Warhol’s Sleep on display at National Gallery
Image of former lover, poet John Giorno
There’s a new work by Andy Warhol at the National Gallery, and it’s not what you’d expect of the brightest star in the pop art universe.
Sleep is a serigraph from 1965, when Warhol was already producing the fabulously well-known celebrity portraits that today can sell for more than $100 million. The serigraph presents a side of Warhol’s work that may surprise most viewers.
While Warhol was producing his iconic images of superstars Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe and Elvis, he also produced the serigraph of John Giorno, the poet who was a “superstar” of the crowd at Warhol’s studio, the Factory. The image is taken from Warhol’s notorious film, also titled Sleep, a five-and-a-half-hour view of Giorno sleeping.
Sleep, the serigraph, differs in its intimacy from Warhol’s contemporaneous work. “Here Warhol shows real tenderness,” says gallery director Marc Mayer in a news release. “We’re afforded a glimpse of Warhol as we don’t often see him.”
The black-and-white serigraph shows Giorno’s face ringed with shadow, his eyes closed. Unlike Warhol’s better-known screenings, with super-celebs in poses inspired by mass marketing and paparazzi, Giorno is cast as a real person, and in a tender and vulnerable state. It seems a more personal statement by Warhol, an indication of his feelings for Giorno, his former lover.
Sleep was donated to the gallery by Toronto collectors Marla and Larry Wasser.
It’s being displayed alongside the movie of the same name. With its five hours-plus of a unrepentantly singular scene, it’s a challenge indeed to watch it in its entirety.
Perhaps the art Warhol intended to create with the movie is not to be found in watching it all, but in simply knowing the movie exists.
There’s another Giorno connection at the gallery.
The large sculpture just inside the group entrance is titled we run through a desert on burning FEET, all of us are glowing our faces look twisted.
It’s by New York City-based artist Ugo Rondinone. Giorno, who was in Ottawa recently to appear at a spoken-word poetry event, told the Citizen that Rondinone and he are partners.
Sleep is on display to May 1.