«I'M A DEEPLY SUPERFICIAL PERSON»

The videos he made first for a New York City cable channel and later MTV are the most alarming thing in the exhibition. Warhol was an admitted voyeur, and he knew there was an appetite for looking at beautiful people, so he mined his Rolodex of friends and videotaped interviews. The results are vacuous. When he interviews his painting partner Basquiat, there is no discussion of art, just Basquiat whining about a boo-boo on his leg and Warhol making concerned clucking sounds. He filmed Stephen Sprouse, the Marc Jacobs of the '80s and a wildly creative fashion designer with abysmal business acumen who rose and fell each fashion season. Warhol cast his camera on models, club kids and anyone extremely attractive, such as Nick Rhodes from Duran Duran, who could teach Adam Lambert a thing or two about makeup application. The interviews recorded for Andy Warhol's TV and Andy Warhol's Fifteen Minutes are a precursor to the glut of pseudo-celebrity television and print that litter our landscape. The names may have changed, but the faces haven't; they are pretty, but they have nothing memorable to say. We have become a larger Warholian world but even more shallow.

-California Chronicle
Feb 14 2010