13 Most Beautiful Songs for Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests

Overview

Andy Warhol is one of those paradoxical figures. While providing a wealth of worthwhile material to consider he simultaneously fertilized followers to produce an array of boring and derivative art. In this way Warhol is both a king and a curse for art history. And yet there is something appropriate about staging a concert around Warhol's infamous Screen Tests (filmed between 1964-1966), if only to admit the entertainment value of this artist's legacy.

Warhol's Screen Tests, which were originally silent four-minute films of celebrities and socialites (e.g. Lou Read, Denis Hopper, Edie Sedgwick), were a way of accessing the character of the subject through the image they presented to the camera. In this live performances Dean & Britta (originally from emotively-slow bands like Galaxie 500 and Luna) have written musical scores to accompany these moving portraits. It's difficult to predict if this addition avoids easy nostalgia and actually moves Warhol's films to a new space, but that of course is the risk of any return to the past.

Interested ears should go here.

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https://youtube.com/watch?v=EzOtZg_Zrow