLOSE UP - Bob Colacello


Although this is a biography of Andy Warhol, it only covers a 12 - 13 year period. This period was the time that the author worked for Warhol at INTERVIEW Magazine.

The author started working there in his late teens until he resigned in his early thirties. You do get the inside story though, Colacello was an intimate of Warhol's, travelling the world doing business with him and for him.

The main problem is the book is linear, month by month ,year by year and because of this it drags. Much better I would have thought to have lumped the chapters together on a single subject, even if each chapter was to cover an entire decade.

It was still interesting to me as I have long been fascinated by how Warhol ended up with the following he did, he was majorly controlling, manipulative and could be very cruel. But people stayed with him for years and put up with all this behaviour. It certainly wasn't for money , he was seriously miserable when it came to spending on staff and friends.

We get a good look at the rich and famous of the 70's, the Jaggers, the Elizabeth Taylors, Studio 54 etc, so its quite gossipy. But if you really want the gossip on these people read, The Andy Warhol Diaries, edited by Pat Hackett, Warhol himself was very bitchy.

So, this doesn't shed any new light on the subject,drags some what because of the way it is put together and could be a bit more salacious I think ( probably isn't because the author is still working amongst many of the people named in this book. It was published in 1990)

A book for the absolute fan or art historian perhaps, I wouldn't recommend it for the general biography reader.

No comments:

Post a Comment