NEW YORK — In 1968 Andy Warhol placed an advertisement in The Village Voice: "I'll endorse with my name any of the following: clothing, AC-DC, cigarettes, small tapes, sound equipment, ROCK 'N' ROLL RECORDS, anything, film and film equipment, Food, Helium, Whips, MONEY!! love and kisses ANDY WARHOL. EL 5-9941."
Warhol was not being coy. He was firming up his position as a sociocultural commercial institution, an artist who churned out silk-screen prints with assembly-line efficiency, a magazine publisher, a television personality, a filmmaker, social gadabout and self-styled prophet, who saw the erosion of the line between art and commerce. He was intent on turning his name and mystique into a brand.
"Being good in business," he wrote in "The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again)," newly republished by Harcourt, is "the most fascinating kind of art."
But even the seer in Warhol could not have envisioned the degree to which he has become commercialized. In time for the holiday season, nearly 20 years after his death in February 1987, the marketing of Andy Warhol is in full flood. "We're seeing Warhol energy peeking out from everywhere," said Robert Lee Morris, the jewelry designer and a former member of the artist's circle, who has brought out a line of jewelry with Warhol motifs like the dollar sign and the Brillo logo.
Warhol's mercantile essence, both high and low, is distilled in carpets and coffee mugs, calendars and greeting cards, T-shirts, tote bags and a style of Levi's wax-coated jeans called Warhol Factory X, for $185. To judge by all the merchandise, Warhol is being positioned as the next Hello Kitty.
It is "the fulfillment of Andy's fantasy about business art" said Jeffrey Deitch, the art dealer and former Warhol associate. "I think he would have been amazed to see what has developed."
Warhol-inspired wares are being sold in the United States in stores like Macy's and Nordstrom, and in youth- oriented chains like Urban Outfitters and high-end fashion boutiques like Fred Segal in Los Angeles. This month Barneys New York will roll out a holiday marketing campaign around the artist, including shopping bags with Warhol-like doodles, four store windows and a limited edition of Campbell's soup cans.
Why Warhol, and why now? Those thrusting him back to the cultural and commercial forefront - if he ever left it - offer several explanations. "There is a longing for that era in Manhattan of self-invention and discovery, of cultural questioning," said Simon Doonan, the creative director of Barneys, who is orchestrating the store's many-pronged Warhol holiday marketing. "He is the primordial mulch from which all cool in Manhattan sprang."
Warhol, a graphic artist who first drew notice for his wispy illustrations of rose-color court shoes, is the inspiration for a proliferation of fashions and accessory lines. Besides the Levi's jeans, which are printed or embroidered with famous Warhol art images, they include shoes by Royal Elastic and a collection of plastic Day-Glo colored watches by Seiko.
"This is a huge deal for us," said Doonan, pointing to a series of Warhol store windows being mocked up for Barneys last week at a Manhattan studio. They depicted periods in the artist's life: his fashion illustrator years, the Factory period with his socialite muse Edie Sedgwick, and Warhol as social butterfly in the 1970s and '80s - "from Liza to Basquiat," as Doonan put it.
Barneys wares, licensed by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, include a denim trucker jacket with a Warhol portrait on the back ($275), a hooded sweatshirt with a banana print ($176) and limited edition Campbell's soup cans with reproductions of Warhol labels.
Joel Wachs, the president of the foundation, said revenues from some 40 licensees have quadrupled in the last five years, generating about $2.25 million in royalties in the current fiscal year. Proceeds go to the Warhol endowment, which supports the arts.
Tricked out in a silver wig and signature red-rim glasses, Warhol turned himself into a recognizable product, paving the way for other artist brands. Art world figures like Deitch point to the success of Damien Hirst, whose London restaurant Pharmacy reproduced hhttp://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/27/arts/27iht-warhol.3306022.htmlis well-known installation of the same name, and on a populist level to Thomas Kinkade, whose charm bracelets, candles, gaudy greeting cards and calendars are sought as collectibles.
But Warhol's chameleon personality may well make him the ideal candidate for branding. "Licensing is all about creating a perception and leveraging that," said Martin Brochstein, who writes The Licensing Letter, a trade publication. In Warhol's case, there is much to chose from. "Some people see a silver- haired guy, others the Campbell's soup can or Andy the bon vivant," Brochstein said. "If you play into enough of those facets, then there is a market."
source: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/27/arts/27iht-warhol.3306022.html