In this amazing book about the cultural revolution of the 60s and the "first" Silver Factory, illustrated with more than 100 bandw pictures- many by Billy Name, Stephen Shore and Gerard Malanga-Steven Watson gives us detailed portraits of the characters who became the original Factory group. He traces their lives from before they arrived at the Factory through 1968, the year Warhol was shot by Valeric Solanas. Watson uses his signature sidebars, sociograms and a detailed chronology to show the vocabulary, quotes and timelines of this avant-garde group. We see the first happening/party of a thousand organized by Sam Green at the ICA in Philadelphia, nights at Max's Kansas City, the Chelsea Hotel or such discos as Arthur or Ondine: the interaction of uptown and downtown, bohemia, society and sleaze. Watson shows how Warhol was always interested in a collaborative process both for art and film. It was Billy Linich and Gerard Malanga who served as his first assistants when he moved into the former factory that became, from 1964-1968, his workplace at: 241 East 47th Street, helping him to produce the more than 500 films, a record, a novel and hundreds of photographs and paintings. These were the years ofWarhol's Death and Disaster series. Flower paintings, Campbell Soup cans, Brillo boxes, Marilyns, Elizabeth Taylors and Jimmy Cagneys and such films as: Ciao Manhattan, Trash and The Chelsea Girls. Into this scene came Edie Sedgwick, the beautiful and doomed blueblood who Warhol made his first superstar; Rotten Rita, Brigid Berlin, and Ondine as well as the drag queens Holly Woodlawn, Jackie Curtis and Candy Darling were part of the silver Factory; from the world of film there were Paul Morrissey, Emile de Antonio, Jonas Mekas, Taylor Mead; from the world of poetry John Ashbery, Alien Ginsberg, John Wieniers; Lou Reed, John Cale, Nico as part of the Velvet Underground-the band associated with the Factory; from the world of art, Leo Castelli, Henry Geldzahler, Ivan Karp; from the worlds of dance and theater, Lucinda Childs, Fred Herko and Play-House of the Ridiculous; from the fashion world, Betsey Johnson and Viva. Watson has written a comprehensive study of early Factory life and documented the vast output of film and art that would come to have an enormous impact on the cultural scene of the 60s and after.
Industry Reviews
"Steven Watson has written the best imaginable book on the Sixties of Andy Warhol's Silver Factory, the Exploding Plastic Inevitable, and the appropriation by mainstream culture of the underground avant-garde. Based on the testimony of those who were part of it, those who were not there can now know exactly what it was like, without having to pay the price of having to live through it. And since the end of the Silver Factory coincides with the near-fatal attempt on Warhol's life in 1968, the book has the narrative drive of an unfolding tragedy. The research is impeccable, the spirit of the book is open and sympathetic, and the writing is as witty as it is clear. A marvelous achievement."
-Arthur C. Danto
"Factory Made, an encyclopedic act of cultural memory, is as wide-angled, as sympathetic, as polyphonic, and as entertaining an account of Warhol's 1960s as we're likely to get. Watson's emphasis on collaborative artistic practices offers an eye-opening antidote to the usual Andy-centered approach."
-Wayne Koestenbaum
"Although Andy Warhol's famous movies are among the most boring ever made, this book about them is endlessly fascinating."
-John Richardson
"Steven Watson's history of Andy Warhol's Silver Factory years is a riveting mosaic that captures a moment in the New York art world when cultural change was accelerating at the speed of light. The book sustains an atmosphere of tremendous suspense as, one after another, Warhol's 'superstars' are born, flash, and burn out, and the wild party peopled with speed freaks, drag queens, and exhibitionists spins out of control. In casting a wide cultural net this entertaining history encompasses Pop Art, experimental film, and the birth of the Play-House of the Ridiculous, connecting these movements and making sense of it all in a way that no other book has done. Factory Made is a masterly achievement."
-Stephen Holden
