ANDY WARHOL: 15 MINUTES

According to Pop Art icon Andy Warhol, "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for fifteen minutes." Warhol was celebrated in an interesting project produced by Jeff Gordon and Path Soong. Drawing on their experience packaging sound recordings and limited-edition art books, the pair teamed up with Sony Legacy to create a 12x12 box set called Fifteen Minutes- Homage to Andy Warhol. The set includes rare content on four vinyl LPs,  3 CDs, artist photos, and 16 off-set lithographs- all contributed by artists with some connection to Warhol. Most of the contributors are Warhol's peers from the art community, but Spy Vibers will recognize a few wider-known figures like Billy Name, Bob Dylan, and Patti Smith. Fifteen Minutes was featured in a traveling exhibit that included stops at the Andy Warhol Museum, Pollock-Krasner House,  and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Beijing. 

Sony Legacy released a limited run of 1,968 editions of the set, which sells for upwards of $500, but PopMarket currently offers the set at a discount price of  $179.99. From PopMarket: "Fifteen Minutes: Homage to Andy Warhol was created with the full approval of The Andy Warhol Foundation For The Visual Arts and is headlined by Columbia Records artists Bob Dylan and Patti Smith + 16 other world-renowned fine artists, poets, painters, photographers, actors, and musicians. Each artist in this collection offers both an original recording and original work of art in limited edition inspired by their relationship with Warhol." New York Times review here. 

Warhol's original Factory, which served as a studio space for production and collaboration, was set up in 1962 on east 47th street in Manhattan. It moved to Union Square in 1968, where Warhol remained until 1973. Typifying 1960s Space-Age aesthetics and inspired by Billy Name, Warhol created the "silver factory" by famously covering the walls and ceiling of the studio with aluminum foil. As a center for the arts in the 1960s, Warhol's factory attracted visits from a host of creative icons, who were often asked to sit for portraits and screen tests ("long portraits"). Among the regulars of artists and hangers-on, the Factory also hosted appearances by Warhol's band, The Velvet Underground. Founding bandmember and songwriter Lou Reed sadly passed away in October. More info at the Andy Warhol Foundation here. Andy Warhol Museum here. Additional links: Velvet Underground, John Cale, Lou Reed, Velvet Underground by Richie Unterberger, Laurie Anderson, Warhol Screen Tests, Screen Tests at The Warhol, Warhol at MOMA, Bob Dylan, Patti Smith. 

Recent Spy Vibe posts: Six-Million Dollar Man, Striped Light Nude, Buckminster Fuller, Dylan at Newport, Jane and Serge, The Goldfinger Variations, Mod Tales Interview, Pete Seeger nominated for Grammy,Kraftwerk returns to US, Beatles BBC on Fresh Air, Steranko S.H.I.E.L.D. Artist Editions, David Tennant's Ian Fleming audio books, Atomic Art, Modern Architecture LP, Julius Shulman, Shane Glines Batman, The Prisoner and Captain Scarlet, Diego Fortunato and Verner Panton, Saturday Morning Cartoons, Assassination Bureau on DVD, new Young Bond series, new Hercule Poirot novel, Early Beatles image archive, Julie Newmar, Erno Goldfinger, Hitchcock tribute.

Recent Ian Fleming posts on Spy Vibe: Ian Fleming Letters, Erno Goldfinger, Ian Fleming Music Series links: Noel Coward, Whispering Jack Smith, Hawaiian Guitar, Joe Fingers Carr, new Ian Fleming Catalog, Jon Gilbert interview, Double 007 Designs, Bond audio book reissues, discovery of one of Ian Fleming's WWII Commandos, James Bond book covers, Ian Fleming's Playboy interview for Kindle, Spy Vibe's discovery of a rare Ian Fleming serialization, rare View to a Kill, Fleming's Royal gold typewriter, Ian Fleming's memorial address, Spy Vibe's Ian Fleming image archive. 

JAMES BOND-A-THON IN NYC

In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the James Bond films, IFC in NYC is screening a BOND-A-THON of every Sean Connery 007 film- including Never Say Never Again (1983)! The series will run between Aug. 26th and Sept. 1st. "Outfitted with the coolest gadgets, the driest martinis (shaken, not stirred) and the curviest co-stars, Sean Connery created one of the screen’s most indelible and iconic characters. Although succeeded by other actors, he’s never been surpassed, and, on his golden anniversary, Connery’s effortlessly suave superspy remains the gold standard. After all, you never forget your first Bond." IFC is located at 323 Avenue of the Americas, at Third Street, Greenwich Village. See the complete schedule at the IFC website. NY Times announcement here.

10TH VICTIM CONTEST ENDS SOON

Enter to win a Blu-ray edition of the Elio Petri cult classic, The 10th Victim (1965), starring Marcello Mastroianni and Ursula Andress. Contest ends October 4th! Details here.


From the New York Times review (9/30/11): "Petri won the foreign-language Oscar for his far superior 1970 film, “Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion,” but it’s “The 10th Victim” that lingers in the public imagination and has now been reissued by Blue Underground in an excellent Blu-ray transferred from the original negative. The playful production design, by Michelangelo Antonioni’s regular collaborator Piero Poletto, probably accounts for much of the movie’s continued appeal. His Rome of the future has been assembled out of the architecture of the Fascist past (Bernardo Bertolucci would return to some of the same locations for his 1970 period drama “The Conformist”) and festooned with the fetish objects of the Op-Pop 60s: inflatable furniture, Trim-line telephones."