How the hibernation of Andy Warhol changed New York, and the world
For a long time, New York revolved around what Patti Smith dubbed “the city’s Bermuda Triangle”. One point was Max’s Kansas City, the iconic bar and restaurant turned venue. Another was Brownie’s, a rock club. And the third was The Factory, and that’s how essential Andy Warhol was to the city’s artistic makeup.
Plenty of people will purely think of Warhol as the Campbell’s Soup Can guy, but the impact of the artist on the broader cultural scene is almost too mammoth to ever truly reckon with. There are clear, factual points. Warhol designed a lot of iconic album artworks, he managed The Velvet Underground and basically granted them their fame, he launched icons like Edie Sedgwick, all while also creating some of America’s most famous pieces of artwork.
But it was also so much more than that. Pop art was a phenomenon that changed the landscape. Not only did it perfectly encapsulate the era, but the impact of Warhol spread to every medium; art, yes, but also music, film, fashion, photography, even writing and journalism. Warhol’s character had an impact too, as his cool mystique and fascinating nonchalance was equally as inspiring as it is still mysterious today. No one has ever tired of trying to work him out, just as the world has never tired of carrying his influence on.
In 1960s New York, the scene had direct access to that, so no wonder it was so intoxicating. Warhol was right there amongst it all, and he was inviting them in. His studio, The Factory, had an open-door policy, allowing people to come in and hang out. It became one of the city’s top artistic hubs with musicians, actors, models, all kinds of interesting people stopping by either to be captured in a screentest, act in a film or simply just party there.
This was how Warhol, the odd figure that he was, also became one of the era’s leading social figures. People yearned to be close to him and to be in his world, and the desire for that seemed to touch everything.
As The Factory was such an essential landmark in New York, Warhol became something of a monarch. When Patti Smith arrived, she noted that, writing of the energy in Max’s Kansas City: “Andy Warhol passively reigned over the round table with his charismatic ermine queen, Edie Sedgwick”. People’s interest in him and desire to be around him shaped the scene; they went where he went, they wore what they thought he’d like, bands watched what he did for The Velvet Underground and hoped he’d do the same for them, shaping their look and sound in that direction.
It was a distinctive thing. The Warhol style was deeply inspired by rock and roll, but with an artistic edge to it. There was a boldness and a level of camp, undeniably inspired by the queer community that was a main part of his circle. It encouraged theatrics and flamboyance, but mostly, a passionate individualism and a certain hedonism. That was the tone, and the people and their music played into it.
And then he was shot. And then he didn’t go out anymore.
In 1968, Warhol was pronounced dead from his gunshot wounds after an assassination attempt, but then he came back to life. The physical impact of it was one thing, but the mental was a whole other, causing the artist to essentially go into hibernation. The doors to the Factory were closed, and he stopped going out to bars, gigs, and parties.
This was around the time that Smith arrived, claiming that even after the shooting, people for a while were still trying to impress, writing, “They all seemed as if they were auditioning for a phantom, and that phantom was Andy Warhol”. But eventually, that would have to change.
Max’s Kansas City stayed open until 1981, but as people realised their old ruler was never coming back, they began to scatter. It was still an essential point, but it stopped being the only place to be. Even for people like Debbie Harry, who had waitressed at the bar and very much existed in the Bermuda Triangle, the world expanded as Warhol stayed hidden. People started going off to the Mercer Art Centre to see bands like New York Dolls, or eventually, they’d be at the CBGB, a place that Warhol would occasionally step into to catch a band, but rarely, as the energy seemed to be the exact antithesis of his world.
Put them side by side. Warhol’s was a world of glamour with Max’s reflecting that in it’s own eclectic way. CBGB was pure grit and as the desire to impress Warhol faded, the grime seemed to step up with the emergence of acts like Ramones, Television, Patti Smith and the rest of the early punk scene.
The pattern hit in the UK too, spreading from place to place. In 1971, David Bowie sang ‘Andy Warhol’ in his glam-clad persona, but by 1975, the Sex Pistols ruled, and Bowie was busy being the far darker Thin White Duke.
Maybe it does all come down to Warhol and the way his hibernation also marked the end of a moment where his brand of silver screen, bright colourful, campish hedonism went into hiding too, giving way to more darkness and dirt as people weren’t polishing up for him. Or maybe it’s simply that Warhol was another tragedy that marked the end of the 1960s as a period of optimism and opened up the 1970s in a more fearful, angsty state where punk presented itself as the perfect soundtrack.
