The Warhol Announces Andy Warhol’s The Chelsea Girls Book

For immediate release

Wednesday, November 29, 2017

The Andy Warhol Museum announces Andy Warhol’s The Chelsea Girls, an in depth look at Warhol’s most famous film The Chelsea Girls including numerous stills from the newly digitized film, never-before-published transcripts, unpublished archival materials, and expanded information about each of the individual films that comprise Warhol’s most well-known film. The hardcover, 328 page, 9 in. x 12 in. illustrated book, published by Distributed Art Publishers, Inc., retails for $65.00 and will be released in April 2018.

Andy Warhol’s seminal 1966 film The Chelsea Girls is an iconic document of the Factory scene and 1960s New York. Filmed in part at the Chelsea Hotel with Factory Superstars like Nico, Ondine, Brigid Berlin, Gerard Malanga and Mary Woronov, The Chelsea Girls was Warhol’s first commercially successful film, as well as the first underground movie by any director to screen in first-run theaters, playing nationally and around the world for more than two years. Featuring Warhol Superstars performing “everyday” activities like chatting with friends, lounging in bed, cutting their hair, and shooting amphetamines, the film mesmerized viewers with its characters’ dark, inherent glamour. Quite simply, there had never been anything like it before. “In one film alone,” an early reviewer noted, “[Warhol] has sadism, masochism, whipping, transvestites, homos, prostitutes, a homosexual ‘Pope,’ boredom, stunningly beautiful girls, depravity, humor, ‘psychedelics,’ truth, honesty, liars, poseurs….”

In honor of the 24th anniversary of The Warhol, the publication of Andy Warhol’s The Chelsea Girls coincides with a major project undertaken by the museum to digitize hundreds of the artist’s well-known and never-before-seen films.

Designed by world-renowned graphic design firm Matsumoto Incorporated, the book is an in-depth, deluxe treatment of the 12-reel, split-screen film, The Chelsea Girls. The film’s alternation of sound between the left and right screens is reproduced in the publication’s complete, as-heard transcript printed directly alongside imagery from the corresponding reels on silver metallic paper to evoke an authentic experience of the film. Also included are previously unpublished transcriptions of unheard reels. Andy Warhol’s The Chelsea Girls is a beautifully produced document of a legendary movie and a mythic moment.

“I never liked the idea of picking out certain scenes and pieces of time and putting them together,” Warhol said, “because then it ends up being different from what really happened—it’s just not like life.… What I liked was chunks of time all together, every real moment.… I only wanted to find great people and let them be themselves and talk about what they usually talked about and I’d film them for a certain length of time and that would be the movie.”

The book was edited with text by Geralyn Huxley and Greg Pierce. It includes a forward by Rajendra Roy, an essay by Gus Van Sant and contributions by Patrick Moore and Signe Warner Watson.

Geralyn Huxley, is the curator of film and video at The Andy Warhol Museum, and Greg Pierce, is the associate curator of film and video, The Andy Warhol Museum. In addition to curating film and video exhibitions, Huxley and Pierce oversee the film digitization project, in conjunction with The Museum of Modern Art, as well as the maintenance and preservation of The Warhol’s vast video collection. Geralyn Huxley is the co-author of Andy Warhol Treasures and author of numerous essays. Greg Pierce is also the custodian of The Orgone Archive in Pittsburgh, PA.

Gus Van Sant, acclaimed director and screenwriter, has widely acknowledged Andy Warhol to be one of his most significant influences. He is best known for directing the Hollywood mega-hit Good Will Hunting, which won two Academy Awards. His film Milk, based on the life and death of Harvey Milk, was nominated for eight academy awards and won two. In addition, Van Sant directed Drugstore Cowboy, My Private Idaho, and To Die For, among many films.

Rajendra Roy is Chief Curator of Film at MoMA, responsible for the selection and archiving of film. In collaboration with colleagues at MoMA and partner institutions, he has organized exhibitions including Bruce LaBruce (2015), Wim Wenders (2015), The Weimar Touch (2013), The Berlin School: Films from the Berliner Schule (2013), Tim Burton (2011), and Mike Nichols (2009). Served on numerous juries and selection committees for organizations such as the Sundance Film Festival, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, South by Southwest (SXSW) and the Gotham Independent Film Awards. Former Director of Programming (2002–06) and Artistic Director (2006–07) for the Hamptons International Film Festival. Member of the Competition Selection Committee of the Berlin International Film Festival (2004-2008), and he continues to serve as an advisor to that festival.