William John Kennedy’s 1964 photo of Andy Warhol holding up an acetate of Marilyn at his Silver Factory in Manhattan is featured in a new exhibition, WarholMania – now on display until November 12 at the intriguingly named Warhol Kennedy Residence at Savoy House on 190 Strand, in the heart of London’s West End.
“It is the first time the photographs of Billy Name and William John Kennedy have been shown together, though they photographed Warhol at the Factory between 1964 and 1970. The staging of WarholMania in this small, plush residential flat is disorienting at first – footsteps disappear into thick carpets, natural light is shut out with chintzy silver curtains and shiny silver balloons float ominously overhead – a nod to the silver foil that covered the Factory. It’s a delicious way to recreate the atmosphere conjured in the photographs, of a hard-to-access place where anything could happen.
Warhol needed photographers to cement his status as an icon. Yet as a subject, he gives little away. William John Kennedy was introduced to Warhol by the artist Robert Indiana. At their first shoot, which took place at the Factory in 1964, Kennedy wanted to shoot Warhol with his artworks. Warhol picked up an acetate silkscreen of Marilyn Monroe from a pile on the floor and held it up. As a metaphor it is striking and complex, Monroe’s blown-up, transparent face superimposed on Warhol’s figure. Still, there are too many versions of the same image – all only slightly different – spread around the flat.
Kennedy became friends with Warhol, but never went in for the drug-fuelled hedonism of the Factory. His photographs are tautly constructed and more formal than Name’s … Yet somehow, Kennedy too abandoned his negatives – they were shut away in a cupboard for more than 50 years, until Kennedy and his wife rediscovered them while relocating.”
– Charlotte Jansen, The Guardian
The Marilyn Report 