Ethel Mertz Hated You Squares
February 26, 2009 in Warhol Marginalia
In 1976, Warhol was beset by personal and professional turmoil, feeling snubbed by the “real” art world and unlucky in love. Studio 54 was a year away, but his coke-fueled acolytes and investors were busy assembling a cheap exploitation flick on which to slap his name: Andy Warhol’s Bad. It’s intriguing to think of Lucy’s TV best friend starring in a movie where a crying baby is thrown out a high-floor Manhattan window, and it almost came to be. But Vivian Vance schooled them: Sick thrills don’t pay my bills.
Andrea “Wings” Feldman (aka Andrea Whips, Andrea April, Andrea Warhol) was a troubled young woman from a wealthy family, whose exuberant exhibitionism at first won her the attention and applause she craved. But her hunger for greater fame, volatile lashings-out, and personal demons exiled her from the golden circle. She decided she would show them all, and went out with the vengeance of a Fury.
The specter of death was a recurrent theme in Warhol’s art, either as subtext (Marilyn, Liz) or explicitly (Death & Disaster series). 
In which Your Faithful Baroness shares unusual anecdotes from the vast library of Warhol literature, with its sprawling cast of characters.
