Collaboration as Social Exchange: Screen Tests/A Diary by Gerard

Collaboration as Social Exchange: Screen Tests/A Diary by Gerard Malanga and Andy Warhol
Author(s): Reva Wolf
Reviewed work(s):
Source: Art Journal, Vol. 52, No. 4, Interactions between Artists and Writers (Winter, 1993),
pp. 59-66
Published by: College Art Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/777625 .
Accessed: 23/02/2012 13:06
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Collaboration
as
Social
Exchange
ScreenTests/ADiaryby GerardMalangaandAndyWarhol
RevaWolf
T
he friendsare foreverinvolvedin the 'familyphoto,"'
a line by the poet GerardMalanga,who was a close
associate of Andy Warholduringthe 1960s, alludes
to the dynamic connectionsthat exist between portraitsand
social interaction.Understoodin this broad sense, the line
would be a fitting epigraphto the book of 1967 in which it
appears,ScreenTests/ADiary, a collaborationby Warholand
Malanga that consists of a collection of stills from film
portraits,or "screen tests," each with a poem on the facing
page by Malanga(fig. 1). Inclusionin this compendium,like
being in the "familyphoto,"is a person'sdeclarationof social
affiliation.
The strata of processes involvedin the productionof
ScreenTests/ADiary were in themselvesstatementsof social
affiliation.These processes begin with Warholand his associates'filming of the screen tests, and include their selection
of the screen-test stills thatwouldfigure in the bookandeven
their acquisitionof legal rights to reproducethe images. In
this instance, collaborationoughtto be regardedas a series
of social interactions,in which publicand professionalaffairs
tend to be inseparable from personal and sexual relationships. And these social exchanges not only affect the outcome of the book, but also parallel its content.
By providinga sense of the social complexitiesinvolved
in this collaboration,we can begin to take a fresh lookat what
the roles of Warhol'sassociates were, and to consider how
misconceptionsaboutthe social elementof his workhaveled
to the omission of Screen Tests/ADiary and other, similar
projectsfromboth the literatureon Warholand studies of the
history of collaborationbetween poets and visual artists in
the twentiethcentury.'
The fifty-four stills of Screen Tests/ADiary-which
picture actors and poets, socialites and thieves, models,
consumers of amphetamine, painters, filmmakers, and
musicians2-are frame enlargementsfromshortblack-andwhite silent-film portraitsmade between 1964 and 1966 by
Warholwith the assistance of Malangaand/orBilly Linich,
also known as Billy Name, who lived at the Factory.3 Each
still consists of one or two entire frames from the film footage,
and part of either one or two additional frames. The idea
behind such cropping is to provide visual evidence that the
photographcomes from a moving image (bringingto mind
GertrudeStein's comparison of her literary "portraits"to
cinema, in which "one second was never the same as the
second before or after").4Conceptually,the moving-picture
portraits correspond nicely to the "diary" format of the
poems, as both are meant to signify records of particular
momentsin time.5
The design of Screen Tests/ADiary is apparentlyby
Warhol,6and in its original conception, the connectionbetween film and poetry was to have operatedcompositionally
as well as metaphorically.To underscorethe origin of the
images in film footage, they were to have been printed on
acetate, ratherthan on the semitransparentvellum-typepaperthat, as a compromise,was actuallyused; the poemswere
to have been positioned underneaththe sheets of acetate.7
This collagelike layout, in which Malanga'swords were to
appear across the faces of those to whomthey are written,
would have served as an apt visual metaphorfor Malanga's
tendencyto absorbothersinto his own identity,in his poems
as well as in life.
One of the most readily discernible ways this absorptionoccurs in Malanga'spoetryis in referencesnotonlyto the
ostensible subjects of his poems, but also to Benedetta
Barzini (fig. 2), with whomhe remainedobsessively in love
followinga brief relationshipthat ended shortlybeforemany
of the verses were composed in August 1966; ScreenTests/A
Diary is dedicatedto Barzini. FacingJohnAshbery'sportrait
(fig. 3), forexample, are the lines, "Butthe Italian / collectionsforFall are notable,"alludingto Barzini'sthen successful career as a fashionmodel.
But the first line of this same poem-"What had you
been thinking about"-does concernAshbery;it is the first
line of Ashbery'sown poem "TheTennisCourtOath."8This
brings us to a second, rathercurious device employedby
Malangain his literaryabsorptionof others:appropriation.
Such self-conscious copying has multiple significations in
Malanga'sverses: it is a verbal parallel to Warhol'swellknowntechnique of appropriatingexisting visual imagery;it
is a wayto flatterthe poet being copied-which, in the case
of Ashbery, operates dually, since Ashbery himself relied
This flattery,in turn, is a meansof
heavilyon appropriation.9
ART JOURNAL
59
Isthefirstmovementof
thewill
toward
asecret
power
keeping
an effectof grace
or simplyafree, autonomoushumanact
and
there
whyis
analogy
betweentwo typesof being
whenwedonotknow
complex
whatthemeaning
of ourlanguage
is?
Whataretherelationships
between
theswapped
destinies?
Whatlightdoes
theuseof thediarytextrevealsthecrucial
ideas,
andthelossof heavenin lifeisauthentic.
Therainbecomes
rainagain.
Thefriends
areforever
involvedin the"family
photo."
8/28/66
60
29
ScreenTests/ADiary,No. 29 (NewYork:KulchurPress,1967191516x 7V4inches(page).
FIG. 1 GerardMalangaandAndyWarhol,"BillyLinich,"
seeking the approvalof a literary model, and throughapproval,of getting workpublished.10
Such appropriation
is also a formof theft, or of denying
another'sprivacy.To take anotherexample, the line "Today
notmuchhappened,"whichis foundin six of the poems, was,
accordingto Malanga'srecollection, copied froman entryin
the diary of a formergirlfriend, Debbie Caen, who also
figures in ScreenTests/ADiary (wherethe routinetheftsof the
amphetaminecultureto whichshe belongedare alludedto by
the poet-"the illegal / transactions,the hot/ bicycles stored
in the hall").Appropriation
here, aside fromposing problems
of aesthetic judgment, signifies an unstable social environment, in that it implies a lack of trust, and an unstable
artistic identity, in that it suggests a struggle in finding a
"voice"of one's own.
A blatant and constant stream of self-referenceruns
throughthe poems, announcedimmediatelyby the coverof
ScreenTests/ADiary (fig. 4). The frontcoverconsists of a still
froma colorscreen test of Malanga.Here, throughthe poet's
rathercocky gaze, his vanityis made to speak foritself. The
same image is found on the back cover, but printed in
FIG. 2 BillyName,BenedettaBarzini
posing fora portraitfilmat the Factory,
1966, photograph,14 x 912 inches.
WINTER
1993
What hadyou been thinkingabout
the boy wrotein his diary
notebookfor no one to read.
You misunderstoodhow itrisnot
possibleto breatheunder
water.I worry,sometimes.
But the Italian
collectionsfor Fall arenotable
for some of the newestcoatsin Europe
you missed
and I thoughtit was not Spring
to decidethe sharp
edge of the cloudburstcoming
over the hill. Somehowyourfearsare
justifiedin the detailsturnedinside
out of the dreamof the friends
who will notrstay
behindthe wind blowingacrossyourface.
8222166
61
2
Press,1967),915A6x 7V4inches(page).
FIG. 3 GerardMalangaandAndyWarhol,"JohnAshbery,"ScreenTests/ADiary,No. 2 (NewYork:Kulchur
negative. Warholfrequentlyused the photographicnegative
iconographically,as a symbol of death, fromthe mid-1970s
on, in variantsof the traditionalvanitas themethat seems to
havealreadybeen in his mindhere.11Itcertainlyis a suitable
motif for the back cover-or the close of the book, which
might be understoodas the end of the author'stemporal
existence. Similarly, the white dots that traverse part of
Malanga'sface on both frontand back coverscan be viewed
as markersof time, forthese dotswerecreatedby the perforations at eitherthe beginning or end of a standardreel of film
(and were a routine aesthetic and conceptual feature of
Warhol'searly films, beginning in 1963).
While some individuals, such as Malanga, tend to
advertisetheir vanity, and othersto downplayor to disguise
it, vanityis fairlyuniversal(howevermuchwe maynotwantto
admit it). This is why flatteryis often an effective tool in so
manyareas of humannegotiation.The very act of producing
screen tests, as well as their subsequentinclusion in Screen
Tests/ADiary, was, like Malanga'suse of appropriationin
some of the poems in this book, a form of flattery,on the
giving end, and vanity,on the receiving end (twocomponents
of portraiturethat the essayist William Hazlitt, for one, had
already acknowledgedin the early nineteenth century).12
This flattery-vanitydialogueis apparentin the descriptionby
the artcritic RobertPincus-Wittenof his experienceof sitting
for his screen test: "I remember,GerryMalangaand Andy
were there, and Andy would say things like, 'Isn'tthis wonderful!Isn'the terrific!He's doingit!'As if one is really doing
somethingwonderfulby simplyremainingstatic and unmoving before the lens, but the hype was very, very exciting."'3
The powerof flattery largely explains why Warholand his
associates succeeded in getting severalhundredindividuals
to sit for screen-test films.
A person'swillingness to sit fora screen test is a formof
vanity, but is also part of the collaborativeprocess that
determinedthe contentof ScreenTests/ADiary. Indeed, it is a
commonplacein the literature on portraitureto term the
makingof a portraita collaboration,the result of an interaction between painteror photographer
and sitter.14
In certain portraitsincluded in Malangaand Warhol's
book, sitterstookfull advantageof theirend of the job. At the
Factory,they were instructed to have a seat, usually in a
cubiclelike area set up expressly for the purpose of making
screen tests. The camerarested on a tripod, one ortwolights
were temporarilyinstalled, and at times a white or black
backdropwas added (seefig. 2). Warholgenerallyframedthe
compositionof the head shot. Most often, sitters were instructedto gaze, withoutmoving,directlyat the cameralens,
ART JOURNAL
.....
...
'
...............................................
FIG. 4 GerardMalangaand AndyWarhol,
..........i
62
4ii~iiiiiii
li~
.............
although examples also exist of profile and three-quarter
views (seefig. 1). Warhol,on his side of the collaboration,
often aimed for particulareffects.15
Sittersrespondedto Warhol'sstandardscreen-test setin
various ways. SalvadorDali confrontedthe camera
up
ratheraggressively;he openedhis eyes as wide as possible (it
seems), in an affirmationof his public image of being outrageous (fig. 5). Malanga, on the other hand, gazed at the
cameraas if to seduce it (and us), playingout his role as sex
object (of both womenand men).
Vanitymight lead one to sit fora portraitfilm, and the
nomenclature"screen test" might conjure up nothingmore
than the superficiality of appearances.'16 Nonetheless, the
intensityof gaze thatoftenresultedfromWarhol'sinstruction
to sitters to stare directly into the camera lens had the
capacity to communicatemore meaningful associations in
the minds of sympatheticviewersof projectedscreen tests.
In a 1966 study, cultural critic John Gruendescribed the
screen-testfilm as "anintense studyin involuntarycharacter
revelation."Amplifying on this impression, he observed:
frontandbackcovers,ScreenTests/ADiary
ii•
(New York:KulchurPress, 1967), each 915/16
x 7/ inches.
Beautiful Womenseries-remarked, regarding the screen
test of dancer FreddyHerko,who had committedsuicide in
1964: "thefootagebecame excruciatinglymovingas I uncontrollablyinvested Herko'sgloweringexpressionwith meanings broughtfromoutside the film."18
Outsideassociationsare also a characteristicfeatureof
the verses Malangacomposed to accompanythe screen-test
stills. In some cases, these associationsare highly personal
(such as his referencesto Barzini);in othercases, they are
artistic;and in still others,both-as in the versethatattends
the extraordinaryvisage of experimentalfilmmakerMarie
Menken(fig. 6), whichalludes to herroleas his mother,a part
she playedin Warhol's1966 film, TheChelseaGirls,and as a
surrogate, at times, in life.'19
On anotherlevel, the presence of Menkenin Screen
Tests/ADiary, along with her husband, poet Willard Maas,
and filmmakerJonas Mekas (the foremostsupporterof Warhol's early films), is a means of paying homage to three
individualswhose ideas aboutfilm-notably the film "diary"
and "notebook,"20
and the "filmpoem,"21 a virtualsynonym
for experimentalfilm during the 1950s and early 1960sThe mostprobing aspect of Warhol'snearly immobilefacial
were key sources forScreen Tests/ADiary, and for Malanga
studiesis the acutelypersonaldiscomfortfelt by the spectator
and Warhol'sworkoverall. These sources are tightly linked
as he realizes,perhapsfor thefirst time, the natureof his own
to social, and sometimessexual, relationships.Forinstance,
habitual visual censorship.It is suddenlytoo shockingtoface
Maas had been Malanga's poetry instructor (and lover,
theface, and the spectatorbecomesas involuntarilyvulnerable
briefly)at WagnerCollegepriorto his introductionto Warhol
as the giant visage on the screen.17
in late spring 1963.22 (Such connectionsoften translateinto
Gruenhad every reason to be struck by the "visual censor- "sources"throughoutthe historyof art.)
The verytitle, ScreenTests/ADiary, signals the confluship" to which he referred, since the face of his wife, the
painterJane Wilson, was amongthe fourteenscreen tests he ence of public image and interpersonalrelationscontained
within the book:"screentest"denotesa public image, while
viewed, in a series put together by Warholin 1964-65,
entitled The ThirteenMostBeautiful Women(the miscountof "diary"suggests privatemusings. Whatwe have (in addition
portraitshas its own significations).Such personalassocia- to Malanga'sromanticfree associations) is a microcosm,
tions affected a person'sunderstandingof the films, and also composed of intersecting New York social worlds, of the
of the stills in the Screen Testsbook. As one viewerof The desire, pervasivein society at large, to glimpse at both the
ThirteenMostBeautifulBoys-the male pendantto the Most outerappearancesand the privatelives of celebrities.
WINTER1993
Theyoungboywakesupone morning.
Thehotday evaporates
inthelightsourcedescending
from
heaven.
Theremaybeatreein thedesert,
in the universethatwouldnot havebeen
possibletoburninthedream
Thisis nonight
makingnmusic.
mareno afterthought
canhide
histrackssin
thesnow
bankandthechildrenno longerremain
children,notreven
pretendingto forget
whotheyare whilehe dreams.
The adultsarenohelp forhisheart.
Evenin summerdaylightsaving
timeisaccurate
andtherainfalling
falls.
8/22/66
11
FIG. 5 GerardMalangaandAndyWarhol,"Salvador
Dali,"ScreenTests/ADiary,No. 11(NewYork:KulchurPress,
1967) 91a16x 7%inches(pagel
Mymother'sson
belongsto someonein the beginning,
beforeshe bandagedhisaknee
bruisedid
as thoughethe
nothealin thesamewayatdifferenttimes,
it is not toolatetowrite
Still
growingup.
in thediary
theseoccurrences
notebook,
providedthatrwecould
livein the sunlightall yearwithoutrcatching
a cold,wishingto go far
awayfromthe troublesthatsometimespresshiminto
service,projectshe is completely
outof thisworldfor, free
forthe stimulation
the livescomingin contact,
witheachotherthedayafteretomorrow.
8/25/66
!!i~~iiiiiir
33
FaG.
6 GerardMalangaandAndyWarhol,"MarieMenken,"ScreenTests/ADiary,No. 33 (NewYork:KulchurPress,19671 9156 x 7/4 inches(pagel
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etYtREBGrsE
IItIttt
R
7 AllenGinsberg(upperright)as featuredin ClevelandAmory,Earl
Blackwell,and MarianProbst,eds., CelebrityRegister:An Irreverent
of AmericanQuotableNotables(NewYork:Harperand Row,
Compendium
1963),240, 105/s x 8 inches(page),
FIG.
Portraits and texts are brought together in Screen Tests/
A Diary in wayssimilarto severalpopularpublications,such
as a fascinating"who'swho"of the famous,entitledCelebrity
Register(first issued in 1959), which also combines head
shotswithbiographicalsketches thatoftenofferbits of gossip
about celebrities.23 The 1963 edition of CelebrityRegister
includesamongits over2,800 namesthe poet Allen Ginsberg
(fig. 7), who appears in Malangaand Warhol'sbook as well
(fig. 8) (andwho, in his strongrelationshipwiththe mediaalongwith that of his Beat colleague Jack Kerouac-was an
important immediate forebear of Warhol).24 Ginsberg's
screen test was also featuredin the WarholfilmFifty Fantastics andFifty Personalities(1964-65), the title of whichis, of
course, whollyin the spirit (andpartlya parody)of compilations such as CelebrityRegister (itself somewhatparodic in
tone).25
As collections of people, Fifty Fantasticsand the two
Most Beautiful films are important precursors to Screen Tests/
A Diary. The potential psychological impact of scale and
duration(aroundfourminutesperportrait)of the screentests,
when projected, was undoubtedly somewhat diminished
when the images were transformedinto still photographsfor
the book. Whatwe gain, in exchange,is a considerablymore
accessible, tangible collection of faces.
WINTER1993
Just as this collection creates a kind of social world
(revolving around Gerard Malanga), the act of producing
screen tests was often a formof bringingpeople together,or
even of seducing them, and provideda ready-madefocus of
activity for visitors to the Factory. According to Warhol,
sometimes these events, when the sitter was chosen by
Malanga,were inseparablefromthe poet's romanticliterary
pursuits:
He wouldsee a girl in a magazine or at a party and really
make a point of finding out who she was-he'd turn these
interestsinto sort of poetic "quests." Then he'dwritepoems
about the girls and tell themall they'dget a screentest when
they came by.26
A direct link between these "poetic quests" and the book
Screen Tests/ADiary was a performancepiece of around
1965, entitled Screen TestPoems, in which Malangaread
verses to screen tests of womenwhile they were projectedon
three screens (andthe lack of distinctionbetweenimage and
reality implied by such an arrangementhas parallels in
poems in the book).27 Malanga'sperformancewas, in turn,
very probablyderived from events such as an early 1965
partyat the homeof Sally Kirkland(thenthe fashioneditorof
Life magazine), where The ThirteenMost Beautiful Women
(one of which pictured Kirkland'sdaughter,Sally Kirkland,
the actress) were projectedsimultaneouslyon three walls.28
(Theviewing of screen tests, like their production,was often
enougha social event.)
An additional, but less obvious, social exchangethat
shouldbe regardedas partof the ScreenTests/ADiary collaborationoccurredin the legal sphere. In orderfora portraitto
be includedin this compendiumof faces, the personpictured
had to sign a photograph-releaseform. Failure to secure a
signaturemeantrevising the book, and a few revisionswere
made.29 In one instance, Malanga had hoped to put Bob
Dylan'sportraitin Screen Tests/ADiary, but was unable to
procure the necessary signature from Dylan's manager,30
probablyon accountof the antagonisticrelationsthatexisted
between Dylan and Warhol(which became part of each
artist'spublic identity).
Although the selection process, when it was not impeded by such hostility regarding image ownership, seems to
have been Malanga's domain, Warhol was not entirely aloof to
his assistant's choices. He apparently asked Malanga to
include a few specific images in Screen Tests/ADiary-those
of Warhol's friend, the art critic, curator, and early supporter
We arekept cold, sometimes,
while advicelasts
in the miraculousreflectionof so much that is
to come in our lives.
The friendshad not expectedthat
theheadlightsawouldbe like
this to discoverthe road
markingsnot to crosson the sharp
turns,and dreamsmight occurinto something
for life, the feardismantled
to be the deceptionwhichsurroundsus
for thewhite rose
growing restlesslyas the sun
light reappearsafternight
fall, exalting the impossibilityof the peace
formulain our time we mayneverachieve.
8/26/66
65
19
FIG.
8 GerardMalangaandAndyWarhol,"AllenGinsberg,"ScreenTests/ADiary,No. 19 (NewYork:KulchurPress,19671 91V56 x
7,
inches(pagel
of Pop art, Henry Geldzahler,and Warhol"superstar"Ultra
Violet. But Malangaomittedboth Geldzahlerand UltraViolet from the volume. He later explained:
langa has claimed that this omissionwas inadvertent.33Yet
Warholdoes figure in the manuscriptof the book.34 Who
decided to exclude him from the final productremains unclear, but this seems likely to be anothercase in which
I had to be inspiredby thepeopleI was writingpoems about.
artistic choice can be equated with social discord.
S. . So I wasrit inspiredto write a poem to Ultra, I wasrdt
Malanga'srepeatedallusions, in his verses, to conflict
inspiredto write a poem to HenryGeldzahler.Henrywas very
friends, especially in his recurring reference to
among
insultedthat he was not included.He thoughtjust becauseof
"swappeddestinies" (seefig. 1), is an anxiouscharacterizahis associationwithAndy,and thatAndyand l werecoauthors
tion of his social world, in which the sense of affiliation
of the book,that he was going to be included.But I'm the one
about by being in the "familyphoto"means, on the
that'swriting the poems, and if I'm not inspiredto write a brought
side, conflict, jealousies, competitiverelationships
negative
poemaboutHenry,thenHenry'snotgoing to bein thebook....
as with Billy Name, to whomMalangawrites, "andwhy
(such
Otherthan maybeUltraand Henrybeing suggestedbyAndy,
is there analogy / between two types of being") and finally,
Andy really didrn't
suggest anyoneelse.31
perpetualinstability. It is as if Malangawas attemptingthe
The divisiveness that contributeddirectly to the contentof impossible task of taking controlof his unstablesocial enviScreen Tests/ADiary emanatedlargely from Malanga'srela- ronmentby articulatingit.
The fact that Screen Tests/ADiary is largely about
tionshipwith Warhol,which was in fact markedby conflict
throughoutmuch of 1966. The tensions between them are Malanga'sresponses to this environment,and is by both
alluded to, obliquely, in a few of the poems, as in the Malangaand Warhol(in additionto the individualswho sat
concludinglines of the verse that accompaniesthe poet Ted for their screen tests), partly explains its omission from
Berrigan'sportrait:"I am temptedmost notto returnhome/or studies of Warhol'sart.35 True, anothercollaborativebook
to hate anothernature. But I don't.I do."32
Warholproducedaroundthe same time does figure in some
Such hostile feelings may explain the conspicuous overviewsof the artist'swork-namely, a: a novel(published
omission of Warholhimself fromScreen Tests/ADiary. Ma- in 1968), which is based on tape-recordedconversationpriART JOURNAL
marily with Robert Olivo, also known as "Ondine";but a,
unlike Screen Tests/ADiary, was initiated by Warhol,and
Warhol,
only his name appearson the title page, as "author."
of course, verymuchenjoyedplayingsuch authorshipgames.
Yet we still have much to learn about the openly human,
unidealized nature of his and his associates' activities as
collaborators,as well as aboutthe light these activitiesmight
cast on the dynamic connections between art and social
interactionthat exist throughouthistory.
66
Notes
I developedsome of the ideas in this article while I was an AndrewW. MellonFaculty
Fellowat HarvardUniversityin 1990-91, and I am gratefulforthe supportI received
from several members of this institution. For their generous assistance with my
research, I would also like to thank Callie Angell, Bill Berkson, Vincent Fremont,
Heloise Goodman, Lita Hornick, Tim Hunt, TerryIrwin, MargeryKing, Gerard
Malanga, Billy Name, Ron Padgett, Faith Ward, Richard Wendorf,and Matthew
Wrbican.
1. Poets and Painters, exh. cat. (Denver: Denver Art Museum, 1979); and David
Shapiro,"Artas Collaboration:Towarda Theoryof PluralistAesthetics, 1950-1980,"
in CynthiaJaffee McCabe,ArtisticCollaborationin the TwentiethCentury,exh. cat.
(Washington,D.C.: SmithsonianInstitutionPress, 1984), 45-62. But see RobertC.
Hobbs, "RewritingHistory: Artistic Collaborationsince 1960," in ibid., 71, for a
considerationof Warhol'scentral role in the recent history of collaborationmore
generally.
2. The alphabetical arrangementby name and the focus on portraiturein ScreenTests/
A Diary are foreshadowedin A Is an Alphabet(1953), with texts by Ralph (Corkie)
Ward,one of the collaborativebooks that Warholproducedwhile pursuing a career
during the 1950s primarilyin commercial art.
3. See StephenKoch, Stargazer:The Life, Worldand Films ofAndy Warhol,3rd ed.,
rev. (New York:MarionBoyarsPublishers, 1991), 45; but fora differentaccount, see
ibid., 9-11. Each screen test was filmed using a 100-foot reel of 16-mm film, and
filmed at 24 frames per second but projectedat 16 framespersecond;the durationof a
projected screen test is aroundfour minutes, ten seconds.
4. "Portraitsand Repetition," in Lectures in America (New York:RandomHouse,
1935), 187; see also ibid., 176-77, 179, 198. On the relationshipof silkscreen
portraitsby Warholto Stein's work, see WendySteiner, Pictures of Romance:Form
against Contextin Painting and Literature(Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press,
1988), 176-78.
5. On this often-noted facet of the diary genre, see esp. Felicity A. Nussbaum,
"Towards
ConceptualizingDiary,"in JamesOlney,ed., StudiesinAutobiography(New
York:OxfordUniversityPress, 1988), 128-40.
6. LitaHornick, The GreenFuse:A Memoir(NewYork:GiornoPoetrySystems, 1989),
42; Hornickwas the publisherof Screen Tests/ADiary.
7. GerardMalanga, telephoneinterviewwith the author,July 25, 1990, tape recording; Malangarecalled that HarryGantt, who is listed on the copyrightpage of Screen
Tests/ADiary as the printerof the book, was unable to find someonewho could printon
acetate and thus selected the substitute semitransparentpaper.
8. The TennisCourtOath (Middletown,Conn.: WesleyanUniversityPress, 1962), 11.
9. Malanga'sappropriationsof Ashberyand otherpoets were inspired aboveall by his
friend, the poet Ted Berrigan, who, for example, in "PersonalPoem #7," recorded
(amusingly)that he "Madelists of lines to/steal" after reading Ashbery's"HowMuch
LongerWill I Be Able to Inhabitthe Divine Sepulcher";see Berrigan,Many Happy
Returns(New York:CorinthBooks, 1969), 7.
10. In fact, Malanga's "The Rubber Heart: A One-Act Soap Opera," a largely
appropriatedwork, was published in a journal co-edited by Ashbery; Art and
Literature9 (Summer1966): 172-91.
11. On Warhol'suse of the vanitas motif, see TrevorFairbrother,"Skulls," in Gary
Garrels, ed., The Workof Andy Warhol(Seattle: Bay Press, 1989), 93-114.
12. William Hazlitt, "OnSittingforOne's Picture," ThePlain Speaker(1826), in P P
Howe, ed., CompleteWorks(London:Dent, 1931), 12:107-8.
and
13. Interviewby PatrickS. Smith, November15,1978, in idem, AndyWarhol'sArt
Films (Ann Arbor:UMI Research Press, 1986), 457.
14. See, for example, the exceptional essay by Harold Rosenberg, "Portraits:A
Meditationon Likeness," in RichardAvedon:Portraits(New York:Farrar,Strausand
Giroux, 1976), n. p.
15. An interviewwith Warholof March3, 1965, duringwhich he filmed a screen test
of Ted Berrigan, includes a fascinating record of how he orchestratedsuch filmings;
see David Ehrenstein, "An Interviewwith Andy Warhol,"Film Culture40 (Spring
1966): 41.
16. For an exposition of this viewpoint, see Yann Beauvais, "Fixerdes images en
mouvement,"in Andy Warhol,Cinema (Paris: Editions CarrY,1990), 102.
17. The New Bohemia: The CombineGeneration(New York:Shorecrest, 1966), 94.
18. James Stoller, "BeyondCinema: Notes on Some Films by Andy Warhol,"Film
WINTER 1993
Quarterly 20 (Fall 1966): 38. The individuals who figure in The Thirteen Most
Beautiful Women(in one version;there may have been others)are listed in Priscilla
Tucker,"13 MostBeautiful ... ,"New YorkHeraldTribune,late city ed., January10,
1965, 2:3. The makeup of The Thirteen Most Beautiful Boys remains to be
determined.
19. See Andy Warholand PatHackett,POPism: The Warhol'60s (NewYork:Harcourt
Brace Jovanovich,1980), 26.
20. On Menken'sfilm, Notebook(1962-63), see SheldonRenan, An Introductionto
the American UndergroundFilm (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1967), 171. Several
discussions of Mekas'sfilm diaries are found in David E. James, ed., ToFree the
Cinema: Jonas Mekas and the New YorkUnderground(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
UniversityPress, 1992). ForWarhol'sassessments of his associations with Menken,
Mekas, and Maas, see Warholand Hackett, POPism, 25-26, 47-50.
21. An excellent study of the "film poem" is found in David E. James, Allegoriesof
Cinema:AmericanFilm in the Sixties (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton UniversityPress,
1988), 29-32.
22. Malanga, telephoneinterviewby the author,August 27, 1990, tape recording.
23. The lineage of CelebrityRegister,as well as of ScreenTests/ADiary, can be traced
to collections of texts accompanied by engravedportraitsand, beginning in the midnineteenth century, photographs of "celebrities," such as Charles Perrault's
Les Hommes illustres (1696) and the Galerie contemporaine,litt6raire, artistique
(1876-84).
24. The extensive media coverageof the Beats was a subject of commentaryby the late
1950s; see, forexample, PaulO'Neil, "TheOnly RebellionAround,"Life47 (November 30, 1959), in ThomasParkinson,ed., A Casebookon the Beat (NewYork:Thomas
Y. Crowell, 1961), 234.
25. The number of screen tests in Fifty Fantastics and Fifty Personalities, which
possibly existed in more than one variation, remains to be determined.
26. Warholand Hackett, POPism, 151.
27. Screen Test Poems is described in Gregg Barrios, "Introductionto Gerard
Malanga,Poet and Filmmaker,"typewrittenms. (1967), 3, Archives Malanga,Great
Barrington,Mass.
28. This screening is described in Priscilla Tucker,"13MostBeautiful ... ,"3. Such
multiple projections foreshadow the more familiar audiovisual presentations of
Warhol'srock band, the Velvet Underground.
29. Michel Foucault, in his influential discussions of the "author-function,"
urged
readers to examine not only the content and aesthetic innovationsof texts, but also
their circulation within society, particularly the legal aspects of circulation; such
legal concerns might be extended to include the collaborative process considered
here. Foucault makes his case in, for example, "What Is an Author?"in Josu, V.
Harari, ed., intro., and trans., TextualStrategies:Perspectivesin Post-Structuralist
Criticism(Ithaca, N.Y.: CornellUniversity Press, 1979), 141-60. Warholhad specified in a contractualletterto KulchurPress of January10, 1967, thatthe screen-test
stills werehis property,and that, while the publisherwas permittedto copyrightthem,
future rights to the pictures were to revertto Warhol;KulchurPress Papers, Rare
Book and ManuscriptLibrary,ColumbiaUniversity, New York.
30. Malanga, interviewby the author, New York,August 15, 1989, tape recording.
Malanga's testimony is corroboratedby the appearance of Dylan's name on the
contents page of the manuscriptof Screen Tests/ADiary; KulchurPress Papers. See
also, on Malanga'sdifficulties in obtaining a few signatures, his note of September
An
24, 1966, in "FromTheSecretDiaries," in Anne Waldman,ed., Outof This World:
Anthologyof the St. MarksPoetry Project, 1966-1991 (New York:CrownPublishers,
1991), 288.
31. Malanga, interviewby the author, New York, August 15, 1989, tape recording.
32. Malangahas indicated thatthese lines referto Warhol;telephoneinterviewby the
author,July 25, 1990, tape recording. On the conflicts amongMalanga,Warhol,and
Geldzahlerduring1966, see Victor Bockris, TheLifeand Death ofAndy Warhol(New
York:Bantam Books, 1989), 198-99; and Warholand Hackett, POPism, 193-96.
33. Malanga, telephoneinterviewby the author,July 25, 1990, tape recording.
34. Warhol'sname appears on both the contents page and on a page marked
"Andy/44,"indicating that a poem to Warholand his screen test were to have been
numberforty-fourin the book; KulchurPress Papers.
35. Dan Cameronhas dismissed altogetherthe study of Warhol'scollaborations,on
the assumptionthat these were a formof exploitationinvolvingunequal partners, in
"AgainstCollaboration,"
Arts Magazine 58 (March1984): 83. However,if exploitation
existed, it was usually on both sides, while the blanket dismissal of Warhol'smany
collaboratorsis, in my view, a misunderstandingof his work(which might be called
"workas social
serving to perpetuate the neglect of
such as
exchange"),
Screen Tests/ADiary.
The routine omission of collaborationsfromprojects
majorstudies
of
individualartists orwritersis cogentlydiscussed in ThomasJensenHines, Collaborative Form:Studies in Relationsof the Arts (Kent, Ohio: KentState UniversityPress,
1991), 11-12.
REVA WOLF,assistant professorof fine arts at Boston
College, is currently writing a book on Warhol'sassociations
with poets in the 1960s for Universityof Chicago Press.