Andy Warhol and members of The Factory, New York City
Avedon fantasized about throwing an annual fete for New York society and watching the group evolve over time. This mural is his downtown take on such a party, featuring a new "smart set" of sexual revolutionaries. They were affiliated with Andy Warhol’s Factory, the studio and gathering place for a coterie of avant-garde filmmakers, artists, and socialites. Avedon summoned them to his own studio, where they met over a series of weeks. Working in his most directorial mode, he arranged his subjects—including transgender actress Candy Darling and adult film star Joe Dallesandro—in a lateral frieze across adjoining frames, the fracture and repetition of their bodies in space suggesting the filmic passage of time.
The culmination of much trial and error, the mural’s composition took time to perfect, as evidenced by session outtakes displayed nearby. Avedon later praised the professionalism of his cast but joked, "You couldn’t keep the clothes on anybody in those years. . . . Before you could say ‘hello,’ they were nude and ready to ride." If this unabashed undress tests gallery decorum, it is a provocation grounded in art history: in the central panel Avedon presents a male version of the "three graces," riffing on a gendered tradition in allegorical painting with an ironic, Warholian wink.
The culmination of much trial and error, the mural’s composition took time to perfect, as evidenced by session outtakes displayed nearby. Avedon later praised the professionalism of his cast but joked, "You couldn’t keep the clothes on anybody in those years. . . . Before you could say ‘hello,’ they were nude and ready to ride." If this unabashed undress tests gallery decorum, it is a provocation grounded in art history: in the central panel Avedon presents a male version of the "three graces," riffing on a gendered tradition in allegorical painting with an ironic, Warholian wink.
Artwork Details
- Title: Andy Warhol and members of The Factory, New York City
- Artist: Richard Avedon (American, New York 1923–2004 San Antonio, Texas)
- Date: October 30, 1969
- Medium: Gelatin silver prints
- Dimensions: Panel a: 10 ft. 2 in. × 10 ft. 5 3/4 in. (309.9 × 319.4 cm)
Panel b: 10 ft. 2 1/8 in. × 10 ft. 3 1/4 in. (310.2 × 313.1 cm)
Panel c: 10 ft. 2 in. × 10 ft. 5 3/8 in. (309.9 × 318.5 cm) - Classification: Photographs
- Credit Line: Gift of the artist, 2002
- Object Number: 2002.379.3a–c
- Rights and Reproduction: © Richard Avedon
- Curatorial Department: Photographs
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