Andy Warhol

Famed and prized among Andy Warhol aficionados, the Swedish Moderna Museet's massive catalogue for the artist's 1968 solo exhibition was one of the great accomplishments of art publishing. In The Photobook: A History, Vol. II, Martin Parr and Gerry Badger describe it as "a quintessential photobook, cornucopias of photographic imagery in which found photographs, snapshots, photographs by Warhol's associates, photographic reproductions of his 'paintings' (themselves silk-screened photographs) and other kinds of imagery are collaged to talk about one basic subject--the gargantuan ego and artistic talent of Andy Warhol... It is an exhibition catalogue that transcends any limitations that might be suggested by this genre." The text for the Moderna Museet catalogue is also significant: instead of essays, the editors let the artist speak for himself, in a series of quotations published in English and Swedish. Here, Warhol's most famous aphorism first saw print: "In the future everybody will be world famous for fifteen minutes." Most of the images in this book derive from a photo album donated by Warhol to the Moderna Museet that contains several hundred black-and-white photos from his life in the second half of the 1960s. Many were taken by the photographers Billy Name and Stephen Shore, who both got their first assignments through their photographs of artists, rock stars, models, actors and others in the circles around Warhol at the Factory. Other featured photographers in the book include Rudy Burckhardt, Eric Pollitzer and John D. Schiff. For Moderna Museet's fiftieth anniversary in 2008, and its exhibition Andy Warhol: Other Voices, Other Rooms (created in collaboration with the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam), Steidl adds to the celebrations by reprinting a new edition of this classic book.