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The Andy Warhol Museum Archives Source: Archives of American Art Journal, Vol. 33, No. 4 (1993), p. 32 Published by: The Smithsonian Institution Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1557530 . Accessed: 01/04/2014 03:16
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THE

ANDY

WARHOL

MUSEUM

ARCHIVES

A high school photographof Andy Warhol (courtesyof the Archives,The Andy Warhol
Museum). THE ARCHIVES OF THE ANDY WARHOL MUSEUM

"subverts the idea of what we think of as archives," according to one of their archivists, John Smith. While he notes that the bulk of traditional archives revolves around correspondence and manuscript material, the Warhol archives contains an astonishing stockpile of objects relating to the life and work of a man who was arguably one of the most compulsive pack rats of the twentieth century. If The Andy Warhol Museum is a tribute to Warhol the artist, the archives are a testament to Warhol the collector. Besides the fact that Andy Warhol made things, Andy Warhol kept things, and his idea of collecting extended beyond the mountains of Navajo rugs or Fiestaware found in the artist's home after his death. Warhol collected his times, and the archives' collection ranges from audio- and videotapes and a complete set of Interviewmagazines, to the paint, brushes, and other materials the artist used, to the "Time Capsules." Conceived as a study center, the archives will be an important source for both Warhol scholars and others interested in the broader field of American culture, as portrayed in Warhol's press clippings and ephemera. The Time Capsules comprise over six hundred cardboard boxes which Warhol and associates filled regularly with everything from junk mail and bills to party invitations and letters. With archivist Matt Wrbican, I peered into a box marked "air France Nov 78" which had already been inventoried by Wrbican and Richard Hellinger, of the museum, and Vincent Fremont of the

Warhol estate. (In a gesture which Warhol would have approved, each time the archivists go through a box, the process is taped, providing valuable insights from insiders such as Fremont.) Stuffed with memorabilia from the Air France Concorde (a menu, slippers, a matchbook, and salt and pepper packets), the box also contains an issue of High Timesmagazine with Warhol and Truman Capote on the cover dressed as Santa Claus and Mao respectively, an exhibition catalogue from the Louisiana Museum in Denmark, a note to Warhol from transvestite film star Divine, and an inscribed, autographed copy of Warhol associate Christopher Makos's photography book White Trash. Wrbican noted that one Time Capsule included a piece of birthday cake wrapped in a napkin, but concluded that the strangest object catalogued to date was a mummified human foot. The most important conventional materials in the collection for scholars are photographs used by Warhol as sources for his art. The publicity photograph which he used in his famous painting of Marilyn Monroe, the photobooth strips he silkscreened into portraits, and the Wide World Photo images from which the "Disaster" series derived help to illuminate Warhol's transformation of documentary or everyday images into icons of fame or of womanhood or of tragedy. Though archival materials are often trotted out at museum exhibitions as piecemeal and disjointed vouchers of credibility, the archives of the Warhol Museum is an organic part of the institution. John Smith goes so far as to claim that it functions "more like a separate curatorial department." On each floor of the museum are innovative archival vitrines, put together by Wrbican, which speak to ideas, people, and artworks relevant to the gallery installations around them. These beautifully arranged glass cases, resembling the treasure trove collage boxes of artist Joseph Cornell more than somber museum educational tools, contain objects such as the polaroids on which the portraits are based and a roll of free drink tickets to Studio 54 (which are mentioned in the Diaries). Wrbican asserts that many viewers' response to the archival materials is stronger than their reaction to the artwork displayed, since the source material has not been seen
before. According to Richard Hellinger's essay in The Andy Warhol Museum, the archives' collection measures 8,625 cubic feet. A veritable warehouse of the second half of the twentieth century, the Andy Warhol Museum Archives may turn out to be the artist's greatest self-portrait as well as a portrait of his age. ]

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