Andy Warhol’s Brillo Boxes and colorful portraits of celebrities are omnipresent icons of pop art. But Warhol also created lesser-known, more intimate bodies of work in which he explored his ideal of male beauty. From the late 1940s up until his death in 1987 Warhol repeatedly and with growing intensity drew, silkscreened, filmed or photographed men (or body parts of them. Currently and until October 6th the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin with „Velvet Rage and Beauty“ shows a selection of more than 300 works from all creative phases, the most comprehensive presentation of this pivotal aspect of Warhol’s oeuvre. Alongside the exhibition Prestel published an equally comprehensive catalogue the chronologically follows Warhol’s depiction of male beauty and queerness: what began with shy drawings of men in the 1950s became more explicit and foreshadowed Warhol’s later passion for depicting male geni*als.
One particularly interesting series of works is „Ladies and Gentlemen“, polaroid portraits of black or hispanic drag queens, trans women and transvestites that he later transferred to silkscreens on canvas, commissioned by an Italian patron. In contrast to his well-known portraits Warhol focuses on protagonists of the queer subculture and in which he seemingly explored another side of himself, embodied by his drag alter ego „Drella“.
The most explicit series „S*x Parts“ and „Torsos“ that Warhol started working on in 1977 balance on the brink of por*ography but don’t cross it: with the torsos the artist not only references a classical motif but also captures it in subtle lines, a characteristic that also applies to the b*tts and gen**als depicted in „S*x Parts“.
With „Velvet Rage and Beauty“ long hidden but pivotal aspects of Warhol’s work enter the limelight and in the accompanying catalogue receive additional context: Klaus Biesenbach conducted a number of interviews with Warhol experts Donna de Salvo and Jessica Beck as well as art critic Blake Gopnik and e.g. discussed the societal and subcultural circumstances under which Warhol explored his queerness. Hence, the catalogue is an important addition to the overall understanding of an art icon.
