Like Andy Warhol

by Jonathan Flatley

  Warhol’s markedness seems to be a primary feature of Basquiat’s way of seeing him and an important element of Basquiat’s affection for him, as both José Muñoz and Eve Sedgwick have suggested.146 Warhol’s unusual, whiter-than-white pastiness is subtly registered in Basquiat’s first portrait of Warhol, Dos Cabezas, where Basquiat’s skin is mainly the color of the unmarked beige background, whereas Warhol’s skin stands out as uneven and splotchy, marked by pink blemishes and large white and gray patches (figure 4.23, plate 12). His later (1984) portrait of “Warhol as a banana,” a complex appropriation of Warhol’s use of the banana on the Velvet Underground & Nico cover, but also as a cock substitute in films such as Mario Banana (see Crimp on this147), is titled Brown Spots, a literal reference to being marked, indeed “spoiled.”

  In marking Warhol by coloring him—in pasty white, spotty brown, and marker black—Basquiat suggests that his liking of and likeness to Warhol involved a powerful and productive “queering of the color line.”148 The portraits function as a comment on their own “mixed marriage,” in several ways. Basquiat made Warhol black by lending him some of his aura as a young, hip black artist. Through their collaboration, Warhol’s celebrity and his authorship became identified with Basquiat, a development both seemed to seek. For Warhol, at least, their collaborations were most interesting when the authorship of the paintings was intentionally confused. In his Diaries Warhol describes their process: “I had a picture and I used the tracing machine that projects the image onto the wall and I put the paper where the image is and I trace. I drew it first, and then I painted it like Jean Michel. I think those paintings we’re doing together are better when you can’t tell who did which parts.”149 Basquiat not only got Warhol painting again but got him painting “like Jean Michel” (“Jean Michel got me into painting differently, and that’s a good thing”; Diaries, April 17, 1984). Basquiat, in turn, started to silkscreen. In their painting practice, they were engaged in a mutual process of becoming-alike.

  4.23 Jean-Michel Basquiat, Dos Cabezas, 1982. Acrylic and oilstick on canvas with wood supports, 59¾ × 60½ inches. Private collection. Bridgeman Images. © The Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat/ADAGP, Paris/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

  4.24 Jean-Michel Basquiat, Brown Spots (Portrait of Andy Warhol as a Banana), 1984. Acrylic and oilstick on canvas, 76 × 84 inches. Private collection; courtesy Galerie Bruno Bischofberger, Switzerland. © The Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat/ADAGP, Paris/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

  Their pursuit of mutual relations of resemblance was not an attempt to do away with the color line or to ignore it, but instead to show how likeness could be created and imagined across a line that had very real implications and consequences, which were experienced quite differently by the two of them. Of a party for Jermaine Jackson, Warhol remarks in his Diaries (August 5, 1984) that “it was one of those parties where the bouncers were all dumb mafia type guys who didn’t know anybody. Jean Michel took us to the wrong section and they told us to beat it, and he said ‘Now you see how it is to be black.’” As an artist, “seeing how it is to be black” would involve seeing the overwhelming absence of black artists from the walls of the Museum of Modern Art.150 In making Warhol black in this drawing, Basquiat may be expressing his desire for there to be a famous black artist in the art historical canon for him to identify with, a wish that Warhol already was black, so that Basquiat would not have to explain to him “how it is” or color him to make him so. As it was, because he was unable to find black artists in MOMA, as Muñoz notes, Basquiat found black athletes, musicians, comic books superheroes, and the “pastiest of art world megastars” to admire and imitate.151

  In covering Warhol’s face with black marker, Basquiat echoes his regular defacing of Warhol’s white images with black ones in their collaborations, an operation Warhol himself invited and avowedly enjoyed (his praise for Basquiat’s talent and his admiration of the work Basquiat was doing on his own and in their collaborations runs throughout his Diaries).152 Typically, Warhol would silkscreen or trace an image onto the canvas, and then Basquiat would paint over or around Warhol’s painting. In one of their best-known collaborations, for instance, Basquiat paints a black man playing a saxophone over the white Arm and Hammer logo, transforming the circular logo into a coin with gray bubbles floating up and away from its edges. This reimagined form of currency, with the words “commemeritive” [sic] and “one cent” crossed out, and the black letters of “liberty” partially outlined in red, gives the lie to the erasure of black labor by Arm and Hammer’s white (supremacist) hammer-holding arm. Next to each other, the black saxophone player and white arm themselves make a kind of mixed marriage. The deadpan reproduction of the logo, now sitting alongside Basquiat’s defaced logo on the canvas, looks embarrassingly, vulgarly white. It seems to ostentatiously declare its naturalization of white labor as labor as such, and to fully admit to the violence implicit in this white supremacist operation.153 Basquiat has taken the image of whiteness that Warhol presented to him and put it under a luminous glare, making it into a very noticeable background. In this way, Basquiat amplifies the disidentificatory impulse within Warhol’s appropriations, even as he points out Warhol’s whiteness. But Basquiat has not covered this pretending-to-be-neutral metonym of labor with a sign of black labor (nor of black suffering); instead, we see an embodiment of improvisation and black freedom. This practice of liberty (though by no means unambiguously so, as it has been copyrighted), bears the traces of bloody struggle. Indeed, this painting is a veritable allegory of the history of the color line in the United States, figuring a white supremacist capitalism that at once excluded and exploited black people—indeed turned black persons into commodities, even as black expressive culture remained a locus of white fascination, a practice of freedom that racial capitalism could commodify but not contain. As Muñoz brilliantly writes, “Basquiat’s figure, a shirtless, crudely sketched black male who plays a saxophone,” produces “a melancholic reverberation” that “evokes and eulogizes a lost past, a childhood, and a memory of racial exploitation and terror.”154 In the spirit of Muñoz’s reading, I would add that Basquiat’s figure also exuberantly exceeds the limiting confines of a commodified and exploited blackness. The sounds that this saxophone produces float away like gray bubbles (or silver pillows), ungoverned by the limits created by the boundaries of the coin.

  4.25 Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol, Arm and Hammer II, 1985. Acrylic on canvas, 65¾ × 112¼ inches. Private collection; courtesy Galerie Bruno Bischofberger, Switzerland. © The Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat/ADAGP, Paris/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. © 2016 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

  If Basquiat’s coloring over Warhol’s face on the JM cover recalls the exuberantly melancholic face-giving defacements he practiced in collaborations such as Arm and Hammer II, it also references Basquiat’s disidentificatory imitation of Warhol, which depended on seeing Warhol as marked, and in seeing him as such also making him so. In this, it also imitates the way Warhol’s silkscreens inked over the faces of stars like Marilyn Monroe, Troy Donahue, and Natalie Wood. Like Warhol, Basquiat covers the face of a star that he likes in black ink. As it had been for Warhol, this “magic” marking was a way to feel like somebody else who similarly misfit. In marking Warhol as black and as queer, he has not only imitated Warhol’s own long history of disidentificatory, marked imitations. As an act of liking, making Warhol “like Jean Michel” also publicizes the affectionate relations of resemblance he has entered into with Warhol. In putting his liking on display in this Warhol-like manner, Basquiat is showing his viewers—including Andy himself—a way to like Andy Warhol, too.

  Acknowledgments

  I first got interested in Andy Warhol in a seminar taught by Michael Moon and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick during my first year of graduate school at Duke University. Under the intensely generative queer marquee they made, Jennifer Doyle, José Esteban Muñoz,
and I organized a conference and then edited Pop Out: Queer Warhol. We were all transformed by the sequins scattered on us by Eve and Michael. Eve, who made herself abundantly and enthusiastically available for various practices of resemblance, identification, and imitation, shaped me indelibly. Michael’s work on Warhol served as my initial model and inspiration. I am grateful to Jennifer for the many rich conversations and for her contagious, fierce intellectual-political commitment. I have learned so much from Mandy Berry, whose life-affirming fellowship has been a great gift. I’m also thankful for the big love made by Katie Kent’s laughter, insight, and emotional constancy. Gustavus Stadler’s wit, taste, and intelligence has often made a key difference. Eleanor Kaufman, Hank Okazaki, Johannes Von Moltke, Ken Wissoker, and Brian Selsky all stimulated, consoled, regaled, and challenged at important moments. I also learned from conversations with Mandy Merck, Simon Watney, Carol Mavor, David James, and Jane Gaines. I’m deeply grateful for the pleasures afforded by Jan Radway’s attention, conversation, and friendship, and for the many ways she has made me smarter about everything. Among the many things I learned from Fredric Jameson’s mentorship and example is that one should do one’s best to be interested in everything.

  The friendships formed during graduate school have had a lasting effect on how I think and feel about everything, and none more than my friendship with José. His companionship, intellectual and otherwise, was a boon to me not just because he was so smart and so gifted at idea-generating discussion, but also because he opened up a space where intellectual work was grounded in a space and a scene of friendship. Plus, he taught me to like so many things I would have missed without his brilliant, capacious, perverse, hilarious tutelage.

  The idea for a book about liking and likeness in Warhol originated in a talk I wrote at the invitation of Nicholas Baume, whose counsel and encouragement on aesthetic matters of all sorts has come to be indispensable. Nicholas is one of a number of Warhol enthusiasts whose work has shaped mine. I deeply feel the loss of Callie Angell, who was so generous with her encyclopedic mind and vast knowledge of Warhol’s career and circle; her remarkably careful, attentive, and intelligent work on Warhol’s films is a model for us all. I am a huge fan of Neil Printz’s brilliant and essential work on the Catalogue Raisonné of the paintings. There is no one better to talk to about Warhol, and I am thankful for his liberal assistance, advice, and insight. John Smith and Matt Wrbican, archivists at the Warhol Museum, enthusiastically shared their knowledge, and Matt’s hospitality and expertise helped me to see and find any number of things I otherwise wouldn’t have. I also learned a lot from hanging out with the brilliant and hilarious Ronald Tavel in Moscow for a few days.

  Over the very many years I have been working on this book, giving drafts of these chapters as talks provided the occasion for constructive feedback from audiences at the Wadsworth Atheneum, Dartmouth College, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona, Harvard University, Yale University, UCLA’s Center for the Study of the Contemporary, McMaster University, University of Rochester, Futures of American Studies Institute, Australian Modernist Studies Network Symposium, National Gallery of Art, Williams College, Indiana University’s Americanist Research Colloquium, Performance Studies at NYU, Film Theory and Visual Culture Seminar at Vanderbilt University, Burlington Art Museum, Bryn Mawr College, Moscow Institute of Philosophy, Pennsylvania State University, African American Studies and Art and Archaeology at Princeton University, Goethe Universitat, University of Florida, Northwestern University’s Summer Institute in Rhetoric and Public Culture, and UC Berkeley’s English Department. At these places and others, I received helpful encouragement, challenges, and feedback from Imre Szeman, Nina Sosna, Donald Pease, Tim Dean, Scott Herring, Shane Vogel, John MacKay, Justin Neuman, John Vincent, Devin Fore, Hal Foster, Benjamin Buchloh, Michael North, Mark McGurl, Vinzenz Hediger, Homay King, Jen Fay, Lucy Mulroney, Keith Vincent, Christopher Reed, Dilip Gaonkar, Kate Baldwin, John Brenkman, Bryan Wagner, Stephen Best, Dora Zhang, Steven Lee, Rachel Haidu, Darby English, Ann Vickery, Gayl Jones, Henry Sussman, Rosalyn Deutsche, Cindi Katz, Vaginal Davis, and many others.

  Wayne State University’s English Department, where I have worked for the last several years, has offered a wealth of intellectual and personal support, including summer research support from the Wayne State Humanities Center and a Career Development Chair. Financial assistance from the office of the Vice President for Research, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the Humanities Center and the English Department at Wayne State helped to pay for image rights and color reproductions. Many thanks to them, and to my current department chair, Ken Jackson, for his assistance and support. I came to Wayne State because of Richard Grusin, whose convivial counsel, support, and company has regularly lifted my mood and sharpened my thought. He was one of two people who recommended the title Like Andy Warhol (Roger Conover was the other), and he remains a regular sounding board for much of my thinking. I have been grateful while at Wayne for the intellectual comradeship of Prita Meier, Dana Seitler, Cannon Schmitt, Sarika Chandra, Lisa Ze Winters, Donna Landry, Gerald Maclean, Barrett Watten, Les Brill, Carol Vernallis, John Pat Leary, renee hoogland, Steven Shaviro, and Scott Richmond. I was lucky to regularly enjoy the taste and wit and archival mind of Charles Kronengold for a couple years here. Lara Cohen is a champion of many things, including collegiality and friendship. For sharing their intelligence and good humor, thanks also to present and former graduate students Marie Buck, Michael Schmidt, Ryan Dillaha, Kristine Danielson, Ted Prassinos, Tara Forbes, Chinmayi Kattemalavadi, and Jon Plumb. I miss the friendship of Kathryne Lindberg, whose political commitments were felt and expressed so vitally, whose erudition and intelligence were so formidable and abundant, whose occasional anger was so piercing, whose pointed, excessive generosity was so frequent, whose profane wit so sharp and hilarious, that it just seemed impossible for her to disappear.

  I feel lucky to have been buoyed many times over by conversations with Marc Siegel about Warhol and many other matters; he regularly dazzles me with his keenly queer intelligence, taste, and ethical sense. I always leave conversations with Juan Suárez smarter and more enthusiastic, too. Howard Singerman got me interested in minimalism, and his intellectual engagement remains the very paradigm of collegiality. In Moscow, Lena Petrovskaya, Oleg Aronson, Sasha Ivanov, and Valery Podoroga all offered various, crucial forms of feedback and encouragement and advice. Benjy Kahan gave a generous and careful read to a draft of the introduction. Brian Glavey’s liking of the idea of liking and his own work on queer aesthetics have been a sustaining influence. Ben Lee’s enthusiasm has a remarkably transformative effect on his surroundings, and I’m lucky to be lifted by it from time to time. Anthony Grudin’s shared fascination with Warhol and consistent, razor-sharp feedback has been incredibly helpful. For conversations, hospitality, and encouragement, I am also grateful to Susanne Sachse, Carrie Noland, Kristin Romberg, Zahid Chaudhury, Melissa Ragona, and Henry Abelove. During a year in Princeton, I was fortunate to become acquainted with the brilliant minds of Daphne Brooks and Rod Ferguson; conversations with each of them have been transformingly sustaining. Patti Hart has done wonders for my mood. Thanks to Julia Jarcho, Wendy Lee, Crystal Parikh, and Patrick Deer for their friendship and for letting me bend their ears about affect theories and aesthetics during my time as a visitor in the English Department at NYU. Many thanks too to the students in the Queer Affect Theory Seminar there for their engagement and inspiration. In addition to their many intellectual and other assistances, Lauren Berlant and Tavia Nyong’o (with the help of Alan Klima) were my writing buddies as I finished this book, and I can honestly say that I couldn’t have done it without them.

  I could not imagine a better editor than Douglas Mitchell. His combination of understanding, patience, and enthusiasm is positively world-making. He has my deep thanks for his smart, welcoming, careful, attentive shepherding of this book into existence. Kyle Wagner’s stunningly efficient, generous assistance is
also very much appreciated. Many thanks, too, to Joel Score, who improved my prose with remarkable skill and intelligence.

  Many of the ideas in this book came into being through conversations with Tan Lin, whose intelligence concerning matters of aesthetic experience is unmatched. I am grateful to have been able to bask in the light of Sianne Ngai’s brilliance from time to time, and this book has richly benefited from the attention she gave to it and from her amazingly effective encouragement. Heather Love has been a reliable lifeline of happy conversations, support, and advice. Phil Harper’s friendship has been a great source of joy over the years and I am thankful for his support of various kinds at so many different, key moments. Honestly, I don’t know where I would be without the love and laughter of Eric Lott; his example, his ear, his conversation offer regular, essential sustenance. Douglas Crimp has been a steadfast supporter of me and of this book, professionally, practically, emotionally, and intellectually. I am grateful to him for that, for the example of his queer scholarship and activism, for sharing his enthusiasm for Warhol with me, and for his friendship, which has enriched and improved my life in too many ways to list here. It is one of life’s great pleasures to share aesthetic experiences with Douglas, a mode of companionship that is one of Douglas’s many great talents, matched perhaps only by his talent for friendship itself.

  My parents, Marcia Dean and Joseph Flatley support, assist, console, and entertain in every way I could hope. It has been inspiring to see my sisters Alex Flatley and Michaela Flatley enter and transform the world. My admiration and love for my brother Jason Flatley remains a bedrock for everything I do. In the concrete, intimate daily project of making time and finding energy to write, the help and encouragement of Danielle Aubert has been most essential and most appreciated. I am thankful for her companionship, which provides a vital and regular source of pleasure, interest, comfort, and happiness. Agnes Dean Aubert Flatley has radiantly expanded my ability to be affected, and she continues to increase my dose of daily joy. With her, I have found a whole new world to like.