Trela Media Published The Autobiography and Sex Life of Andy Warhol
NEW YORK, NY.- On June 30th, Trela Media will be rereleasing The Autobiography and Sex Life of Andy Warhol by John Wilcock, originally published in 1971.
Village Voice and Interview co-founder John Wilcock was first drawn into the milieu of Andy Warhol through filmmaker Jonas Mekas, assisting on some of Warhol’s early films, hanging out at his parties and quickly becoming a regular at the Factory. “About six months after I started hanging out at the old, silvery Factory on West 47th Street,” he recalls, “[Gerard] Malanga came up to me and asked, ‘When are you going to write something about us?’” Already fascinated by Warhol’s persona, Wilcock went to work, interviewing the artist’s closest associates, supporters and superstars. Among these were Malanga, Naomi Levine, Taylor Mead, Ultra Violet, and Viva, all of whom had appeared in the Warhol films; scriptwriter Ronnie Tavel, and photographer Gretchen Berg; art dealers Sam Green, Ivan Karp, Eleanor Ward and Leo Castelli, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Henry Geldzahler; the poets Charles Henri Ford and Taylor Mead, and the artist Marisol; and the musicians Lou Reed and Nico. Paul Morrissey supplied the title: The Autobiography and Sex Life of Andy Warhol is the first oral biography of the artist.
From left to right: Andy Warhol, Edie Sedgwick, Chuck Wein and Gerard Malanga
Pitched against the colorful backdrop of the 1960s, the book assembles a prismatic portrait of one of modern art’s least knowable artists during the early years of his fame. The Autobiography and Sex Life is likely the most revealing portrait of Warhol, being composite instead of singular; each of its interviewees offers a piece of the puzzle that was Andy Warhol. This new edition corrects the many errors of this long out-of-print book, and is beautifully designed in a bright, Warholian palette. It features more than 120 images (including original portraits of numerous Factory superstars by Shunk-Kender ), plus illustrations, and film stills—including many never seen before. This entertaining book is an in-depth and provocative appreciation of a complex and prolific artist.
John Wilcock is a British-born writer who was a founding editor of the Village Voice in 1955. In the 1960s he edited New York’s first underground newspaper The East Village Other, was an early editor of the Los Angeles Free Press, and published his own influential alternative tabloid, Other Scenes. Wilcock also founded and co-published Interview magazine (in 1969) with Andy Warhol. He has written more than thirty travel books and lives in Ojai, California.
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