This summer, in the Natman Room off of BAM's main lobby, a moment in BAM's history is celebrated—the first major New York run of Merce Cunningham Dance Company in May 1968. Stop by and check out the photos and artifacts that document the first run of many to follow by this renowned company. In May 1968, as the Vietnam War raged on and the civil rights movement gained momentum, the cultural scene was undergoing a revolution of its own in Brooklyn. That month, choreographer Merce Cunningham and his company performed 12 dances in eight performances at BAM in his troupe’s first major New York season. It was part of the first full season of programming curated by Harvey Lichtenstein, the impresario who would go on to lead BAM for 32 years. That inaugural season emphasized dance and included runs by the companies of Alvin Ailey, Paul Taylor, and José Limón, as well as poetry and symphonic and jazz music programs. (The following year, BAM presented the Festival of Dance, comprising Martha Graham, Anna Sokolow, Erick Hawkins, Twyla Tharp, Meredith Monk, and Yvonne Rainer, as well as the above.)
Warhol may be the 20th century’s greatest schmoozer. He actively befriended and connected with the NYC and international art world elite. Many of his mainstay muses are now household names, but Andy’s social net was so wide cast, you may need a brief refresher on the “It” men and women who appear in the films of Exposed: Songs for Unseen Warhol Films.
This week, Dean Wareham and The Andy Warhol Museum's Exposed: Songs for Unseen Warhol Films comes to BAM. Wareham curated the musical lineup, and he and Eleanor Friedberger (The Fiery Furnaces), Martin Rev (Suicide), Bradford Cox (Deerhunter, Atlas Sound), and Tom Verlaine (Television) will perform original music alongside 15 never-before-seen Warhol films.
Wareham and Warhol are a natural fit. Wareham's former band Galaxie 500 toured with the Velvet Underground, and he released 13 Most Beautiful: Songs for Andy Warhol's Screen Tests with his wife, Britta Phillips, in 2010. But who was Wareham before his Galaxie 500 days? Who was he as a kid? What made Dean Wareham? Illustrator Nathan Gelgud took a look at his memoir Black Postcardsto find out.
Andy Warhol is synonymous with the downtown scene of 1960s and '70s New York, but his escapades in Brooklyn are somewhat less chronicled. In anticipation of the upcoming Exposed: Songs for Unseen Warhol Films(Nov 6—8), we reached out to The Andy Warhol Sites Tour guide and author of Andy Warhol’s New York City, Thomas Kiedrowski, for some insight into the Pop Art icon’s Brooklyn haunts, from grand theaters to department store lunch counters, many within walking distance from BAM.
Below is a detailed collection of anecdotes and addresses (plus a map!)—everything you need to set out on a Brooklyn Warhol tour of your own!
by Thomas Kiedrowski
Crowds of teenagers line up for Murray The K's Big Holiday Show at the Brooklyn Fox Theater on December 29, 1964. Photo: Donaldson Collection/Getty Images
Beginning in the ‘60s, Warhol attended live performances at the Brooklyn Fox, a palatial auditorium built in 1928 (his birth year).
The rock ‘n’ roll, doo wop, and rhythm ‘n’ blues acts emceed by DJ Murray the K must have left an indelible mark on Warhol. Friends recall his excitement upon seeing Dion live on stage in 1963 alongside Dee Dee Sharp, The Coasters, Lou Christie, and Little Peggy, among others. He went back to see the September show with his close companion Isabel Eberstadt, writer and daughter of poet Ogden Nash, and also met Dionne Warwick that night.
The shows at the Brooklyn Fox, always accompanied by a B movie screening, may have informed Warhol’s 1966 multimedia act The Exploding Plastic Inevitable, which incorporated film, strobes, gels, The Velvet Underground, dancers, and more. As with Murray the K’s logo, Warhol also plastered his name in large letters on signs and posters ahead of the main act. Incidentally, the $2.50 cost of the evening show at the Fox was the same price Warhol charged for his EPI shows.
Exposed: Songs for Unseen Warhol Films runs at BAM from November 6—8. Context is everything, so get even closer to the show with this curated selection of articles, interviews, and videos related to the production. Once you've seen it, help us keep the conversation going by telling us what you thought below.
One of the joys as an archivist at an arts organization with a 150-plus-year history is seeing what has remained unseen for a long time. While working on the Leon Levy Digital Archives grant, we are processing photographs, video, audio, programs and ephemera that in some cases has been hidden for decades. Andy Warhol himself had a fascination with archives, going so far as to create his own version called Time Capsule 21, an art project consisting of more than 600 cardboard boxes full of ephemera from his daily life.
This fall, BAM will present Exposed: Songs for Unseen Warhol Films, a set of films never publicly shown, with accompanying music from rock icons Dean Wareham, Tom Verlaine, and Martin Rev, among others. It's not the first time Warhol's ties to rock were seen at BAM. In 1968, The Velvet Underground, the in-house band at Warhol's Factory, came to BAM for Merce Cunningham's opening night benefit. Warhol's helium-filled, mirrored, floating rectangles—what he called Silver Clouds—were also part of the New York premiere of Cunningham's RainForest, one of a set of eight performances featuring the work of composer John Cage and visual artists Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, and Frank Stella. Then in 1989, Lou Reed and John Cale paid tribute to Warhol in the BAM-commissioned Songs for Drella, for which Warhol-inspired Campbell's soup cans and packets were created to give to the opening night audience. With the launch of the BAM archives website in 2016, expect to see more of these finds from BAM's history soon.
Excerpt from a 1968 Merce Cunningham BAM promotional mailing highlighting A Rock Dance; the Velvet Underground performed.
For the past eight years, over 700 artists have donated works to be auctioned off in the BAMart Silent Auction to support BAM. These generous artists of various ages come from all places and work in many media; many are from right here in Brooklyn and have longstanding connections to BAM. This year over 100 more artists have joined us for this great cause and fun event, and you still have the chance to bid! But don’t wait, bidding ends Sunday, April 22, at 6pm EST!
This year our auction partner, Paddle8, created editorial content that delved deeply into our archives to highlight artists who have appeared on BAM stages and whose work currently can be bid on in the silent auction. These include Andy Warhol, whose Silver Clouds appeared on stage with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company’s RainForest, South African William Kentridge, whose Magic Flute had its US premiere at BAM in 2007, and Matthew Ritchie whose work appeared along side Bryce and Aaron Dessner of the National and Kim and Kelley Deal of the Breeders in The Long Count (2009). These incredible works by well-known and highly collectable artists are valued at well over $10,000 each, so we thought we’d highlight some more affordable alternatives by artists who call the borough of Brooklyn home.
Matt Saunders, Hertha Tiele (Stripes) #2, 2008
Matt Saunders, Hertha Tiele (Don Juan), 2008
If you like Warhol’s Polaroid portraits, have a look at the work of Matt Saunders.
Saunders donated three small, silver gelatin prints depicting portraits
of Hertha Thiele, a German actress noted for her starring roles in
controversial stage plays and films produced during Germany's Weimar
Republic. Could be perfect work for a diehard fan of BAMcinématek, too!
Laleh Khorramian, the empty stage of sophie and goya , 2005
Check out the ink drawings by Laleh Khorramian if you prefer the bold, gestural work of an artist like William Kentridge. Born in Tehran, Khorramian lives and works in Brooklyn, and like Kentridge, uses drawing and animation as a part of her practice. In this small, beautiful work, titled the empty stage of sophie and goya, we look out into the balconies of a theater, a common theme in her work, and something very fitting for an auction taking place in the lobby outside BAM’s Howard Gilman Opera House.
Leif Ritchey, Sundance, 2011
If Matthew Ritchie is more your style, why not check out Leif Ritchey. With similar names, but no relation, and similar palettes in both these works—lush yellows with touches of blue—you can see Ritchey’s work in the group show New Traditionalists at Chelsea’s Martos Gallery alongside the wonderful B. Wurtz.
Brandon Collwes & Jennifer Goggans in RainForest. Photo by Rob Strong.
Ok, now that you’ve shared with us your fantasy artistic duos, let’s talk about one for the ages: Merce Cunningham and Andy Warhol. At BAM, we’ve had many art/dance alliances that have made our hearts palpitate, but this one takes the pop-art minimalist cake. In 1966, Andy Warhol created a legendary installation for the Leo Castelli Gallery called Silver Clouds. These helium-filled pillows created an ethereal atmosphere as they gently moved with the air currents, and viewers played with them like children.
Bill T. Jones dancing in Secret Pastures. Photo: Tom Caravaglia
Hey young artist! Have you ever wondered how you can make your work stand out from the crowd of talented competitors? Maybe you should look at how Keith Haring did it. In the early 1980s, Haring created quite a buzz when he started drawing chalk figures on the empty black spaces where expired subway ads were hidden. Of course, he was fined many times for defacing public property, but his characters soon became iconic. Haring was an inspired artist and master marketer, and his work soon appeared everywhere from posters and buttons to expensive and expansive canvases—and even at BAM.
Keith Haring, courtesy of the BAM Hamm Archives
Keith Haring’s first collaboration with Bill T. Jones involved Haring painting directly on Jones’ body for photographs by Tseng Kwong Chi. Haring created his first set design for the stage at BAM with the world premiere of Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane’s Secret Pastures in November 1984. The sets were easily identifiable as Haring’s distinctive style. He also designed the poster and promo cards and several other pieces for BAM.
Promotional poster by Keith Haring, courtesy of the BAM Hamm Archives
Bill T.Jones' Secret Pastures. Photo: Tom Caravaglia
Keith Haring’s brief (1958—1990) but intense career spanned the 1980s. He was highly sought after to participate in collaborative projects, and worked with artists and performers as diverse as Madonna, Grace Jones, William Burroughs, Timothy Leary, Jenny Holzer, Yoko Ono, and Andy Warhol. By expressing universal concepts of birth, death, love, sex, and war, using a primacy of line and directness of message, Haring was able to attract a wide audience and assure the accessibility and staying power of his imagery, which became a universally recognized visual language of the 20th century. —Louie Fleck, BAM Archives
Keith Haring invitation, courtesy of the BAM Hamm Archives
This week, we introduce the first installment of Swag Bag, highlighting unusual ephemera from the BAM Hamm Archives. First up: soup, both powdered and canned, created for the Andy Warhol-inspired Songs for 'Drella: A Fiction.
That's Andy Warhol on the label.
In 1989, two years after Warhol's death, John Cale and Lou Reed, founding members of the 60's band the Velvet Underground, were co-comissioned by BAM to create Songs for 'Drella, a requiem for Andy Warhol. The title, Songs for 'Drella, comes from a Factory-era nickname for Warhol, who produced the band's first album. Warhol had also engaged the Velvet Underground to perform at screenings of his movies, and as part of the Exploding Plastic Inevitable, the psychedelic multimedia touring show he designed.
