I'll Be Your Mirror: The Selected Andy Warhol Interviews

by Kenneth Goldsmith

Book Overview

The Question-and-Answer interview was one of Andy Warhol's favorite communication vehicles, so much so that he named his own magazine after the form. Yet, never before has anyone published a collection of interviews that Warhol himself gave. I'll Be Your Mirror contains more then thirty conversations revealing this unique and important artist. Each piece presents a different facet of the Sphinx-like Warhol's ever-evolving personality. Writer Kenneth...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 078671364X
• ISBN13: 9780786713646
• Release Date: July 2004
• Publisher: Da Capo Press
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.3" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Theater ... or Andy revealed?

Wouldn't it be nice to be so important as to warrant almost 400 pages of being interviewed ... which, for Warhol, are only a selection. I wonder how many people have been interviewed as much? There's a wide variety of interviews here, from the monosyllabic to the raunchy to more or less conventional in form but intelligent in content(when discussing art with those who understand art well). What's missing with Warhol when interviewing is that need to explain onself in great detail that seems typical of most of us when given the chance. Somehow, despite our different backgrounds, when interviewed, we all sound the same: the pattern of the self given the chance to own the stage. Warhol often seems comfortable with responses of one simple sentence or less, which requires more interviewer participation and increases the tempo of the interviews. Warhol's sense of humor and desire for productivity (work, work, work) are apparent. No time to waste words. To make these interviews seem somewhat more concrete, look on the Web for the BBC audios of Warhol, several 1-3 minute segments that allow you to hear him. After reading these, I understand him perhaps a little more and he seems a great deal less remote and more likeable. I bought this along with "Andy Warhol 365 Takes" from the Warhol Museum staff: these two books complement each other well, this one focused more on the man and the other on his works. Despite his fame, he seems a greater artist than was at first apparent to me.