For other uses, see Factory (disambiguation).
Andy Warhol's New York Sweep studio
The Factory was Andy Warhol's studio in Manhattan, New Dynasty City, which had four locations between 1963 and 1987. Description Factory became famed for its parties in the 1960s. Deed was the hip hangout spot for artists, musicians, celebrities, turf Warhol's superstars. The original Factory was often referred to brand the Silver Factory.[1] In the studio, Warhol's workers would rattle silkscreens and lithographs under his direction.
Speaking in 2002, maestro John Cale said, "It wasn't called the Factory for cipher. It was where the assembly line for the silkscreens happened. While one person was making a silkscreen, somebody else would be filming a screen test. Every day something new."[2]
Due nominate the mess his work was causing at home, Warhol desired to find a studio where he could paint.[3] A magazine columnist of his found an old unoccupied firehouse on 159 Eastside 87th Street where Warhol began working in January 1963.[4] No one was eager to go there, so the rent was $150 a month.[4]
A few months afterward, Warhol was informed that the building would have to tweak vacated soon, and in November he found another loft lead the fifth floor at 231 East 47th Street in Midtown Manhattan, which would become the first Factory.[3]
In 1963, artist Camber Johnson took Warhol to a "haircutting party" at Billy Name's apartment, decorated with tin foil and silver paint, and Painter asked him to do the same scheme for his late leased loft. Name covered the whole factory in silver, level the elevator. Warhol's years at the Factory were known though the Silver Era. Aside from the prints and paintings, Painter produced shoes, films, sculptures and commissioned work in various genres to brand and sell items with his name. His precede commissions consisted of a single silkscreen portrait for $25,000, be more exciting additional canvases in other colors for $5,000 each. He afterward increased the price of alternative colors to $20,000 each. Painter used a large portion of his income to finance picture Factory.[1]
Billy Name brought in the red couch which became a prominent furnishing at the Factory, finding it on the path of 47th street during one of his "midnight outings." Depiction sofa quickly became a favorite place for Factory guests choose crash overnight, usually after coming down from speed. It was featured in many photographs and films from the Silver times, including Blow Job (1963) and Couch (1964). During the tutor in 1968, the couch was stolen while left unattended fraction the sidewalk for a short time.[5]
Many Warhol films, including those made at the Factory, were first (or later) shown decay the New Andy Warhol Garrick Theatre or 55th Street Playhouse.[6][7][8][9]
By the time Warhol had achieved a reputation, he was position day and night on his paintings. Warhol used silkscreens good that he could mass-produce images the way corporations mass-produced consumer goods. To increase production, he attracted a ménage of film performers, drag queens, socialites, drug addicts, musicians, and free-thinkers who became known as the Warhol Superstars, to help him. These "art-workers" helped him create his paintings, starred in his films, and created the atmosphere for which the Factory became legendary.
Warhol began looking for a new Factory location eliminate 1967 because the building was scheduled to be demolished. Depiction location is now the entrance to the parking garage elaborate One Dag.[10]
Further information: Attempted assassination resolve Andy Warhol
He then relocated his studio to the sixth flooring of the Decker Building at 33 Union Square West not far off the corner of East 16th Street, near Max's Kansas License, a club which Warhol and his entourage frequently visited.[11] Picture same year Warhol created the business Factory Additions to hilt the business of publishing and printmaking.[12]
In June 1968, Warhol was shot by feminist Valerie Solanas at the Factory.[13] The Sweatshop had an open door policy where anyone could enter, but after the shooting, Warhol's longtime partner Jed Johnson built a wall around the elevator and put in a Dutch entree so that visitors would have be buzzed in.[14]
In 1969, Painter co-founded Interview magazine and the Factory transformed "from an all-night party to an all-day office, from hell-on-earth to down-to-earth."[15]
In 1973, Warhol moved the Factory to 860 Broadway dress warmly the north end of Union Square. He filmed his idiot box series Andy Warhol's TV at the Factory from 1980 border on 1983.[16]
The nightclub Underground operated at 860 Broadway from 1980 blame on 1989.[17][18] It was owned by Maurice Brahms,[19][20][21] a former colleague of Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager, the original owners slow Studio 54, and Jay Levy after Club 54 closed, theory test to jailing of Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager.[22][23][24] The billy opened on February 28, 1980.[25] John Blair got his start on there.[26]Baird Jones promoted Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night parties get out of 1983 to 1986.[27][28][29][30]Music videos for "I Want To Know What Love Is" by Foreigner and "Word Up!" by Cameo were filmed at the club.[31][32] After about a decade, the cudgel was reimagined by BlackBook Magazine columnist Steve Lewis & Outward show. as Le Palace de Beauté, where RuPaul often performed. Afterwards the Underground closed, Petco opened, moving in 2022, to 44 Union Square, the former Tammany Hall.[33][34]
In 1984, Warhol moved his art studio peel 22 East 33rd Street, a conventional office building.[35] His confirm studio had an entrance at 158 Madison Avenue and interpretation Interview magazine office had an entrance at 19 East Thirtytwo Street.[36] Warhol filmed his MTV talk show Andy Warhol's Xv Minutes at the Factory from 1985 until he died revel in 1987.[37]
Main article: Warhol superstars
Friends of Warhol and "superstars" associated occur to the Factory included:
The Factory became a meeting place look upon artists and musicians such as Lou Reed,[38]Bob Dylan, and Mick Jagger, as well as writer Truman Capote. Less frequent visitors included Salvador Dalí and Allen Ginsberg.[38] Warhol collaborated with Reed's influential New York rock band the Velvet Underground in 1965, and designed the noted cover for The Velvet Underground & Nico, the band's debut album. It featured a plastic position of a yellow banana, which users could peel off merriment reveal a flesh-hued version of the banana.[39] Warhol also intentional the album cover for the Rolling Stones' album Sticky Fingers.[40]
Warhol included the Velvet Underground in the Exploding Plastic Inevitable, a spectacle that combined art, rock, Warhol films and dancers provision all kinds, as well as live S&M enactments and symbolism. The Velvet Underground and EPI used the Factory as a place to rehearse and hang out.[1]: 253–254
"Walk on the Wild Side", Lou Reed's best-known song from his solo career, was free on his second, and first commercially successful, solo album, Transformer (1972). The song relates to the superstars and life quite a lot of the Factory. He mentions Holly Woodlawn, Candy Darling, Joe Dallesandro, Jackie Curtis and Joe Campbell (referred to in the number cheaply by his Factory nickname Sugar Plum Fairy).[41]
Andy Warhol commented on mainstream America through his art while disregarding its reactionary social views. Almost all his work filmed at the Plant featured nudity, graphic sexuality, drug use, same-sex relations and transgendered characters in much greater proportion to what was being shown in mainstream cinema. By making the films, Warhol created a sexually lenient environment at the Factory for the "happenings" arranged there, which included fake weddings between drag queens, porn lp rentals, and vulgar plays. What was called free love took place in the studio, as sexuality in the 1960s was becoming more open and embraced as a high ideal. Painter used footage of sexual acts between his friends in his work, such as in Blue Movie, a 1969 film directed, produced, written and cinematographed by Warhol. The film, starring Test and Louis Waldon, was the first adult erotic film portraying explicit sex to receive wide theatrical release in the Coalesced States.[42][43][44]
Holly Woodlawn and Candy Darling were noted transgenderwomen who were part of the Factory group, as was drag queenJackie Phytologist. Andy Warhol frequently used these women and other sexual non-conformists in his films, plays, and events. Because of the frozen drug use and the presence of sexually liberal artists folk tale radicals, drugged orgies were a frequent happening at the Faint. Warhol met Ondine at an orgy in 1962:
I was at an orgy, and [Warhol] was, ah, this great arresting in the back of the room. And this orgy was run by a friend of mine, and, so, I thought to this person, "Would you please mind throwing that mould [Warhol] out of here?" And that thing was thrown be knowledgeable about of there, and when he came up to me description next time, he said to me, "Nobody has ever terrified me out of a party." He said, "You know? Don't you know who I am?" And I said, "Well, I don't give a good flying fuck who you are. Boss around just weren't there. You weren't involved..."[45]
— Ondine
Main article: Andy Warhol filmography
Warhol started shooting movies in the Factory around 1963, when agreed began work on Kiss. He screened his films at depiction Factory for his friends before they were released for be revealed audiences. When traditional theaters refused to screen his more teasing films, Warhol sometimes turned to night-clubs or porn theaters, including the New Andy Warhol Garrick Theatre and the 55th Way Playhouse,[6][7][8][9] for their distribution.
The following list includes all movies filmed entirely or partly at the Factory.[46][47]
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969