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...Cubism to Electronic Art: From 1900

Andy Warhol Retrospective

Heiner Bastian

Andy Warhol Retrospective, the huge National galerie Berlin and Tate Modern survey of the works of one of America's finest artists, Pop or otherwise, celebrates an enduring, too-often maligned creative force for whom 15 minutes of fame was never going to suffice. Split into "Early Drawings" and "Works 1960-1986", this bountiful exhibition catalogue, edited by curator Heiner Bastian who also contributes the volume's main essay, reproduces the Warhol oeuvre in rich detail, acknowledging the crucial role of colour in his work, which owed much to his years as a commercial artist.
A deeply superficial person by his own insistence, Warhol professedly concerned himself only with surface, and Donna De Salvo follows his advice in writing of his skills as a painter, shrewdly singling out the "after-image" aspect to his work. A third essay traces Warhol's similarities with Goya, while perhaps the best of the pieces, a short, unfussy study by Kirk Varnedoe, details the history of the infamous 32 Campbell's soup cans, created in 1962. Like the cans' reduced contents, Warhol's work was often highly condensed, then replicated until it assumed the proportions he required of it. In the same way, to see in either a gallery or a catalogue so many of his works is to experience a unifying sense of horror and beauty. In addition, it brings to mind not only his own influences, such as Klee, Rauschenberg, Cocteau (particularly in his early portraits of Truman Capote and James Dean), Duchamp and Grosz, but also to those who've subsequently drawn so heavily on his Pop imagery, particularly British artists like Jamie Reid and Damien Hirst.
Though defiantly anti-metaphorical, he fetishised the staples of American life, and as a lover of its icons--Coca Cola, refrigerators, Elvis, Marilyn, Jackie Kennedy, the electric chair, his own lifelong habit of self-portraiture and those soup cans--inevitably he became one. With its emphasis firmly on the pictures, this catalogue bears lavish witness to a productive vision and brilliant body of work that will only continue to grow in stature with every repetitive viewing. --David Vincent
Master of 3-D Pop Art: Charles Fazzino
I Bought Andy Warhol

Richard Polsky

So what was it like to be an art dealer in the go-go 80s? California-based private dealer Richard Polsky drops some juicy anecdotes into an account of his quest to add a Warhol painting to his personal collection. The title of his book, I Bought Andy Warhol, is a wink-wink reference to a film about a disgruntled Factory member who shot the artist in 1968. Polsky's attitude is wryly bemused as he recounts tales of practical jokes, petty grudges, peculiar dining experiences and other indignities that befall a little guy in a world of sharks. The cast of characters includes heavyweight New York dealers Ivan Karp, Jim Corcoran and Larry Gagosian as well as mid-range collectors and artists better known in California than in Manhattan. Warhol himself makes no personal appearances, though Polsky assiduously tracks fluctuations in the superstar's market value. Along the way, there are useful nuggets ranging from questions a potential art buyer should ask a dealer, to typical auction-house pricing strategies. The author is a likable character who demonstrates surprising candor about trying to make a living in the early 90s, when art prices plummeted. While some readers may be taken aback by Polsky's relentless stress on the monetary worth of a work of art as opposed to its aesthetic value, his book is a gossipy account of running a unique kind of business, selling one-of-a-kind products in a highly volatile market. --Cathy Curtis, Amazon.com
A Year in the Life of Andy Warhol

David Dalton
Alex Katz: New York

Enrique Juncosa, Juan Manuel Bonet, Rachel Thomas
James Rosenquist

Carter Ratcliff, Sarah Bancroft
Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonne: Paintings and Sculptures, 1964-1969 v. 2 (Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonnee)
Andy Warhol: Series and Singles

Ernst Beyeler, Georg Frei, Peter Gidal, Edward Sanders
Jasper Johns Drawings, 1954-84

David Shapiro