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The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, PA, in celebration of its 25th anniversary, opened its doors to the exhibition “Femme Touch”, sponsored by Steven Alan Bennett and his wife, Dr. Elaine Melotti Schmidt: founders of The Bennett Collection of Women Realists and Bank of America. The exposition, curated and organized by chief curator José Carlos Diaz, took two years for its realization which involved seven people. An “literally” open-door exhibition, which, with the increase in appropriate preventive measures, made mandatory by the Covid-19 epidemic, will remain open to the public until January 3, 2021. “Femme Touch” is an exhibition, unique of its kind that offers a cross-section, all-female Andy Warhol, made through the tribute to his inspirational muses: women and females who have had influence on the rational and creative aspect of the artist considered the father of Pop Art.
A new and interesting point of view that allows to analyze Warhol’s work in a different way than ever before despite the numerous exhibitions on the artist. In the “Femme Touch” exhibition, the five floors of the museum have been varied to bring Warhol’s work into dialogue with the artefacts and works of art from the lives of these fascinating women and girls, made possible by the museum’s archive and the extensive collection of over half a million different objects, including some of Warhol’s films, recently restored and digitized as part of an ongoing conservation initiative. The exhibition puts the spotlight on Warhol’s women and females, including transgender icons, members of underground scenes, radical feminists and androgynous figures: all subjects who in one way or another have crossed the boundaries of what was permissible in times of inequality and social change: “There is a very feminine quality in Andy’s works” says Steven Alan Bennett.
The fact that the exhibition was sponsored by them is no coincidence: both are personally committed to the re-evaluation of the female role in the artistic environment. Founders of “The Bennett Collection”, characterized by being composed of realistic-figurative works made by women and having as their theme women and the female universe, the Bennett couple say: “Realism in the sense of creating art is never real: it is an interesting approximation of reality and it is enough filled with content to enable a discussion about meaning and intention, commission and omission and so by picking women as authors and women as subject you get a look into both: the head of the artist who making the work as well as the sider who is been depicted in the work… Portrait and realistic depiction of the woman figure probably say more through the ages then we can achieve in many others medium”. Steven Allan Bennett and Dr. Elaine Melotti Schmidt should also be credited with having established the coveted “The Bennett Prize”: a monetary award worth $50,000 to be distributed over two years that will allow the winning artist to devote herself to the realization of the solo exhibition, which will take place, in an itinerant way, on American territory, with its catalogue of the exhibition, in order to give her visibility.
On the subject of the “Femme Touch” exhibition, the Bennett couple interviewed live by Museum Director Patrick Moore say: “It is a terrific exhibition…if you study Andy orbit is fascinating his trajectory composed of all gender going on in the background as his diaries show. There is a very significant overlap about how the women proceed themself and each other and Andy’s work. In addiction much of artwork tens to have a component of transgression where women taste the boundaries in their heads or in the heads of the viewer”, said Mr. Bennett. ’Femme Touch” highlights in particular the lives of 9 women, whose contribution has often been neglected in the narration of Warhol’s story. Women who had particular charisma on the artist: Mario Montez, one of the most talented interpreters of the time in the world of underground filmography, who from 1964 to 1966 took part in 13 Warhol films and whose stage name is a tribute, a male homage, to Maria Montez, an important gay icon of the 50s and 60s.
Barbara Rubin, known for her dynamic personality and talent for artistic matchmaking, according to Andy Warhol was one of the first people to arouse multimedia interest in the streets of New York. She became famous for making the most sexually explicit film ever produced, Christmas on Earth (1963), a queer and feminist “essential” document in the world of cinema and a cultural milestone of the 1960s that unveiled the American censorship law and opened the field to artistic studies of sexual narratives. With the Rubin, Warhol began using technologies such as multiple screens, slides and projectors and then integrated other media such as sculpture, music and lighting to create a total experience that could vary continuously. Donna Jordan was one Andy Warhol’s superstar model, photographed by Helmut Newton, Guy Bourdin and Oliviero Toscani. She starred in Andy Warhol’s “L’Amour”, like Tally Brown who starred in several of Andy Warhol’s “Factory” films and was also a singer.
Jane Forth, model and actress, began her artistic career as a receptionist at Andy Warhol’s Factory. Valerie Solanas, is a radical American feminist and well-known author of the SCUM Manifesto, which she published independently in 1967, is best known for trying to kill Andy Warhol in 1968 convinced that he was conspiring against her. Warhol was very impressed by the brutal event, fearing for his safety, until Solanas, after a terrible childhood, a degree in psychology and internment for schizophrenia, died of pneumonia at the age of 52. According to Museum Director Patrick Moore: “Solanas changed Warhol and his life much then everyone else”.
Candy Darling, according to Mr. Bennett, was Warhol’s most important inspirational muse, the Diva, the one who, like him, was able to reinvent herself: “Today we called Candy a transexual but she was truly a very important window into both own rebellion as well as idea of Warhol’s sexuality” said Mr.Bennett, who also remember in the film Beautiful Darling a very important Warhol’s quote, where in response to Dallin Bayles’ comment about the females engaged in the Factory says: “The people we use are really drag-queens because drag-queens is just a sort of people who dress up “for like” eight hours a day, the kind of people really we used are people who really think to be girl, and that so different!”. Candy Darling died at only 29 years old for a cancer.
Dr. Melotti Schmidt says: “Two other women have been fundamental in Andy Warhol’s life: his mother Julia Warhola who supported him, transmitting both love for art and faith, and Birgit Berlin, who unfortunately died in July of this year at the age of 80”. Brigit Berlin made photograph and painting with her body and she introduce Warhol to the use of Polaroid camera above all at the double exposure Polaroid. Brigit was a rebel, “a non complaint personality”, said Doc. Melotti Schmidt. Perfectly encapsulated in the high society from which Berlin came, she represented for Warhol a very fascinating character who over time became his best friend.
When Patrick Moore asked which are Warhol’s favorite works, Doc. Melotti Schmidt answers quoting “The Last Supper (Pink)”, a work about religion but also about popular culture nominated by critics: “a work of heretical reverence” that Dr. Melotti Schmidt defines instead: “The visuals statement of his spirituality that is still accurate today combining the historic traditional with the contemporary modern”. Another of Mrs. Bennett’s favorite works is “Ten Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century Series,” a series of screen-prints depicting 10 characters who have brought lustre to Jewish culture, among them Dr. Melotti Schmidt mentions: “Louis Brandeis, first Jewish judge of the American Supreme Court and Golda Meir, politician and the first and only woman to be Prime Minister of Israel”. Steven A. Bennett claims instead to appreciate The Marylin Dyptic because: ”It represent The Diva, the notion of publicity, the invention of herself, the repetition, the notion of life and death. One of the most important work in the XX century”.
The second work that has: “a particular appeal on my sense of transgression” says Mr.Bennett is “Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster)”, a silkscreen print of 1963 in which: “The interesting think is to be repeated 10 times on the left of the scene of the accident that moves towards nothingness of the right part of the work: The Double Disaster”. A ‘very large work, measuring in fact 8×13’. Two characters with slightly different tastes, at least as far as Warhol is concerned, but they share a love for realistic female figurative art, and in encouraging collectors, museums and institutions to recognize the role of women as active subjects of art, they remember that registrations are open for (the) The Bennett Prize for which you are invited to read the terms of the competition at www.thebennettprize.org If you would like to admire the works of The Bennett Collection, which includes some of the most important artists, including: Kathie O’Hagan, Pamela Wilson, Aleah Chapin, Margaret Bowland and many others, please visit www.thebennettartcollection.com.
Femme Touch Exposition at The Andy Warhol Museum di Pittsburgh.
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