Screen Tests

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Still from a Screen Test of Edie Sedgwick, 1964 Warhol Sedgwick Screen Test.jpg
Still from a Screen Test of Edie Sedgwick, 1964

The Screen Tests are a series of short, silent, black-and-white film portraits by Andy Warhol, made between 1964 and 1966, generally showing their subjects from the neck up against plain backdrops. The Screen Tests, of which 472 survive, depict a wide range of figures, many of them part of the mid-1960s downtown New York cultural scene. Under Warhol's direction, subjects of the Screen Tests attempted to sit motionless for around three minutes while being filmed, with the resulting movies projected in slow motion. The films represent a new kind of portraiture—a slowly moving, nearly still image of a person. [1] Warhol's Screen Tests connect on one hand with the artist's other work in film, which emphasized stillness and duration (for example, Sleep (1964) and Empire (1965), and on the other hand with his focus after the mid-1960s on documenting his celebrity milieu in paintings and other works. [2] :12–13

Contents

History and production

Page from NYC Police Department booklet, The Thirteen Most Wanted, 1962 NYPD most wanted andy warhol.jpg
Page from NYC Police Department booklet, The Thirteen Most Wanted, 1962

The Screen Tests were initially inspired by a 1962 New York City Police Department booklet entitled The Thirteen Most Wanted, which showed mug shots of wanted criminals. [2] :13 The same booklet was the source of the images in Warhol's short-lived mural entitled Thirteen Most Wanted Men at the 1964 New York World's Fair, together with a series of paintings using the same images. A second source for the Screen Tests was Warhol's interest in photo-booth portraits, which he had begun to use in 1963 for paintings such as Ethel Scull 36 Times . [2] :13 Like the Screen Tests, photo-booth portraits document the appearance of a sitter across successive moments in time.

In January, 1964, around the time he was working with the police booklet images to design the World's Fair mural, Warhol shot a series of short moving-image portraits of young men, the film canisters of which were labeled—in a riff on the booklet title—13 Most Beautiful. The first Screen Tests were made at the house of Winthrop Kellogg Edey, one of the subjects in 13 Most Beautiful. [2] :13,70 Each film is as long as the 100-foot length of film in the magazines for Warhol's Bolex movie camera (about three minutes), and shows a single subject presented in the style of the brochure's mug shots: from the neck up, with a featureless background, facing forward, with the portrait filling the frame from top to bottom. The subjects were generally directed by Warhol to hold perfectly still and not blink for the three-minute duration of the filming. [3]

After making these early shorts, Warhol began to incorporate the shooting of Screen Tests into the routine of his studio, The Factory, alongside the making of new paintings and other aspects of his enterprise. The filming of Screen Tests was rarely prearranged. There was an area set up for shooting, but the decision to make one was spontaneous, generally involving people who happened to be visiting The Factory. [2] :15 Nearly all of the Screen Tests use the nearly motionless, front-facing style of the first films. Warhol varied the shooting conditions for individual films, changing the number of lights or their angles to alter the pattern of shadow on the subjects' faces and the backdrops behind them or using different lens aperture settings. Some subjects sat for multiple Screen Tests on a single day. By the end of 1966, two years after his first Screen Tests, Warhol had produced at least 500 of them, of which 472 survive. [4]

The short films were not called Screen Tests until the end of 1965; until that time, Warhol labeled them "film portraits" or "stillies" (a portmanteau of "still-movies"). [2] :15 They were not screen tests in the general sense of the film industry, in that they were conceived as independent works of art and not a way of choosing people to act in a production. [5] Warhol made two longer films in 1965, Screen Test #1 and Screen Test #2, that more closely resemble traditional screen tests.

Reception and legacy

Film critic Philip Dodd listed the Screen Tests among his favorite films in 2002 when he voted for the Sight and Sound poll. [6]

Author Kate Zambreno wrote about the screen tests in a 2019 collection of essays titled Screen Tests: Stories and Other Writing. [7]

Selected Screen Test subjects

Many of the 472 surviving Screen Tests depict people who remain well known for their accomplishments or for their association with Warhol's circle. Following is a selection of people who appeared in Screen Tests who are also the subject of Wikipedia articles, chosen to give an overview of the range of Warhol's subjects. The definitive compilation of the Screen Tests and their subjects is Andy Warhol Screen Tests by Callie Angell (2006), the first volume of the catalogue raisoneė of Warhol's films.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andy Warhol</span> American artist, film director, and producer (1928–1987)

Andy Warhol was an American visual artist, film director, producer, and leading figure in the pop art movement. His works explore the relationship between artistic expression, advertising, and celebrity culture that flourished by the 1960s, and span a variety of media, including painting, silkscreening, photography, film, and sculpture. Some of his best-known works include the silkscreen paintings Campbell's Soup Cans (1962) and Marilyn Diptych (1962), the experimental films Empire (1964) and Chelsea Girls (1966), and the multimedia events known as the Exploding Plastic Inevitable (1966–67).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Factory</span> Andy Warhols New York City studio

The Factory was Andy Warhol's studio in New York City, which had four locations between 1963 and 1987. The Factory became famed for its parties in the 1960s. It was the hip hangout spot for artists, musicians, celebrities and Warhol's superstars. The original Factory was often referred to as the Silver Factory. In the studio, Warhol's workers would make silkscreens and lithographs under his direction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gerard Malanga</span> American poet, photographer, filmmaker, actor, curator and archivist

Gerard Joseph Malanga is an American poet, photographer, filmmaker, actor, curator and archivist.

<i>Empire</i> (1965 film) 1965 American black-and-white silent art film by Andy Warhol

Empire is a 1965 American black-and-white silent art film by Andy Warhol. When projected according to Warhol's specifications, it consists of eight hours and five minutes of slow motion footage of an unchanging view of New York City's Empire State Building. The film does not have conventional narrative or characters, and largely reduces the experience of cinema to the passing of time. Warhol stated that the purpose of the film was "to see time go by."

Poor Little Rich Girl is a 1965 underground film by Andy Warhol starring Edie Sedgwick. Poor Little Rich Girl was conceived as the first film in part of a series featuring Sedgwick called The Poor Little Rich Girl Saga. The saga was to include other Warhol films: Restaurant, Face, and Afternoon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bibbe Hansen</span> American actress

Bibbe Hansen is an American performance artist, musician and actress.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kenneth Jay Lane</span> American fashion designer

Kenneth Jay Lane was an American costume jewelry designer.

Sleep is a 1964 American avant-garde film by Andy Warhol. Lasting five hours and 21 minutes, it consists of looped footage of John Giorno, Warhol's lover at the time, sleeping.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul America</span> American actor

Paul Johnson, better known as Paul America, was an American actor who was a member of Andy Warhol's Superstars. He starred in one Warhol-directed film, My Hustler (1965), and also appeared in Edie Sedgwick's final film Ciao! Manhattan (1972).

<i>Campbells Soup Cans</i> 1962 artwork by Andy Warhol

Campbell's Soup Cans is a work of art produced between November 1961 and June 1962 by American artist Andy Warhol. It consists of thirty-two canvases, each measuring 20 inches (51 cm) in height × 16 inches (41 cm) in width and each consisting of a painting of a Campbell's Soup can—one of each of the canned soup varieties the company offered at the time. The works were Warhol's hand-painted depictions of printed imagery deriving from commercial products and popular culture and belong to the pop art movement.

<i>Shot Marilyns</i> 1964 series of paintings by Andy Warhol

Shot Marilyns is a series of silkscreen paintings produced in 1964 by Andy Warhol, each canvas measuring 40 inches square, and each a portrait of Marilyn Monroe.

<i>Myra</i> (painting) Painting by Marcus Harvey

Myra is a 1995 large painting which is a reproduction of the mugshot of Myra Hindley shortly after she was arrested for her participation in the Moors murders and was created by Marcus Harvey in 1995. It was displayed at the Sensation exhibition of Young British Artists at the Royal Academy of Art in London from 8 September to 28 December 1997.

Thirteen Most Wanted Men was a large 1964 mural created by Andy Warhol for the New York State Pavilion at the 1964 World's Fair at Flushing Meadows, New York. The mural was painted over with silver paint before the fair opened, probably due to official objections, but other reasons have been suggested.

Winthrop Kellogg "Kelly" Edey (1938–1999) was a noted collector and horologist who lived in Manhattan. His well-regarded collection of timepieces is now in the Frick Collection. Edey is the subject of several Screen Tests by Andy Warhol and early Screen Tests likely were filmed at his Manhattan townhouse.

Beverly Grant was an actress and filmmaker who appeared in films by Andy Warhol, Jack Smith, Gregory Markopoulos, Ira Cohen, Ron Rice, and Stephen Dwoskin, on the off-off Broadway stage in works by Ronald Tavel and LeRoi Jones, as well as collaborated with her one-time husband, experimental filmmaker and musician, Tony Conrad. Smith, the avant-garde filmmaker of Flaming Creatures and Normal Love, in which Grant appeared, called her "the queen of the underground – both undergrounds."

<i>Orange Prince</i> (1984) 1984 painting by Andy Warhol

Orange Prince(1984) is a painting by American artist Andy Warhol of Prince, the American singer, songwriter, record producer, multi-instrumentalist, actor, and director. The painting is one of twelve silkscreen portraits on canvas of Prince created by Warhol in 1984, based on an original photograph provided to Warhol by Vanity Fair. The photograph was taken by Lynn Goldsmith. These paintings and four additional works on paper are collectively known as the Prince Series. Each painting is unique and can be distinguished by colour.

<i>Triple Elvis</i> 1963 painting by Andy Warhol

Triple Elvis is a 1963 painting of Elvis Presley by the American artist Andy Warhol. The photographic image of Elvis used by Warhol as a basis for this work, taken from a publicity still from the movie Flaming Star, has become iconic and synonymous with the singer.

Normal Love is an experimental film project by American director Jack Smith. It shows the adventures of an ensemble of glamorously dressed monsters. Smith filmed the project in 1963 and began screening the work in pieces in 1964.

<i>Marilyn Monroe portfolio</i> 1967 print by Andy Warhol

The Marilyn Monroe portfolio is a portfolio or series of ten 36×36 inch silkscreened prints on paper by the pop artist Andy Warhol, first made in 1967, all showing the same image of the 1950s film star Marilyn Monroe but all in different, mostly very bright, colors. They were made five years after her death in 1962. The original image was taken by Warhol from a promotional still by Gene Kornman for Monroe's film Niagara (1953).

Ten Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century is a 1980 series of ten paintings by Andy Warhol. The series consists of ten silk-screened canvases, each 40 by 40 inches. Five editions of the series were made. The series was also produced by Warhol as a portfolio of screenprints on Lenox museum board comprising editions of 200, 30 Artist Proofs, 5 Printers Proofs, 3 EP,s and 25 unique Trial Proofs.

References

  1. "Andy Warhol: Screen Tests". Museum of Modern Art.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Angell, Callie (2006). Andy Warhol Screen Tests. New York: Harry N. Abrams. ISBN   9780810955394.
  3. Foster, Hal (Spring 2010). "Test Subjects". October . 132: 38–39. JSTOR   20721275.
  4. Dargis, Manohla (October 21, 2007). "Unblinking Eye, Visual Diary: Warhol's Films". The New York Times . Retrieved 14 November 2014.
  5. "Screen Tests". The Andy Warhol Museum.
  6. BFI, Sight & Sound [ dead link ]
  7. Screen Tests by Kate Zambreno, kzambreno.com