Long before “The Situation” and his kind entered the zeitgeist, Andy Warhol filmed his own reality show featuring his personal constellation of “Superstars”—artists, musicians, poets, actors, models, and sometimes just people hungry to be in the spotlight who ranged from being Warhol’s friends to mere acquaintances. In Andy Warhol: Motion Pictures, currently at the MoMA through March 21, 2011, these wannabes and never weres finally hit the big time in an exhibition that seems almost mundanely modern if it weren’t more than 40 years old. In looking at Warhol’s prescient reality programming, we see the roots of our current obsession with watching other people simply being themselves and with wanting to be watched ourselves. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Reality Show."
[Image: Andy Warhol. Screen Test: Baby Jane Holzer (1964). 16mm film (black and white, silent). 4 min. at 16fps. © 2010 The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, PA, a museum of Carnegie Institute. All rights reserved. Film still courtesy of The Andy Warhol Museum.]
[Many thanks to the MoMA for providing me with the image above and press materials for Andy Warhol: Motion Pictures, which runs through March 21, 2011.]
