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“The Trip—Andy Warhol’s Plastic Fantastic Cross-Country Adventure”
By Deborah Davis
...A virtually unchronicled event in the life of Andy Warhol, his 1963 Cross-country Road trip from New York to LA and Back (including a stop in Phoenix) is the subject of this Pop- art-meets-Hollywood-Via-Route 66-travelogue and art history lesson by Deborah Davis; it's the KBACH/Changing Hands Bookstore selection for September.
Book Notes September 2015
“The Trip—Andy Warhol’s Plastic Fantastic Cross-Country Adventure” By Deborah Davis
For KBACH and Changing Hands Bookstore, I’m Randy Kinkel and This is “Book Notes” a Book Club for Lovers of the Arts.
If you look at 917 E van buren st. in phoenix today, you won’t see much. It’s a vacant lot. Just down van buren past 9th st. there’s a circle K. …. across the street is a new apartment complex. The only clue to what might have been there is an old asphalt parking lot and driveway, all that’s left of what was a thriving business on a street that once hummed with the energy of travelers stopping for a rest on their journeys east or west at the junction of 4 major US highways-- one of the 150 or so Motels, motor inns, courts, or courtyards that lined Van Buren from the 1930s—thru 1960s and earned it the nickname “Motel Alley”.
This particular address, 917 E van Buren-- is the site of Newton’s Inn, the motor court where Andy Warhol and friends stayed on their way back from Andy’s first west coast gallery show in LA in 1963.
That’s right—Andy Warhol slept here—on Van Buren, in phoenix, which served as a convenient stopping point on the way west or east before the advent of the interstate highway system.
It’s just a tiny part of the little-documented chapter in the life of the Pop Artist that’s recounted in the book “The Trip—Andy Warhol’s Plastic Fantastic cross-country adventure” by Deborah Davis. It’s the KBACH/ Changing Hands Bookstor Book Notes Selection of the month for September.
Deborah Davis is the author of 6 books and no stranger to writing about Art and celebrity—among her books are Fabritius and the Goldfinch: A True Story of Art, Tragedy, and Immortality; Strapless: John Singer Sargent and the Fall of Madame X; and Party of the Century: The Fabulous Story of Truman Capote and His Black and White Ball; She formerly worked as an executive, story editor, and story analyst for several major film companies.
It was just about at his time of year—the end of summer and the beginning of fall—September 24th, 1963, that Andy Warhol and three friends decided to drive cross-country in a ford falcon station wagon to Los Angeles for Andy’s new show at Irving Blum’s Ferus Gallery. Davis’s book is an account of what happened just before the trip, along the way and just after the guys all got back to NYC. An episode in the life of Warhol just as he, and his images, were becoming ubiquitous Pop art Icons of the 60s and 70s.
Initially I was a little miffed at Davis for taking so long to get to the TRIP itself. But then I realized that the events leading up to the cross country trek, Warhol’s life in New York as an illustrator, the beginnings of his work and the reasons behind it-- the big gallery show, Warhols first visit to and immersion in his beloved and glamourous Hollywood—and his establishment of the “Factory” after he returned -- were all part of the “Trip”—and what’s more a too-often ignored period in Art history that deserves a larger room in the museum of 2oth century art history. There’s a lot of rich material here about the whole NYC cultural scene of the late 50s early 60s that Warhol found himself in. Davis weaves interviews and first hand accounts of the events into her narrative as events unfold on and off the road.
I was surprised at the lack of photos and art reproductions in the book. Seems like there should have been more of them, considering the lengths Warhol normally went to to document everything, including saving brochures and receipts. Maybe they weren’t available to the author for this book, but it sure would have made for a more well-rounded experience and given the reader a more immediate sense of the groundbreaking work people like Warhol, Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenburg were doing at the time.
A lot of great tidbits in the book. I liked the accounts of Warhol, Rauschenburg and Jasper Johns all making extra money as window artists for department stores in NYC. And that a lot of his fellow artists were resentful of Warhol’s success because of his already lucrative career in illustration when he entered their world of “Fine” art. Davis does a good job of conveying how new and radical the pop art movement seemed to the art establishment at the time, and how it was like a breath of fresh air.
It’s also interesting to see how Warhols morphs from using a photobooth on times square to create images -- then placing those images in sequence to imitate movement—to buying a camera and deciding to make Movies as art-- like his films “The Kiss” and “Sleep”.
I really liked this book, and I think you will, too-
“The Trip—Andy Warhol’s Plastic Fantastic Cross-Country Adventure” By Deborah Davis Is the KBACH changing Hands Bookstore Book Notes selection for September. To find out more about the book, and to order it at a 10% Book Notes Discount, go to www.changinghands.com.
For KBACH and Changing Hands Bookstore, This is “Book Notes” a Book Club for Arts Lovers.
