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Rating: The Andy Warhol Diaries is a Netflix docuseries consisting of six episodes, each about one hour long.
These diaries were published after his sudden death, which occurred in 1987 due to complications following a surgical operation to remove his gallbladder.
I found the series really interesting and well-structured, from the editing to the opening titles, to the soundtrack. It utilizes numerous extraordinary archival images from both Warhol's public and private life. There are also countless testimonies, interviews, and anecdotes.
In terms of runtime, the choice was made to focus on the period following his assassination attempt in 1968 by Valerie Solanas, one of the many "crazy bohemian" artists who gravitated around the extraordinary Factory.
Andy miraculously survived. This episode marked him deeply for the rest of his life, both personally and artistically.
Before watching this docuseries, I knew Warhol only in broad strokes.
I was very, very impressed both by the artist and the man. The fascination, the charisma, the intelligence, the creativity, and god knows what else of this essential iconic figure of the 20th-century Pop Art captured and hypnotized me almost immediately until I felt a sense of familiarity and, as it is said today, "empathy." This surprised me since in my imagination I saw Warhol as a cold and distant figure, but it wasn't so. Although he said he would have liked to be a "machine," it is his "human" side that leaves a mark.
Andy, of Czechoslovak origin (Warohla is his real surname), was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1928. The youngest of three sons, he suffered psychologically during his childhood because of his physical fragility, his "ugliness" determined by his slender figure, acne, that large always-red button nose, glasses, and his androgynous appearance. An easy prey for school and neighborhood bullies, for his unhidden "diversity." He would suffer from this throughout his life.
At just twenty, he moved to New York and quickly established himself, first as an advertising graphic designer, then he started his own business and began creating his art, his paintings, until the opening of the Factory, which already in the first part of his career consecrated him as a guiding light but even more as a "catalyst" for the artistic ferment of that era, let's talk about the early 60s. Open to any form of art, from painting to sculpture, from cinema to music, theater, literature, poetry, the Factory would deliver to history some artists immortal in their own right, think of the Velvet Underground. One wonders how and to what extent such a phenomenon could have continued if the assassination attempt hadn't happened. Most say, in any case, not much, due to the very problematic management of these overwhelming characters, mostly dedicated to massive use of alcohol, drugs, and ... sex. History unfortunately reminds us that often such a lifestyle quickly burns life itself. When you run too fast, the fuel runs out quickly (but don't tell the Rolling Stones).
Typical of genius, of superior beings, is to be "ahead;" that is, to anticipate the times, and in this sense, Andy Warhol is a shining example, unique, unrepeatable. He intuits where we are going, where his America is going, the central figure of all his work, and elevates the "product" to an art form and expression of culture. From the famous Campbell's Tomato Soup cans to Coca-Cola, to the series of silkscreen paintings of the electric chair and deadly car crashes with bodies tangled, distorted, and mangled among the wreckage but without any morbidness, without any voyeuristic intent but only as a photograph of the present, a fixity of reality, mute chronicle… then passing through the period of portraits: Marilyn, Elvis, Mao Zedong, up to The Last Supper where the circle closes... All in his unmistakable "psychedelic" colorful and dazzling, disturbing, and transversal style. His production is boundless, both in themes and artistic techniques. From portraits to silkscreens to camouflage… and all this does not even remotely give an idea of his scope, his variedness (yes, it's a neologism I just coined). Indeed, because Andy Warhol, again ahead of his time, also and above all sells himself. He lives in an eternal present, sniffs out and anticipates any trend in advance and manages to do so over 30 years, just think of the "15 minutes of fame" he prophesied more than 40 years ago… Today it happens daily, think of TikTok videos, 15 minutes of fame for everyone… 15 minutes of "degenerate art."
He himself was swallowed by the main events, a man deeply restless, in constant motion. He is always in the front row at any social event and will form relationships more or less significant with virtually all the most important and unavoidable figures in American art, entertainment, and politics.
He would even reach an artistic collaboration with another "mythological" figure in the American artistic scene, that Basquiat who would die prematurely from a lethal mix of drugs in 1988, 18 months after him, at only 27 years old…
The Andy Warhol the man impressed me as much if not more than Andy Warhol the artist. He was a man, fundamentally good, but above all "real" although this statement somewhat clashes with his vacuous and artificial lifestyle, but, I repeat, Andy Warhol's private life, his intimacy, his thoughts, have little to do with his social and artistic figure although in a certain way they "merge." It's hard to explain, but this is just my impression, my judgment. I admit I understood very little in the end, so much that while watching the series, my head often told me, "eh, but it would be worth re-watching"…
Andy Warhol, more than anything, perhaps sought love. Eternal love, that of a life partner. And to think he perhaps found it rather early, already at the Factory when he met Jed Johnson, 20 years younger than him, who truly cared about him, they cared for each other. Jed was sweet and caring and did not approve of Andy's lifestyle, his clubbing, his associations, his gay flings, again sex and drugs. He was surrounded by horrible and drugged people, above all, the sordid Victor Hugo. In the long run, Jed left Andy and Warhol suffered like a dog…
Well, for those who don't know him and wish to see this series, which I highly recommend, I'm almost spoiling.
I'll stop here, aware of having written one-tenth of what I want to say (and one-hundredth of what there is to say), that I feel inside but cannot bring out organically. I had this feeling before starting, it was a correct feeling.
The Nothingness is devouring us.
Reality does not exist.
No atmosphere is perceived while living. The atmosphere comes later when remembered.
Hell and Paradise are at a breath's distance.
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