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Andy Warhol and the Factory: Selected Works

Andy Warhol’s film projects consciously deconstructed traditional notions of filmmaking and created a new genre of hyper-real cinema as they returned to the returned to the origins of the medium. These films were shot on black-and-white film stock, used simple fixed-frame compositions and little or no editing, and were projected at “silent speed,” which distended motion and increased to perceptibility the medium's signature flicker. His casts were drawn from the seemingly endless array of artists and assistants, socialites and hustlers, curators and collectors who nightly populated Warhol's infamous midtown studio, the Factory. Recapitulating film’s original fascination with observing everyday people and objects, his early films attempted to sustain audience interest by simply recording the most quotidian aspects of life—eating, sleeping, kissing. Although he soon introduced stories (enacted by his Superstars), the fascination in his films derives less from narrative innovation and more from the anxious negotiation of his performers as they stare back into Warhol's unblinking camera.

This series encompasses classic and rare films directed and produced by Warhol; as well as recent films made about Warhol, the Factory, and his Superstars.