Edie Sedgwick and Andy Warhol, Once More on the Factory Floor

“Edie 66,” at Ki Smith in Bowery, exhibiting films and prints by Andy Warhol and photographs by Jerry Schatzberg, Gerard Malanga, and Adam Ritchie, offers a photo-realistic trip to a youthquake world full of rockstars and drama. The show, which opened on May 28th, is broken up by Warhol’s Cow wallpaper from the 1966 Leo Castelli Gallery exhibition.Among the buzz on the opening day of the exhibit, I find a rare moment of solitude. I’m alone with “Outer and Inner Space,” Andy Warhol’s 1966 film where Sedgwick appears next to a prerecorded video of herself playing on a television monitor. Her expression oscillates between playful and timid. Her lined eyes look at the viewer with uncertainty; her signature extravagant earrings bounce as she shakes her head. The moving image projected onto three walls proves both effective as a multi-channel installation and as a representation of Warhol’s fixation with Sedgwick.I linger with the film, hoping to get a better sense of the audio. If it was intended to be heard, the room could have benefited from some soundproofing. I wanted to hear Sedgwick’s laugh accompanying her effusive smiles. Warhol had previously employed similar techniques of repetition by orchestrating mirrors to duplicate Sedgwick in his 1965 film ”Lupe.” This proliferation of subject and technique offers a tongue-in-cheek self-awareness: the viewer witnesses the muse inspiring herself.Born Edith Minturn Sedgwick in 1943, “Edie” came from an aristocratic family with roots in New England and New York. She was raised alongside seven siblings on a ranch in Southern California. Her adult life was a whirlwind of stays in psychiatric hospitals, trips to Europe, and a stint learning art under the tutelage of her cousin in Boston where she continued her practice of sketching horses. Her family history left her with debilitating trauma, but she also came from a line of muses. Her father’s aunt and her namesake, Edith Minton, was painted by John Singer Sargent in 1897. This portrait, “Mr. and Mrs. I. N. Phelps Stokes,” (1897) is on view at the Metropolitan Museum in Gallery 771. Legend has it that the two met at Tennessee William’s birthday party in 1965 and were inseparable for the next year. The social and financial capital of Sedgwick’s family allowed her to model and act for Warhol without pay. Their relationship could be understood as symbiotic, at least for a time: Sedgwick gave Warhol the confidence to socialize and Warhol gave Sedgwick a chance to express herself. She died of an accidental drug overdose in 1971 at the age of 28.Installation view of ‘Edie 66’ at Ki Smith Gallery. Ki Smith GalleryThe curatorial choice to show Sedgwick through the lens of four different photographers in “Edie 66” allows the relationship between artist and subject to be examined. Warhol and Sedgwick’s relationship has been the topic of speculation for years, investigated through media like George Hickenlooper’s 2006 film, “Factory Girl,” starring Sienna Miller as Sedgwick, which depicts a semi-sympathetic display of her suffering. In “Edie Sedgwick contact sheet” (1966) Sedgwick conveys her ease as Mr. Schatzberg’s subject with a cigarette and a drink in hand.Messrs. Schatzberg, Malanga, and Ritchie offer context to the much-examined life of the artists, writers, and musicians who circled Warhol’s Factory on East 47th Street. Mr. Ritchie’s never-before-seen shots of the Velvet Underground feel less an expression of intimacy and more an insight into the excitement of proximity to fame. The blurry shots and awkward angles show an earnestness that Warhol’s detached method of directing lacks. This interdisciplinary exchange between musician and photographer is precious because it cannot be captured in a contemporary context without being derivative.‘At Café Bizarre, New York 3,’ by Adam Ritchie, depicting Edie Sedgwick with members of the Velvet Underground, 1965.It’s an odd thing, to be offered as the epicenter of a counterculture movement and as the inspiration for the title of an exhibition, but not be listed as one of the artists exhibiting work in the show. This feels representative of how the art world considers muses not as artists themselves but as replaceable objects. If Andy Warhol was able to produce and reproduce mundanity until it was understood as commentary on American consumerism, can this same logic be applied to the nature of his work with Sedgwick, absolving him of claims of exploitation?Capturing Sedgwick at the peak of her cultural influence is both an homage and a deceit. Warhol’s gossipy and intrusive tendencies are forgotten in this innocuous display. For the time it takes to wander the three rooms of the gallery, Edie Sedgwick is alive and well, the Factory is thriving, and the novelty of video technology is palpable.

Edie Sedgwick and Andy Warhol, Once More on the Factory Floor

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