THE BEAUTY OBSESSION

«If in my youth I had realized that the sustaining splendour of beauty of with which I was in love would one day flood back into my heart, there to ignite a flame that would torture me without end, how gladly would I have put out the light in my eyes. "

-Michelangelo

SHOWING OFF FOR 15 MINUTES OF FAME

MONEY

«His private diary was in the first instance a way of keeping account of his expenditure. He had a complicated relationship with money. He would keep 100 dollar bill in his boots»

-Bob Colacello.

«IT'S CALLED GOSSIP AND OF COURSE IT'S AN OBSESSION OF MINE»

SO far in 2009, the magazine business looks a lot like the Jon and Kate Gosselin divorce splayed all over the supermarket tabloids: you have to look very hard to find a winner.With already-dismal ad figures for the first half of 2009, magazine publishers turned in their circulation figures on Monday, showing that newsstand sales plummeted 12.4 percent in the first half of this year. Newsstand sales are thought to be a bellwether for the economy, or at least for how willing consumers are to fork over $5 for an impulse purchase.

New York Times
August 31 2009

«I DON'T KNOW WHERE THE ARTIFICIAL STOPS AND THE REAL STARTS».

«THERE SHOULD BE COURSE IN FIRST GRADE ON LOVE»

So, what are some reasons why men cheat?  

1)  Boredom.  Yes. Not a reason, but such an excuse. I hate to tell it to you women, but from what I have heard, and that is coming from many a men's mouths and research, sex can easily get boring for men. Especially, when a woman does not want to explore. Now, don't get me wrong, sex can so easily get boring for women. However, men seem to value sex more than women, and thus, complain more often of SEXUAL frustration. 

2).  Variety.  As in many different flavors.  What I am saying is that men, and not all men, may be programmed to want more variety.  Some theorize it may be the in the DNA as an evolutionary way of passing their genes along.  I notice it seems much harder, in truth, for men not to explore for sexual reasons.  I hear men talk about exploration often and I watch them drool far more frequently, whether they are in a relationship or not. Look at the variety in porn, the sex industry, and its loyal customers.

3)  Sex is easier to get in modern times... Yep. I am so, so convinced that this is a major reason men cheat.  I hate to tell you, but someone once told me, true or not, that studies show that the biggest indicator that a person, male or female, will cheat, is opportunity. With the Internet and porn, etc. it seems out of control in many ways to me, and kinda scary, especially given the amount of std's out there. Thank god you can't get syphilis via the Internet!

-The Examiner

“MUSCLES ARE GREAT:EVERYBODY SHOULD HAVE AT LEAST ONE THAT THEY CAN SHOW OFF"

«THERE IS NO COUNTRY IN THE WORLD THAT LOVES «RIGHT NOW» LIKE AMERICA DOES»

Britney Spears to open restaurant in L.A.

Next!

WARHOLIAN IDEA

The Internet is a Warholian idea, his friends say. It's a place of unlimited possibility and instant gratification. "The concept of being able to release whatever you want to say, to say whatever you want to say however you want to say it, and have the potential to reach such a large number of people instantly" is the essence of Warhol, Bockris says. "He was always very impatient to get out what he was saying." He'd have enjoyed push-button publishing.He would also have liked how the Internet has changed the nature of fame.

-Washington Post
August 16 2009

YOUTH WITHOUT COCKINESS IS NO YOUTH AT ALL

«I JUST READ EVERYTHING»

Somerset Maugham was well-placed to come up with his wonderful description of the French Riviera  -  'a sunny place for shady people'. The most louche of all the expatriates who congregated on the beautiful stretch of coast between Nice and Monaco before World War II, the prolific writer held court at his fabulous mansion, the Villa Mauresque, in glamorous Cap Ferrat. Nude bathing parties, drugs, lashings of champagne and nightly seductions of the local lads Almost everyone who visited was shocked by his decadence.  The predatory Maugham had so many affairs, with both sexes, that even the most promiscuous of his companions described him as the most sexually voracious man they had ever known, and couldn't understand why, at a time when homosexuality was illegal, he hadn't landed in prison. But no one refused an invitation, because he was so famous. T.S. Eliot, H.G Wells, Rudyard Kipling and Winston Churchill all made their pilgrimage south and most ended up aghast.To Virginia Woolf, the ageing Maugham, with his reptilian skin, seemed dead already. Noel Coward called him the 'lizard of Oz'.Today, with Maugham having fallen out of fashion, one has to remind oneself that he once outsold all his brilliant contemporaries, including Joseph Conrad and Robert Louis Stevenson. Before the age of 30, he had four plays on in the West End at the same time.And by the time he had written Of Human Bondage in 1915, describing a young man's perverse enslavement to the wayward woman he loved, Maugham was hailed a genius  -  his aphorisms on a par with those of the master, Oscar Wilde.

Daily Mail
August 29 2009

«MY FAVORITE THING TO BUY IS UNDERWEAR»

PAINTERS PAINTING

 Painters Painting is an amazing documentary film that explores the New York School of painters from 1940 – 1970. Directed by Emile de Antonio, the film probes artists about their thoughts on the art of the day, yesterday, and their unique methods for creating work. It explores Abstract Expressionism, through Hard Edge and Color Field painting to Pop Art. Painters interviewed include Robert Rauschenberg, William de Kooning, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Helen Frankenthaler, Frank Stella, Barnett Newman, Hans Hoffman, Jules Olitski, Philip Pavia, Larry Poons, Robert Motherwell, and Kenneth Noland.The film is packed with insights, critiques, and even a few secrets. Rauschenberg discusses how he learned color from Joseph Albers and how his “paintings are an invitation to look somewhere else." Jasper Johns' sniffs at Pop Art, dismissing it as an unsurprising form where “everything was certain.” The artists discuss, with relief, how Pollack and Hoffman got the art world out of cubism, providing their successors with a freedom that they could push/pull in their own work. Helen Frankenthaler points out that "where to paint is not an issue because there is no background." Lastly, an entertaining interview with Warhol has him confessing that he hadn’t painted in years because one of his Factory girls did it for him.

-The Examiner

«I NEVER READ I JUST LOOK AT PICTURES«

«I LIKE MONEY ON THE WALL»

«Over the years I have been very lucky to see some great artists' work just at the start of their careers, so that I could feel "pleased with discovering" them. However, I have also "discovered" countless artists who nobody but me seemed to care much for and whose careers have progressed very slowly, if at all. So I certainly don't have an infallible gift for spotting winners. I think it's fair to say that I bought Cindy Sherman in her first exhibition in a group show, with some of her black-and-white film stills framed together in those days as a collage of 10 images, and went on to buy much of her work for the next few years. I bought most of the work from Jeff Koons's first exhibition in a small and now-defunct artist-run gallery in New York's East Village, which included the basketballs floating in glass aquariums and the Hoovers and other appliances in fluorescent-lit vitrines. But this is getting too self-congratulatory and the truth is I miss out on just as many good artists as I home in on.»

-Charles Saatchi
The Guardian
August 30 2009

SCARY MOVIE!

«I always think about the people who build building and then they're not around any more. Or a movie with a crowd scene and everybody's dead. It's frightening».

-Andy Warhol

PHILOSOPHY FOR THE 21st CENTURY: TIME

I like when kids ask me now: ° Ivan are you really born LAST CENTURY?...

WHEN WARHOL WAS OBSESSED ABOUT CAPOTE

"When he was a child, Andy Warhol had this obsession about me and used to write me from Pittsburgh... When he came to New York, he used to stand outside my house, just stand out there all day waiting for me to come out. He wanted to become a friend of mine, wanted to speak to me, to talk to me. He nearly drove me crazy.»

-Truman Capote

«ATHLETES ARE GOING TO BE THE NEW MEDIA STARS»

«IT'S CALLED GOSSIP AND OF COURSE IT'S AN OBSESSION OF MINE»

A new book on celebrity culture suggests narcissism, pure and simple, inspires many reality show contestants. In The Mirror Effect: How Celebrity Narcissism is Seducing America, Dr. Drew Pinsky argues that a high proportion of stars are dysfunctional, in that they suffer from the psychological condition of narcissism. That much makes intuitive sense. But Dr. Pinsky also found that most of the celebrities he included in his research had pronounced narcissistic traits long before finding the spotlight. Narcissism came first; fame followed."Celebrity narcissists aren't egomaniacs with high self-esteem," writes Dr. Pinsky, who also hosts Celebrity Rehab and other reality television shows. "Rather, they are traumatized individuals who are unable to connect in any real way with other people. They are driven to attain fame, with its constant stream of attention, flattery, and empowerment, because they need the steady trickle of adoring recognition to take the place of any kind of real self-love or self-respect."

National Post
August 28 2009

«IN THE FUTURE EVERYONE WILL BE FAMOUS FOR 15 MINUTES»

PHILOSOPHY FOR THE 21st CENTURY: CULTURE

Gay culture is now the new dumbing down culture.

WARHOLIAN QUOTE OF THE DAY

«The man who never in his mind and thoughts travel'd to heaven is no artist.»

-William Blake

«I BELIEVE MEDIA IS ART»

«FUCKING» BITCHES BOOST THE ECONOMY

That said, some women, just like some men, do seem to have a naturally higher sex drive than others. The research just published in the U.S. would seem to back that up, showing that this may well be linked to hormones, and to testosterone in particular. Women with high levels of testosterone are much more likely to be ambitious and assertive and to choose traditionally male careers in business and finance. They're also likely to want more sex (low levels of testosterone have been shown to produce the opposite effect).

Daily Mail
August 29 2009

«THERE IS NO COUNTRY IN THE WORLD THAT LOVES «RIGHT NOW» LIKE AMERICA DOES»

Paris Hilton said she wanted a hamburger nine hours ago.

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«MY FAVORITE THING TO BUY IS UNDERWEAR»

«I JUST READ EVERYTHING»

But men are under pressure, too. Men are not sex objects - they are success objects, a point made by the writer Warren Farrell. They are power objects. The male world, in other words, is just as competitive as the female world. It's just that the rules are different.Women look at men and see a glorious world that does not depend on looks - a world in which you don't have to put make-up on every day, don't have to watch every mouthful of food you eat, and don't spend so much time wondering when you'll finally capitulate and go under the knife.And sure, if you're a guy, there's not much pressure on you to be beautiful. I'd say there's pretty much no pressure on you to be beautiful. But the world of guys is no picnic.
Men scope each other out. Under the surface, they seethe with aggression. They are power-hungry and competitive. To get on as a man, you need to be in touch with a certain type of male power, a sort of tamed aggression. No surgeon can give this to you. And make-up won't help in the least.

-Daily Mail
August 29 2009

WARHOLIAN QUOTE OF THE DAY

«To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost.»

-Gustave Flaubert

“MUSCLES ARE GREAT:EVERYBODY SHOULD HAVE AT LEAST ONE THAT THEY CAN SHOW OFF"

«I'M A DEEPLY SUPERFICIAL PERSON»

Remember Chris Crocker, the Britney Spears uber fan who pleaded with the world on YouTube in 2007 to “LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE?”He’s baack.The emotional, follically endowed young man has posted a new clip on the video-sharing website to proclaim his love for “Real Housewives of Atlanta” cast member and pot stirrer Kim Zolciak.In the 2-minute, 11-second second clip (thus far viewed by 6,239 er, fans), Crocker proclaims the weekly Bravo train wreck and scourge of the city’s chamber of commerce department, his favorite on television.

Access Atlanta
August 26 2009

PHILOSOPHY FOR THE 21st CENTURY:GAY MEN

In the past Chris Rock did a comedy routine called «Black people vs Niggers».What we need now is a comedian doing «Gay people vs dumb, clueless, stupid faggots».

YOUTH WITHOUT COCKINESS IS NO YOUTH AT ALL

«I HAVE SOCIAL DISEASE. I HAVE TO GO OUT EVERY NIGHT»

The greatest club of all was Studio 54 (254 West 54th Street). Here Mick wooed Bianca and Truman Capote told wondrous tales to the likes of Elizabeth Taylor and Andy Warhol. It was the playground of the smartest set of my era. Carmen D’Allesio, the VIP hostess, said it was great “because it was the type of crowd that we trusted. It was a conglomeration of the best of the entertainment and music business, the fashion world, and the international crowd. Ian Schrager and Steve Rubell produced events that nobody had done before Studio or since Studio.” Now it’s a theater. Waiting for Godot is playing. The crowd only needs a ticket to see the show—there is no door policy, and Liza and Pele probably wont show. Setlist: “Bad Girls” (Donna Summer), “Love Attack” ( Ferrara ), “Ring My Bell ” (Anita Ward), “This Time Baby” (Jackie Moore), “I Love the Nightlife” (Alicia Bridges).

-Blackbook magazine
August 26 2009

«AND I THINK I SEE MORE HOMELESS PEOPLE ON THE STREET EVERY MONTH.HOW CAN WE LET THIS KEEP HAPPENING»

The top 1% of Americans now control more wealth than the bottom 90% combined.

The football coach is the University of California-Berkeley’s highest paid “employee”; he makes about $3 million a year. Nationwide, full-time faculty positions have been disappearing, replaced by adjunct positions, with itinerant instructors barely making living wages.

Collapsing and overwhelmed sewage systems release more than 40,000 discharges of raw sewage into our drinking water, streams and homes each year.

One-third of our schools are in such a severe state of disrepair that it interferes with the delivery of instruction.

We spend $8.9 billion on ICBM missile defense systems that would be useless in stopping a shipping container concealing a dirty bomb.

A family of 4 now pays about $12,000 a year in premiums for healthcare—up about 90 percent from 2000 to 2006. About 50 million Americans are uninsured; another 25 million are “under-insured.”

We have 2.3 million of our citizens behind bars. With less than 5% of the world’s popultion, we have 25% of the world’s prisoners (1/2 for non-violent drug crimes).


From Chris Hedge
Empire of Illusion

«I LIKE EVERYBODY'S ART»

Self portrait by Francis Bacon

«THERE IS NO COUNTRY IN THE WORLD THAT LOVES «RIGHT NOW» LIKE AMERICA DOES»

Paris Hilton filming TV role in Vancouver.

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«MY FAVORITE THING TO BUY IS UNDERWEAR»

ANDY WARHOL ON WRESTLING: IT'S EXCITEMENT, IT'S SHOW BUSINESS, IT'S CHIC"

Warren is precisely the kind of paying customer McMahon is eager to satisfy. With mixed martial arts and ultimate fighting attracting an older and rougher crowd, WWE is taking aim at kids and families to shore up its bottom line. While the occasional chair might still get thrown, the violence is "very Wile E. Coyote-ish," according to Hunter Hearst Helmsley, better known to wrestling fans as Triple H.(Playing up the family ties, Helmsley happens to be married to McMahon's daughter Stephanie, a WWE executive.)"It's less of 'The Jerry Springer Show' now," added John Cena, arguably the WWE's biggest star, who takes some of the credit for pushing McMahon to make the entertainment less edgy.Other events might have pushed him in that direction as well. In 2007, wrestler Chris Benoit killed his wife and son and then himself, an incident that cast a dark cloud over wrestling and pushed the WWE to further toughen its existing drug-testing policies."That has a lot to do with how WWE operates now," said Cena. Another wrestler, Ted DiBiase Jr., said it is not uncommon to be tested more than once a month.The wrestling attire for the ladies has become more conservative as well. Maria Kanellis, one of the WWE's "diva" wrestlers, used to perform in lingerie but these days tries to dress "a little more sophisticated" for her matches.

L.A Times
August 24 2009

PHILOSOPHY FOR THE 21st CENTURY:TALENT

We have reached a point where the concept of automatic pay bonus to keep talent only apply to the financial service. There's is supposedly now «no talent» elsewhere.

“MUSCLES ARE GREAT:EVERYBODY SHOULD HAVE AT LEAST ONE THAT THEY CAN SHOW OFF"

WARHOLIAN QUOTE OF THE DAY

«I see great things in baseball. It's our game - the American game. »

-Walt Whitman

JEFF KOONS

« Dalí is very important to me. I think Dalí had moments of real genius, and he had moments of great generosity—being generous to me, a young artist from Pennsylvania who called him up and said: “I’m an artist; I’d like to meet you” and he just said: “Sure, come and meet me.” That was really generous, likewise Roy Lichtenstein. I think that sense of generosity is so important in art. I love having a sense of a connection with these artists, with those who have made art history. A connection in the sense of really being open to their vocabulary—trying to articulate and incorporate the vocabularies they spent a lifetime developing.»

Jeff Koons
The Art Newspaper

«ATHLETES ARE GOING TO BE THE NEW MEDIA STARS»

«IT'S CALLED GOSSIP AND OF COURSE IT'S AN OBSESSION OF MINE»

Have A-listers like Julia Roberts lost their bankability? Hollywood executives are scratching their heads and re-evaluating their biggest stars after dismal box-office returns from a series of summer flicks that have failed to deliver.The traditional formula of films starring A-listers that can be relied on to fill cinemas and suck in profits has not worked this year, causing executives to re-assess the worth of big-name features.Denzel Washington, Julia Roberts, Eddie Murphy, John Travolta, Russell Crowe, Tom Hanks, Adam Sandler and Will Ferrell are among the stars whose films did not attract the audiences expected. Even the dependable Johnny Depp in Public Enemies did not deliver the phenomenal result its makers had hoped for.

The Independent
August 23 2009

«THERE IS NO COUNTRY IN THE WORLD THAT LOVES «RIGHT NOW» LIKE AMERICA DOES»

Michael Jackson's death ruled an homicide.

Next!

SHOWING OFF FOR 15 MINUTES OF VENICE BEACH FAME

BRIGID BERLIN

«I was never a groupie if you know what I mean. I was never overwhelmed by Andy Warhol as a character. He was just a friend, a very, very dear friend. We had our fights, our arguments. He'd say: Brigid, what do you want for your birthday? » I'd reply «Anything but a painting. I want a vacuum cleaner». He'd say: «Go and buy it and bring me the receipt».

Warhol TV catalog
2009

WARHOLIAN QUOTE OF THE DAY

«You're never too old to become younger”

Mae West

«I JUST THINK ENTERTAINMENT IS THE BEST MESSAGE»

POST WARHOL PREDICTION: MEN MAG: HOW TO IMPRESS NEW YOUNG FEMALE MODELS BY DANCING ON GAY MUSIC WITHOUT LOOKING TOO FAGGY!

GEE GIRL, YOUR SKIN LOOKS GREAT!

Marty Beckerman admits to doing a few bizzar things during his career as a research journalist - including being sodamized with a dildo? Can't be too sure for him if that was a good experience or a bad one - but this time he went for the ultimate beauty treatment.Marty visits New York's Townhouse Spa for a "Sperm Facial."What? You thought it would stop with just bird poop? Spermine, a powerful anti-oxidant originally discovered in, yes, human sperm, is said to have many benefits which includes: hydrating and smoothing the skin, killing free radicals, treating sun damage, and diminishing wrinkles.Although the the antioxidant was originally discovered in human sperm, the substance is now being synthesized in laboratories and sold by a Norwegian company called Bioforskning.The facial doesn't come cheap, averaging $125-$250 per treatment, but I'm sure the budget conscious can get creative and find a way to make this treatment free of charge by doing it themselves at home.

-The Examiner

YOUTH WITHOUT COCKINESS IS NO YOUTH AT ALL

«I JUST READ EVERYTHING»

Just like the female models, these guys were doing absolutely nothing. And just like the female models, they looked defiant and vulnerable and lost. But young, pretty guys can pout and sneer and lounge about as much as they like, and I really don't care. It doesn't hit a nerve. The truth is that I'm hard-wired not to care about these pretty guys, or their cheekbones, because I know they're not much competition. Guys don't attract women by sitting around and posing. No woman likes a man to look awkward and lost, no matter how nice his cardigan is. I can see what's happened. Female fashion magazines have been around for ages, and the people who design them have honed their images over many decades. They understand that pictures of women who look lost and sad and passive are alluring  -  it's tragic, but they work. Men's magazines have simply copied their female counterparts, and it doesn't work. Somebody should tell them to dump the goofy wimps and use pictures of guys looking smug and cool and happy. That really would be intimidating. On second thoughts, maybe not.

Daily Mail
August 20 2009

PHILOSOPHY FOR THE 21st CENTURY: ALL AMERICAN GUY

The idea of an «all american guy» without young football quarterback hunks à la Tom Brady is like the idea of a 100 meters sprint without black guys: Not the real thing.

«I LIKE EVERYBODY'S ART»

Artwork by On Kawara

«I KEEP WAITING - LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE IS - FOR A REALLY GREAT PERSON IN POLITICAL LIFE»

The American government -- which we once called our government -- has been taken over by Wall Street, the mega-corporations and the super-rich. They are the ones who decide our fate. It is this group of powerful elites, the people President Franklin D. Roosevelt called "economic royalists," who choose our elected officials -- indeed, our very form of government. Both Democrats and Republicans dance to the tune of their corporate masters. In America, corporations do not control the government. In America, corporations are the government.This was never more obvious than with the Wall Street bailout, whereby the very corporations that caused the collapse of our economy were rewarded with taxpayer dollars. So arrogant, so smug were they that, without a moment's hesitation, they took our money -- yours and mine -- to pay their executives multimillion-dollar bonuses, something they continue doing to this very day. They have no shame. They don't care what you and I think about them. Henry Kissinger refers to us as "useless eaters."

Larry Flynt
Huffington Post
August 20 2009

STRAIGHT GUYS IS THE NEW COOL

“Gay men and straight men have a lot more in common than gay women and straight women,” says Simon Doonan, creative director of Barneys New York, who calls straight men who hang out with gay men “fag stags.” “They both want to make money, to work, and they’re here to satisfy their libidos. Gay men are particularly drawn to masculine straight men because they find them very entertaining and exotic. Guys who are too woo-woo—their herbal-tea collection is a bit too large and they do a lot of yoga—aren’t so interesting.”Within these nontraditional pairings, there is plenty of opportunity to be un-p.c., to mock and stereotype each other, which can be liberating for both sides. “The gay-straight divide is a source of constant amusement,” says John, who is close friends with Mayer, a gay editor, 36. “If I see somebody that looks ridiculously gay and stupid,” says John, “I’ll say, ‘One demerit for your team.’ And he’ll tell me about some literary party and say, ‘I’m sure the straight smart set will be coming out in droves.»

New York Magazine
Oct 13 2003

“MUSCLES ARE GREAT:EVERYBODY SHOULD HAVE AT LEAST ONE THAT THEY CAN SHOW OFF"

«GOOD BUSINESS IS THE BEST ART»

“Five Guns Pablo” by Andy Warhol, an untitled picture by Willem de Kooning from 1968, and “The Adolescents” by Picasso already appear on the roll call of 50 paintings to be purchased for the new postwar art fund portfolio run by Castlestone Management. But the line-up will be even more formidable next year – when works by Jasper Johns, Keith Haring and Magritte join the repertoire.“We are creating, in a sense, the world’s first passive art investment tracker fund, focusing on the postwar genre,” says Constance Kubern, senior art adviser with Castlestone, an alternative asset advisory group. “We intend to hold representative pieces from all the artists listed in the index in order to mimic its performance. We hope this will give investors more confidence that art, and our fund, is an investable, analysable asset class, just like any other.”
A minimum of $10,000 is required to invest in the fund, which is listed in the British Virgin Islands, and the offer period lasts for three years. Around $25m has been collected already. A moving average of art auction results for the postwar period and the prices of the portfolio’s 50 paintings will be analysed monthly by Art Market Research, creator of the AMR Art 100 index, to help calculate returns.

Financial Times
August 21 2009

YOUNG PEOPLE

«He got a lot from young people, and at work he surrounded himself with them. He didn't mind perfect strangers coming up to him in the street, because they gave him fresh energy and made him feel young».

Warhol by Makos

PHILOSOPHY FOR THE 21st CENTURY: SEX

Sex with prejudices is often better than sex without them.

WARHOLIAN QUOTE OF THE DAY

We are turning against boys and forgetting a simple truth: that the energy, competitiveness, and corporal daring of normal, decent males is responsible for much of what is right in the world.

-Christina Hoff Sommers

YOUTH WITHOUT COCKINESS IS NO YOUTH AT ALL

«IT'S CALLED GOSSIP AND OF COURSE IT'S AN OBSESSION OF MINE»

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A portrait of the late King of Pop, Michael Jackson, painted pop art icon Andy Warhol has been sold at auction in New York for an undisclosed amount.Janet Lehr, owner of the Vered Gallery on New York's Long Island, said the painting was sold Tuesday night, and while one report said the price was in excess of $1 million, Lehr declined to give a figure.The average auction price for a Warhol in recent years has hovered around $17 million, and the top price paid for one of his works at auction was $71 million for a piece called "Car Crash." The high for one of the artist's portraits was $28 million for a Marilyn Monroe picture titled "Lemon Marilyn."Warhol's Jackson portrait was painted in 1984 and commissioned to celebrate record-breaking sales of the singer's album "Thriller."

«CHURCH IS A FUN PLACE TO GO»

ROBERT LALIBERTÉ SUR ANDY WARHOL ET LA PHOTOGRAPHIE

J'ai demandé au photographe Robert Laliberté ce qu'il pensait de Warhol et d'une certaine affirmation concernant la photo....

«J'ai toujours bien aimé le monde d'Andy Warhol, surtout du temps de la Factory et des films avec Paul Morrisey à la fin des années 60 début des années 70, et j'ai vu de très grandes expositions sur cet artiste qui a révolutionné le monde de la "pop art".Par contre le personnage a toujours été controversé et a dit bien des choses (des bêtises?!?) durant sa vie, souvent seulement pour choquer ou pour épater la galerie. Je pense que sa phrase "Anyone can take a good picture" est tout simplement "one of his crazy statements". Ç'est évident que ce n'est pas tout le monde qui peut faire de bonnes photos. Heureusement d'ailleurs, car je serais sûrement au chômage si "anyone could take a good picture".


 

WARHOLIAN QUOTE OF THE DAY

«Jeans represent democracy in fashion. »

-Giorgio Armani

«I NEVER READ I JUST LOOK AT PICTURES«

«THERE IS NO COUNTRY IN THE WORLD THAT LOVES «RIGHT NOW» LIKE AMERICA DOES»

Perez Hilton says Paula Abdul will return to American Idol.

Next!

«I JUST THINK ENTERTAINMENT IS THE BEST MESSAGE»

WARHOLIAN QUOTE OF THE DAY

«There are four stages in a marriage. First there's the affair, then the marriage, then children and finally the fourth stage, without which you cannot know a woman, the divorce.»

-Norman Mailer

«PERSONNALY I LOVED PORNO AND I BOUGHT LOTS OF IT ALL THE TIME"

"For most men over 30, facials aren't something you actually do. They're like car chases or hurling someone through a plate-glass window -- the difference between cinema and life. But the ubiquity of porn has blurred the line." He gives other examples of how the sex lives of "America's porn-fed youth" are different from past generations: They think pubic hair is nasty and anal sex is hot, and girls idolize the porn stars who inadvertently teach them how to give toe-curling blow jobs...As an image (the come on the face thing) it's become emblematic of what Ariel Levy dubbed the "female chauvinist pig" of the porned generation. Take the Harvard sex columnist who published a photo of her spunk-covered face to her blog along with a caption that framed it in a feminist light. Or, consider this quote from 22-year-old Lindsay, who was shown from the waist up masturbating in the documentary "Immersion: Porn," on her taste for bukkake gang bangs: "Even if [a porn star] has eight dicks on her face, she's still the queen of those eight dicks. I definitely like come on the face."

Salon
August 18 2009

«THEY ALWAYS HAD GREAT GIRL MODELS BUT NOW THE BOY MODELS ARE JUST AS GOOD“

«I JUST READ EVERYTHING»

Lady GaGa hopes her music will encourage fans to come out of the closet. ‘The real motivation is to just turn the world gay,’ says the singer. 'I very much want to inject gay culture into the mainstream.'I committed myself to them and they committed themselves to me and because of the gay community I’m where I am today.’ Although Lady GaGa, 23, real name Stefani Germanotta, kisses a girl in the video for new single LoveGame, she insists she's not lesbian.
‘I feel intrinsically inclined toward a more gay lifestyle,’ she tells Out.com. ‘I myself am not a gay woman – I am a free-spirited woman.'I have had boyfriends, and I have hooked up with women, but it’s never been like “I discovered gayness when I was dot dot dot.”’

Now Magazine
August 23 2009

«IT'S CALLED GOSSIP AND OF COURSE IT'S AN OBSESSION OF MINE»

Judge: Paris Hilton doesn't owe $8 millions for movie flop.

Next!

YOUTH WITHOUT COCKINESS IS NO YOUTH AT ALL

«IN THE FUTURE EVERYONE WILL BE FAMOUS FOR 15 MINUTES»

It’s the internet, of course, that great leveler, where everybody gets to have their singular, often fetishistic, obsession. The common culture is much less compelling than the individual one. This has something to do with the long tail (whatever that exactly is), in which there can no longer be rock stars, for instance, because everybody is listening to some micro-niche music, producing, accordingly, only micro stars. Curiously, the diminishing of star power coincides with a greater urge among the hoi polloi to be recognized. Does this reflect a sense of cultural loss or opportunism? We tend to think that we live in a celebrity-driven culture. But, it’s actually a nobody-driven culture: vaguely familiar faces carrying their coffee. It may even be that what drives us is our lack of celebrities and our yearning for them—which will now be forever unrequited. Or, possibly, what drives us is our jaded attitude: We’re laughing at them, not with them—they’re all so small-time.

Newser
August 17 2009

«LAND REALLY IS THE BEST ART»

WARHOLIAN QUOTE OF THE DAY

«A cult is a religion with no political power.»

-Tom Wolfe

VOYEURISM

«There was a certain ingenuity to his voyeurism. A form of curiosity. He didn't approach life in an abstract way, but through details. In fact if he was so fascinated by repetition it was because it gave him a sense of security. In the same way he was repetitive in his diet. Vegetables in the seventies, diet biscuits later on, or again hamburgers every day, that was how he put together his food diet. In phases...In repetition, there's also the idea of the repeated images in movies, television, advertising»

-Bob Colacelleo.

«I NEVER READ I JUST LOOK AT PICTURES«

«THERE IS NO COUNTRY IN THE WORLD THAT LOVES «RIGHT NOW» LIKE AMERICA DOES»

Paris Hilton love her puppies.

Next!

ANDY WARHOL & THE INTERNET

Victor Bockris, who met Warhol in 1973, worked with him for six years and authored a biography, said the Internet would have been ideal for the artist. "He was a natural blogger." Well, Bockris says, amend that a bit: He would have gotten an acolyte -- someone "like me," he jokes -- to sit and listen and record his every thought and then post it for him.
"With no exaggeration, the Internet would have suited his voice very well," says Bob Colacello, the author of "Holy Terror: Andy Warhol Close Up," who worked with Warhol for 13 years. "But I don't think he would have been a blogger -- first of all, he couldn't even type, and he evaded opinions. He wasn't a person who was going to sit around a dinner table and say why he was for Obama's health-care program. His idea of an opinion was 'she's a beauty,' 'he's a beauty,' " Colacello says. "I don't know what he would have blogged about."

Washington Post
August 16 2009

“MUSCLES ARE GREAT:EVERYBODY SHOULD HAVE AT LEAST ONE THAT THEY CAN SHOW OFF"

«THERE IS NO COUNTRY IN THE WORLD THAT LOVES «RIGHT NOW» LIKE AMERICA DOES»

Madonna to make appearance in the new season of The X Factor.

Next!

YOUTH WITHOUT COCKINESS IS NO YOUTH AT ALL

STRAIGHT GUYS IS THE NEW GAY

Every few months it seems as though one or both of the New York City tabloids repackage this identical story — the lines are being blurred between what a straight man is and what a gay man is, blah blah blah — but this appears to be the first time that either one of them has gone all out and just flat-out declared gaydar to be dead.The Post's Danica Lo laments:
From the sleekly coiffed power players on "Mad Men" to socialite-seducing lothario fashion designers, baseball player-branded perfume and hockey players interning at Vogue, it's getting harder to tell, on first impressions, whether a man would rather make out with you — or your brother.In today's post-metro social consciousness, boys will still be boys — just more sensitive and stuff. A generation raised on therapy, teen flicks, reality TV and emoticons (it's hard to be butch and Twitter at the same time, you know?) has embraced the freedom of sexual ambiguity.

-Gawker
August 11 2009

WARHOLIAN QUOTE OF THE DAY

«The talent for being happy is appreciating and liking what you have, instead of what you don't have.»

-Woody Allen

«I LIKE EVERYBODY'S ART»

Artwork by Matthias Grunewald

THE BEAUTY OBSESSION

«The moment you cheat for the sake of beauty, you know you're an artist. »

David Hockney

«MY FAVORITE THING TO BUY IS UNDERWEAR»

«IT'S CALLED GOSSIP AND OF COURSE IT'S AN OBSESSION OF MINE»

Barbie maker Mattel turned down Madonna’s idea of creating a Madonna Barbie to celebrate Madge’s great contribution to pop culture and music.According to the source, the company’s polite “no thanks” infuriated Madonna especially if take into account that Victoria’s Secret pregnant angel Heidi Klum got her Barbie a little bit more than a month ago as a part of Mattel’s Blonde Ambition Collection.The Globe reports the reason for turning down Madonna was her super sexualized image, controversial deeds and several run-ins with the Catholic Church. Mattel simply doesn’t want to be associated with all that.
The company has ruled out against the idea in case of a public backlash from consumers who disapprove of the star’s sexy image,” sources in the company said.

-The Insider

POST WARHOL PREDICTION:ECONOMISTS: TWO PAINTINGS SOLD FOR 1 BILLION EACH FROM 500 MILLIONS 6 MONTHS EARLIER: RECESSION IS OVER!

“MUSCLES ARE GREAT:EVERYBODY SHOULD HAVE AT LEAST ONE THAT THEY CAN SHOW OFF"

WARHOLIAN QUOTE OF THE DAY

«Worse than not realizing the dreams of your youth, would be to have been young and never dreamed at all. »

-Jean Genet

«GOOD BUSINESS IS THE BEST ART»

I deal with an awful lot of bloggers, and a lot are smart," said Copeland. "Perez is brilliant. It's a classic success story for the post-publishing environment, in which you've got a very low overhead, and a really dynamic relationship with your readers, and advertisers get that and go for that."Copeland would not disclose Hilton's ad revenues but said the site commands as much as $72,000 for a single 24-hour wallpaper-style ad that incorporates the banner logo across the top of the site. Nailing down traffic figures is notoriously hard because there are so many ways to calculate them. Copeland said the site gets more than 10 million unique visitors per month and 300 million page views per month (although Copeland's own website tells advertisers the site gets 246 million page views per month).On Twitter, Hilton ranks around 20th in popularity. His 1.2 million followers make him less popular than Kim Kardashian (1.6 million) but more popular than Mariah Carey (1 million). There is no question that Perez Hilton is read by millions, is rich and is getting richer.Reader surveys show that the typical Perez Hilton reader is a 26-year-old college-educated white woman who seldom goes to church, is a Democrat and does not shop at Wal-Mart. His new website, he said, will be squarely aimed at her, though he would not reveal more. Copeland said the new site is a response to advertisers asking for something different.

Los Angeles Times
August 7 2009

LANDSCAPE

“I′m having boys come and model for the new paintings I′m doing. But I shouldn′t call them nude. It should be something more artistic. Like Lanscapes...Landscapes″.

-Andy Warhol

«I JUST READ EVERYTHING»

Unsurprisingly, the research showed that women are still more likely to major in education, social sciences and the arts, while men are more likely to choose majors generally associated with more lucrative career paths: business, math, natural sciences and engineering. But what Bobbitt-Zeher found was that, even as more women than ever are majoring in science and engineering, the traditionally female-oriented fields are becoming even more so -- i.e., as more women major in those subjects, men start avoiding them. And as people who work in the "caring professions" have long known, the more a field becomes "feminized," the less it's valued.Veronica I. Arreola, Director of the University of Illinois at Chicago Women in Science and Engineering Program, says it's not just a matter of humanities vs. science, or education vs. business, either. In an e-mail, Arreola told me, "The same gap is often seen within engineering itself. Bioengineering has been growing to the point where we could see a 50/50 split of women and men majoring, and there have been some reports of salary staying flat or going down. Engineering fields where women are less than 20 percent pay more." Arreola says more study is needed to conclusively determine a cause for this pattern, but the implication is chilling: Once women break into a field in noteworthy numbers, its value goes down.

Salon
June 10 2009

PHILOSOPHY FOR THE 21st CENTURY: POOR IN THE USA

Listening to shit on the radio thinking it's good, watching shit on TV thinking it's fun, eating shit everday thinking it's tasty, looking like shit.

POST WARHOL PREDICTION:JEWISH MAG: IS THE US TO BECOME A «WHITE MINORITY COUNTRY» BY 2042 GOOD FOR THE JEWS?

«THEY ALWAYS HAD GREAT GIRL MODELS BUT NOW THE BOY MODELS ARE JUST AS GOOD“

«POP ART IS FOR EVERYONE»

Obama’s presidency will undoubtedly influence the tone and substance of pop culture. But what’s most pop culturally interesting about him is not so much Obama as cause but Obama as effect. He strategically harnessed pop culture, he produced it with two best-selling books, he avidly consumes it. In our Balkanized era, Barack Obama simply is the pop cultural colossus.Three big trends made his ascension possible. First there was the steady blackening of American popular culture. He was 4 when “I Spy,” co-starring Bill Cosby, first went on the air, and 6 when Sidney Poitierstarred in “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?” In the early ’80s, just as Obama entered adulthood, Jackson released the best-selling record ever, Bryant Gumbel was the new “Today” show anchor, Michael Jordan became the greatest American athlete, “The Cosby Show” was the most popular show on television, and Oprah went national. Then came Tiger Woods and white youth’s embrace of hip-hop. This transformation had been happening incrementally for more than a century, as Leon Wynter explained in his great book, “American Skin.” “The future,” Wynter wrote pres­ciently in 2002, “is not about black people leading black people,” but “about black people leading all Americans.”

New York Times
June 5 2009

«I JUST READ EVERYTHING»

And I haven't even brought up America's religious beliefs. But here's one fun fact you can take away: did you know only about half of Americans are aware that Judaism is an older religion than Christianity? That's right, half of America looks at books called the Old Testament and the New Testament and cannot figure out which one came first.

-Bill Maher

«I LIKE EVERYBODY'S ART»

Artwork by Jerome Bosh

PHILOSOPHY FOR THE 21st CENTURY: YOUNG WOMEN

Every young woman is doing the same mistake. Underestimating straight guys and overestimating gay men.

POST WARHOL PREDICTION: IN THE FUTURE PARIS HILTON WILL LAUNCH A NEW SEX TAPE WITH BOYFRIEND DOUG REINHARDT

«WASTING MONEY PUTS YOU IN A REAL PARTY MOOD»

"Everybody understands," Geithner said on This Week, "that we cannot have our financial system go back to the practices that brought this economy to the brink of collapse." The problem is, it already has. If we're really going to protect taxpayers and create a more stable system, the most important reform is to ensure that there are no financial institutions any more that are too big to fail. That we can never again be held hostage by institutions that have the power to tell us: "If you don't give us the money, we're going to blow up the whole system." Actually, what we have now is worse than a hostage system because in a classic hostage setup, after you pay the ransom you get the hostage back. We've paid more than a king's ransom, but have not taken the hostage -- our financial system -- back from the banks.

Arianna Huffington
August 7 2009

ANDY WARHOL ON WRESTLING: IT'S EXCITEMENT, IT'S SHOW BUSINESS, IT'S CHIC"

«THERE IS NO COUNTRY IN THE WORLD THAT LOVES «RIGHT NOW» LIKE AMERICA DOES»

Paris Hilton built her 13 dogs their own $350 000 Mansion.

Next!

«IT'S CALLED GOSSIP AND OF COURSE IT'S AN OBSESSION OF MINE»

Madonna practises Kabbalah, of course, and she wishes to inform readers about this embrace of what she imagines to be Jewish mysticism, having been told about it at a dinner party 14 years ago. "Life no longer seemed like a series of Random events," she writes, deploying capital letters to devastating effect. "I started to see patterns in my life. I also began to see that being Rich and Famous wasn't going to bring me lasting fulfillment and that it was not the end of the journey. That it was the beginning of the journey."Traditional Jewish Kabbalah study is regarded as so complex that one is only permitted to embark upon it after the age of 40, and only then with a deep knowledge of Jewish law. In Madonna's version, although you have to fork out hundreds of dollars for the 23-volume holy book, you don't even have to read Hebrew to get the benefit. According to the insurance salesman who started the sect, you just look at the books and the "energy" will come.

The Guardian
August 7 2009

«I NEVER READ I JUST LOOK AT PICTURES«

PHILOSOPHY FOR THE 21st CENTURY: GAY MEN

Bunch of shirtless 40 and 50 y.o old gay men dancing together at gay pride. So unsexy. So infantile...

WARHOLIAN QUOTE OF THE DAY

«The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, the young know everything.»

-Oscar Wilde

«I BELIEVE MEDIA IS ART»

PHILOSOPHY FOR THE 21st CENTURY: THE REAL UNPOLITICALLY CORRECT TRUTH

A society with a lot of guys dropping out of school, losing their jobs or being sexually frustrated will make a society extremely dangerous for both men and women. Masculinity IS combustible. Feminism won't ever change that basic fact.

«I JUST READ EVERYTHING»

BRIDGEVILLE, Pa. — George Sodini seethed with anger and frustration toward women. He couldn't understand why they ignored him, despite his best efforts to look nice. He hadn't had a girlfriend since 1984, hadn't slept with a woman in 19 years."Women just don't like me. There are 30 million desirable women in the US (my estimate) and I cannot find one. Not one of them finds me attractive," the 48-year-old computer programmer lamented in a chilling diary he posted on the Internet.
For months, he also wrote vaguely about using guns to carry out his "exit plan" at his health club, where lots of young women worked out.On Tuesday, Sodini put his plan into action.He went to the sprawling L.A. Fitness Club in this Pittsburgh suburb, turned out the lights on a dance-aerobics class filled with women, and opened fire with three guns, letting loose with a fusillade of at least 36 bullets. He killed three women and wounded nine others before committing suicide.

July 5 2009

«It's only horny people who shoot people. I mean you never feel agressive just after you've gotten laid. Lots of sex for everybody, that's the solution of the world's problems»

- Ted Turner

THE BEAUTY OBSESSION

«Love of beauty is Taste. The creation of beauty is Art.”

-Ralph Waldo Emerson.

YOUTH WITHOUT COCKINESS IS NO YOUTH AT ALL

MADONNA: GETTING NAKED AS ART

Nude photographs of pop icon Madonna taken before she became a worldwide star are set to go on display at an exhibition in London today.Madonna posed for the black and whites at the age of 20, when she was modelling in New York to pay her way through dancing school and seeking her first big break in the music business.She was paid just $30 in 1979--worth about $90 today--for the intimate pictures, which include her confidently lounging nude on a chair for New Yorkbased photographer Martin Schreiber.After she became a star, Schreiber sold the photographs, which he took while teaching a photography course, to Playboy magazine which published them in 1985--three years after her first single Everybody came out."Basically she was a model. She was hired for this photo session by Martin who was teaching photography to his students. She was no one then," said exhibition organizer Jamie Mc-Cartney, a London gallery owner.

Vancouver Sun
July 2 2009

«I HAVE A BUSINESS TO KEEP GOING. I MEAN THE PORNO PICTURES ARE FOR A SHOW. THEY'RE WORK».

Photo: Fratmen

«IT'S CALLED GOSSIP AND OF COURSE IT'S AN OBSESSION OF MINE»

Simon Cowell is so desperate for the next season of his UK TV talent series The X Factor to be a roaring success — and beat rival Strictly Come Dancing — he’s planning to get Madonna to appear on the show.Cowell is hoping the Queen of Pop will join the likes of Beyoncé, Westlife, Take That and Britney Spears by becoming a guest mentor who guides contestants appearing on the show.

-Showbizz Spy

“MUSCLES ARE GREAT:EVERYBODY SHOULD HAVE AT LEAST ONE THAT THEY CAN SHOW OFF"

«I LIKE TO WORK WHEN I'M NOT WORKING»

«Andy was fascinated by the fact that Studio 54 was more than a watering hole for the rich and famous, it was a place where people danced, drank, made friends, made love, broke up, did their business and even slept. The club's equalizing effect was in many ways similar to that of the Factory»

Warhol
Victor Bockris.

“I LOVE LOS ANGELES. I LOVE HOLLYWOOD. THEY'RE BEAUTIFUL. EVERYBODY'S PLASTIC"

PHILOSOPHY FOR THE 21st CENTURY: GEOPOLITICS

What will change the world the most is the rise of India and China. 2.5 billion people increasingly reducing the importance of the Jerusalem question in world affairs.

THE BEAUTY OBSESSION

«Beauty is also submitted to the taste of time, so a beautiful woman from the Belle Epoch is not exactly the perfect beauty of today, so beauty is something that changes with time.»

-Karl Lagerfeld

«I LIKE EVERYBODY'S ART»

Set of Joan Miro

«IT'S CALLED GOSSIP AND OF COURSE IT'S AN OBSESSION OF MINE»

BB-Each country has its own sexual sensibility. Take France. Since my books are published there and I speak the language, I’ve had a lot of opportunity to sample French “meat”-- as we say in certain sexual subcultures. I’ve found that there are only two basic French modes for sex: either tenderness and romanticism, which aren’t very genital; or a kind of genital macho Latin brutality: wear-you-out sex.

- And that’s different than, say, American sex?

BB: Are you kidding? I’d characterize American sex as athletic. If it is sensual, this comes from the pleasure of the sport, an Anglo-Saxon interest in action, contact. But it’s not good mental sex like French sex.

-Bruce Benderson.

WARHOLIAN QUOTE OF THE DAY

«Even as old as I am, it doesn’t stop me from looking at men...as if anything might happen, as if life were about to start again; often when I go out in the evening I flirt as if I were only 50. We ought to be able to change our engines. This is the artist’s privilege—to be ageless. Passion keeps you young, and passion and liberty are so seductive. When I paint I am ageless, I just have the pleasure or the difficulty of painting.»

-Francis Bacon

YOUNG PEOPLE

«He got a lot from young people, and at work he surrounded himself with them. He didn't mind perfect strangers coming up to him in the street, because they gave him fresh energy and made him feel young».

Warhol by Makos

«IT'S CALLED GOSSIP AND OF COURSE IT'S AN OBSESSION OF MINE»

Paris Hilton is off the market again.The socialite is back together with minor league baseball player and "The Hills" cast member Doug Reinhardt, a source tells Usmagazine.com, saying the two are "definitely happy again."Hilton and Reinhardt had split in June after dating for four months, but apparently things are hot and heavy once more - at least judging from Reinhardt's Twitter. "What an amazing weekend with my beautiful girlfriend. I love her so much!" he posted on Monday. The previous day, he wrote: "Laying in bed watching SportsCenter with my girl."Reinhardt, whom Hilton once called her "future husband," is putting his baseball career on hold while recovering from an injury, according to his Web site. He has previously been linked to "The Hills" star Lauren Conrad and Amanda Bynes.