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Sunday, December 19, 2010

Making Money Through

"Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art," Andy Warhol famously said. "Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art." Having gotten his start as an immensely successful commercial artist selling product illustrations to advertisers and department stores, Warhol bent the American consumerist system to artistic ends throughout his career -- embracing capitalism at a time when many in the creative sphere viewed it skeptically, if not with outright hostility. Now a new exhibition at the Indianapolis Museum of Art called "Andy Warhol Enterprises" has seized upon a recent resurgence of interest in the artist's work to closely examine just how Warhol treated business, commerce, and, above all, money in his art and life.

At an economic moment when the art market is booming -- with a Warhol painting selling for $63.4 million at Phillips de Pury last month -- as the rest of the country struggles through a grueling recession, wealthy businessmen have been demonstrating extraordinary confidence in art as a liquid financial asset. Warhol, it could be said, took the opposite approach -- he saw business as a dependable artistic asset. To discuss the ways in which the Pop artist approached this sweeping subject, ARTINFO executive editor Andrew M. Goldstein spoke to the exhibition's co-curator Sarah Urist Green, who organized the show with art critic Allison Unruh.

Andy Warhol for Sony Beta cassette tapes, 1981 / © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.

One of the interesting things about your exhibition is that it is sponsored by PNC Bank, which is in itself a commentary of a kind on the relationship between business and art.

When I got a call from Max Anderson, our director, asking if I would be interested in curating a show in conjunction with PNC bank and the Warhol Museum, my first reaction was a little bit hesitant. But I thought, "Warhol certainly wouldn't mind having a show sponsored by a bank. He would probably have really liked it." And I love the fact that Warhol had the corporation Andy Warhol Enterprises -- it has always stood out to me as a really fine example of Warhol as an entrepreneur -- and Andy loved money. So I though lets do a show about Andy loving money, but in a critical, engaged way.

Did they have any part in coming up with the show's conceit?

No, this is something that we pitched to them. And they loved it. I especially thought it was hilarious that for once we would be able to even flaunt a sponsor's name and logo in conjunction with the exhibition. Whenever we were creating collateral for the show I was able to say "don't forget the logo" and "make the logo bigger."

The exhibition catalogue shows Warhol as a shameless self-promoter, even appearing on Japanese film ads like the cliché of Bill Murray's character going to sell Japanese whiskey in "Lost in Translation."

That's perfect, right? But he was doing that from the beginning. Something we didn't have an image of in the catalogue but that was always in my mind in developing the show was the classified ad he put in the Village Voice in 1966 that said, "I will endorse with my name any of the following" and then it was just a list of all of the things he was happy to endorse, which included "anything." So he was a bit of a whore, as it were, from the beginning. One of the ideas that we have really tried to work against in this exhibition is that there was a turning point in Warhol's career -- this idea that before he was shot there was a certain integrity to his work and after a turning point it all dissipated and he became a servant to celebrities and society members. I don't believe that that is true. He even said later in his career, "I was always a commercial artist."

That is so interesting because that recent biography of him, Pop: The Genius of Andy Warhol, ends when he was shot in 1968, essentially condensing the last two decades of his career into a few paragraphs, largely dismissing it as commercial work.

I know. It's a great book, it's excellently researched, has great material, but it just ends! He was shot in 1968 but he didn't die until 1987. It is really incredible that that perception persists -- I mean, it is really prevalent, especially, of that generation. This exhibition is one of several in the past few years that is re-examining his later work including the "Last Decade" show and "Pop Life." These other exhibitions are looking at his later work in a fresh light. But I feel sometimes that the members of Warhol's own generation, or the people who were there, were sometimes clouded in their judgment and unable to see the irony of his later work.

I think it is so interesting your catalogue opens with a picture of Warhol sitting behind a desk. I can't think of another artist, like that, sitting behind a desk. Even Jeff Koons or Damien Hirst wouldn't take that picture.

Oh, no. You have seen pictures of them at their desk in their studios, maybe sitting with desks or papers or tables behind them, or maybe at a computer, but not this -- in such an officious role! I love that photo. It hasn't been published very much, and it was really important to us to include it. There is actually another version of this photo that is backed up a little more and it shows that, to the right of the telephone, there is a TV facing him.

The essays in the catalogue present Warhol as this businessman sitting behind a desk, running Warhol Enterprises, concocting a new moneymaking scheme every day, wearing a tie, and flying by Concorde. And it certainly worked: the final valuation of his estate was $228 million.

That's correct, though I'm not sure exactly how the Warhol Museum came to that figure. I am pretty sure that it is the valuation of his work at the time of his death plus all of the other art work he collected, because he had quite a collection of decorative art and some work by other artists, as well. Also, it includes his real estate holdings.

So, just like any other CEO.

Exactly. In the exhibition we have a portfolio that says "Andrew Warhol Enterprises Inc." on the front and it sort of goes through the value of his estate in 1965, and lists artworks that he owned -- some small Rauschenberg works and other items. But he did amass quite a bit of wealth in his days. Even in the 50s, in the first decade of his career, he did amazingly well as a commercial artist. So he was very well off even before he became famous.

What was he like as a boss?

As a boss? Well, we interviewed Vincent Fremont in the catalog and that is one account of many accounts, but at a certain point in my research it became unhelpful to read the accounts of everyone who worked for him. The people who were very close to him seemed to love him, like Pat Hackett [Warhol's secretary]. While they had not an uncomplicated relationship with Warhol, they certainly had extreme fondness for him. But then you read accounts like Bob Colacello's "Holy Terror" and you see a different side but one that is cited often, the flip side of Andy Warhol, where while he could be incredibly encouraging to other people, to other employees, other artists, he was also pretty cruel in certain regards as well.

What fascinates me is that while he presents this image as a business man -- "the business artist" -- his own management of his affairs was much more like an artist. He hardly paid anyone except with drugs, or parties, or the occasional lunch money.

Part of Warhol's brilliance at an early age was getting people to help him for free. In the 50s he would have these coloring parties where he would invite his friends to Serendipity 3 to help him hand-color his blotted line drawings, and he had his mother help him as well. He certainly had paid assistants, too. All of his films made it look like people in the factory were just sitting around, but he was certainly very good at getting people to work for him for free, and I'm sure it was mutually beneficial. It turned from the "Factory" into the "Office", and his staff members grew as his life progressed. But he certainly did know how to run a business and get the most out of his employees.

Did they have health care? Or anything like that?

I don't know, but there is a great Warhol quote: "Employees made the best dates. You don't have to pick them up and they are always tax deductible."

It is funny to think about how much of a chaotic mess his workplace was.

Well, you see the time capsules, and you get a small glimpse of his business life because the time capsules were basically his sweeping off his desk every so often and putting it in a box. And if you go to the Warhol Museum archives and you take a peek in those time capsules, it is really astounding the amount of stuff that almost anyone would throw away that Warhol kept.

What stands out in your memory?

Ticket stubs, taxi receipts, small notes about his finances. If you look in his diaries, you will see that the "Andy Warhol Diaries" actually originated because his accountant wanted him to track his daily expenses, and then it expanded from there. But it will say "taxi, 3 dollars" and so on. That is in the "Andy Warhol Diaries" that Pat edited. He would call her in the mornings and she would transcribe his day-to-day activities for many years. And some of them... I mean, it's funny, but pretty tedious at a certain point. He will say who he went out with the night before, who was at Studio 54, et cetera. They also found in the time capsules over a thousand dollars in cash that he just stuck in one of the boxes. I tried to get that for the show, actually, but I think they gave it to the Warhol Foundation.

Continued...

Visit "The Business Artist: How Andy Warhol Turned a Love of Money Into a $228 Million Art Career" on ARTINFO for the rest of Andrew Goldstein's interview with IMA curator Sarah Urist Green about the themes in her probing exhibition, including a discussion of Warhol's role as Factory foreman, his money paintings, and his vulgarity, and to see a slide show of Andy Warhol's most famous money-making works.

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A lot of important stuff is cooking here at the end of the year. The headline battles about the tax cut deal and the deficit commission are very big deals, with short and long term implications both policy-wise and politically. You have probably seen enough writing about these headline grabbers (including from me) to keep you awake -- or put you to sleep -- well through the holiday season. But what is going on behind the curtain, away from the headlines, in the fight over banking policy and foreclosure fraud is just as important, and in some ways even more so. The budget deal expires in two years, some of the provisions (including the best one, unemployment extension) even sooner. The deficit commission report was a big moment in an important debate, but between partisan warfare, unpopular policy proposals, and short attention spans, most of what's in there isn't likely to be acted any time soon. But what happens in terms of the foreclosure fraud issue and the fight over banking regulations over the next year will determine whether we have a chance at escaping a Japanese style lost decade. I believe it will have more to do with whether the economy starts to revive than whatever mostly inefficient stimulus this tax cut provides, and I think it will have a bigger impact on whether Obama is re-elected than the tax cut deal or any other big issue coming up any time soon.

What crashed our economy was the speculative, out of control concentration of market power on Wall Street. That is what caused the housing bubble and subsequent housing price collapse, and until the massive underlying damage to our entire economy caused by that collapse begin to get healed, this economy will not get a whole lot better. With 25% of mortgages underwater, and more mortgages and household financial situations than that threatened by a weakened and unstable housing market, working and middle class consumers are not going to be going on any spending sprees any time soon.

The stimulus in the Obama-McConnell-Boehner tax cut deal, in spite of being bigger than the last stimulus, won't stimulate much except the excitement of inside the beltway pundits. The millionaires getting an extra $80,000 plus will buy a few more expensive meals and bottles of wine in expensive restaurants and maybe splurge on some new luxury items, but mostly they will save that money, investing it in safe bond deals while they wait for the economy to recover -- because as corporations have shown the last two years, you can be awash in cash but still not invest it in making new products if you don't think there is anyone out there buying. Middle class folks will tend to spend any extra dollars they have more on lowering their debt and adding to their savings, because with their biggest financial asset -- their home -- worth nearly as much as they thought it would be a few years, they know they have to shore up their financial position. The only folks actually spending more as a result of this deal are the unemployed and poor, simply because they have no choice -- they will be using the money to buy groceries and pay utilities and rent.

There is one other problem with this stimulus, and this is one the macroeconomists aren't getting: the vast majority of this money is going to preserve the status quo. It is stimulus in the sense that it is a lot of government money, unpaid for by any other budget cuts or long term tax hikes, but in terms of how real people will feel it, it is the status quo. People currently getting unemployment comp and various tax credits -- EITC, etc -- will still be getting them. People's tax rates will stay the same, because this is simply an extension of the tax cuts that have been in existence now for 10 years. To the vast majority of Americans -- still hard pressed, still squeezed by higher costs in necessities, still with a lower value home, still worried about their or their family members' jobs- there will be no boost in their take home pay or earnings potential, no new jobs actually being directly created like in the last stimulus bill. I am sure that many folks are happy to hear their taxes won't be going up, but they will have no extra money to buy no new things and no extra confidence that the economy will suddenly get better.

Which brings me back to banking and housing policy. This kind of ineffective weak tea stimulus is the only kind Republicans will be giving Obama in the next two years. But there are ways to significantly boost the economy right now that, between the Obama administration and the state Attorneys General negotiations with the big banks, can actually be done: write tight regulations around the financial reform bill, especially when it comes to issues like the swipe fees that directly pit the Wall St. bankers against main street business; have the DOJ prosecute bankers for using their market power to distort and harm the economy; and especially right now, force the bankers to write down mortgages. If the banks wrote down the mortgages of 5,000,000 underwater homeowners to the level the house was now worth in the market, so that they could stay in their homes and stabilize their financial condition, two very important things would happen economically. The first is that the housing market would finally begin to stabilize and recover- neighborhoods would no longer be riddled with abandoned homes and unkempt properties. The second is that all those homeowners, their debt reduced and their long term finances stabilized, might actually start spending money again: the multiplier effect would be big. Wall St will go into high pitched whining mode, but according to numbers one economist showed me, the profits that doing this would cost the banks would only amount to half the bonus money they paid out the last couple of years. The banks will scream bloody murder, but they will be just fine if we force them to write down these mortgages.

This is also actually the right thing, the moral thing, to do. The big banks on Wall Street destroyed this economy, and made out like bandits in the process. It should now be up to them to have to sacrifice to make things right again. But -- with all other possibilities of big boosts to the economy walled off by Congress -- this is also the only policy option the administration and the state AGs have to help get us through the bad times from this damaged economy.

Here's the other thing this does: it changes the political dynamics completely. It would show more clearly than any other thing the President could do that the Obama administration is on the side of hard-pressed middle class homeowners. And because the bankers will be squealing to high heaven, and their Republican friends on the hill taking up their cause, it will be obvious who is on what side. Pushing the banks hard to write down these mortgages is the best thing the administration could possibly do economically, morally, and politically.

The administration as a whole, which includes a lot of different components, does not yet see this. I think Elizabeth Warren gets this, and from what I am told some of the lawyers at DOJ get it and are chomping at the bit to exert legal pressure on the banks. Some of the political staffers I talk with are starting to see this dynamic as well. However, Treasury certainly doesn't seem inclined in this direction, and certain agencies especially the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency are completely in the tank for the bankers. One state AG told me that the "OCC has the attitude that the banks are perfect", and are resisting the AG's investigations and negotiations in every way they can.

I don't know what will happen with the administration. I am hopeful that it will sink in soon that the economy isn't going to get better very quickly, and that the political team will realize that taking on the big banks on behalf of hard pressed homeowners is a political winner. But no matter what the administration does, I do hold some hope for the state AGs as they negotiate with the banks. They are led by Tom Miller, an old friend of mine from Iowa and one of the most honest and pro-consumer politicians I know. Tom is meeting today with community activists from around the country, and I know that his heart is with them. Whatever the Obama administration is doing, I have hopes the AGs can put enough pressure on the banks to move this in the right direction.

If we can finally start getting to the heart of the problem -- the bankers and irresponsible system they created -- we can finally start rebuilding this economy. That will be a fight, a big one because no politician likes taking on these banks. But that kind of fight might actually start moving our politics in a better direction as well.

Cross-posted at my home blog, OpenLeft, where you can find all of my writing on Wall Street, the economic crisis, and U.S. politics in general.

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