August 19, 2012

Factory Revisited

New York and Andy Warhol are two names that will probably always be intertwined. Tonight though, the Big Apple will play host not to New York’s Prince of Pop but to one of his superstars, Candy Darling.

At 8pm NYC time, Anonymous Gallery will be partnering with Monocole Order and Tribeca Grand to present the Anonymous Film Club, hosted at the Tribeca Grand’s private screening room. James Rasin’s Beautiful Darling is on the menu tonight, featuring the delectable Candy Darling; muse, style icon and Warhol superstar. Like any Prince, Warhol had his court – a collection of beautiful oddballs who, whether socialite or street urchin, lived, partied and performed together. Warhol once said, “Everything has its beauty. But not everyone sees it”. With his superstars he fought against this, making every one of them a star, some for 15 minutes and some, like Candy, he made immortal. These were the original beautiful people, living fast, burning bright, dying young. We never got to see firsthand the kohl-eyed glamour of Candy Darling, or too many other fellow stars lost to the 60’s. Yet there are those of the original superstars who made it through, and went on to have careers and families. In honour of Candy Darling and the lost superstars, we look back at i-D’s Gender Agenda Issue (April 2008), which celebrated the remaining survivors of the scene, and their place within it.

Text: Emma Cooke
Photography (see individual credits)

BIBBE HANSEN. The baby of Warhol’s protégées, Bibbe Hansen starred in her first Warhol film, Prison, at the tender age of 13. Her co-star was the premier Warhol babe, Edie Sedgwick; the bonded over girlie chatter about cake mascara, false eyelashes and the blackest of black eyeliners. Hansen also appeared in Warhol’s first Restaurant film in 1965 and two other Warhol films (10 Beautiful Girls and 10 More beautiful Girls). The Factory’s reputation as a drugs-fuelled and 24-hour party place is refuted by Hansen. “So many people that cruised through and/or wrote about The Factory actually came from quite middle class backgrounds and were easily horrified, I think.” Text: Karen Leong. Photography: Billy Name.

ULTRA VIOLET. With her sharp violet bob, and vibrant art career, Ultra Violet is as much the icon today as she was in the ‘60s. Born Isabelle Collin Dufresne, Ultra Violet metamorphosised in to her superstar persona in 1963, started dying her hair purple and soon changed her name. Two years later she captivated Warhol’s heart when she stumbled into The Factory colour co-ordinating her purple locks with a pink Chanel suit. As such a vocal part of The Factory scene, Violet was at one point so famous, she received a letter addressed simply to ‘Ultra, New York’. Text: Holly Shackleton. Photography: Ultra Violet’s archive

TAYLOR MEAD. He starred in five of Warhol’s films – Tarzan and Jane Revisited, Sort Of, Taylor Mead’s Arse, Imitation Of Christ, Lonesome Cowboys and Nude Restaurant – before establishing his career as writer, poet and performer. [Here Mead provides an extract from his latest book Son Of Andy Warhol.]…

“Son of Andy Warhol can be pronounced several different ways – I have seen Andy Warhol in many different lights, from infuriating to delightful. Like my father, a prominent lawyer/ politician in Michigan, Andy was making promises, creating images, dispensing favors and bullshitting the populace in general…” (Read more in The Gender Agenda Issue) Photography: Anton Perich

HOLLY WOODLAWN was one third of Andy Warhol’s gender bending triumvirate alongside cabaret playwright Jackie Curtis and aspiring actress Candy Darling. Without them Paul Morrissey’s Women in Revolt could have been a drab movie making superfluous comment but with them the question of women’s liberation is baked into Morrissey’s uniquely riotous satire. Holly was the slapstick brunette in life, as on screen. She and Jackie Curtis would go into the toilets at Max’s Kansas City nightclub to fix their make-up but, amped on amphetamines they’d grow fixated and exit hours later, faces like rainbows, surprised to find that the club was closing. Text: Sarah Hay. Photography: Jack Mitchell

culture

Factory Revisited

New York and Andy Warhol are two names that will probably always be intertwined. Tonight though, the Big Apple will play host not to New York’s Prince of Pop but to one of his superstars, Candy Darling.

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