Andy Warhol—From A to B and Back Again

2018

“Andy's work really goes to the heart of the matter of what it means to be a human being and what our potential is . . . It's the real deal.”—Jeff Koons

Hear from a range of contemporary artists, curators, and scholars speaking about iconic works on view. Contributors include Jeff Koons, Hank Willis Thomas, Deborah Kass, Peter Halley, Sasha Wortzel, and Richard Meyer.

A diptych of two photographs featuring a sleeping man's face

Claire Henry: Apparently John Giorno was famous for sleeping, his ability to sleep through anything. Warhol decided that he wanted to make a film of him sleeping. 

Narrator: Claire Henry is Assistant Curator for the Warhol Film Project at the Whitney. 

Claire Henry: In the lore come to be known as "an entire film of a man sleeping. It's an eight hour film." It's actually only five and a half, but it's still pretty long. What I love about the film, is if you do sit through it and endure it, and Warhol didn't expect everyone to, or I don't believe he ever did himself, you really understand, or you begin to feel your body in the chair. 

You feel your own breathing while you're looking for him breathing, and it becomes this shared experience between you and the sleeping John Giorno. 


Andy Warhol, Large Sleep, 1965. Silkscreen ink on Plexiglas in stainless steel and Plexiglas frame, 66 1⁄2 × 48 3⁄4 × 9 1⁄4 in. (168.9 × 123.8 × 23.5 cm). The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Founding Collection, contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. 1998.1.2375. © 2018 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

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