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13 Most Beautiful...Songs for Andy Warhol's Screen Tests

Presented by Philadelphia Live Arts Festival and Philly Fringe at University of the Arts - Arts Bank

September 18, 2009

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Artists: Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips

"I've never met a person I couldn’t call a beauty . . . I always hear myself saying, She’s a beauty! or He’s a beauty! or What a beauty! But . . . if everybody’s not a beauty, then nobody is." —Andy Warhol quoted in The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: (From A to B and Back Again), 1975 Shot between 1964 and 1966, Andy Warhol’s nearly five hundred Screen Tests are revealing portraits of hundreds of individuals. The subjects—both famous and anonymous—were visitors to his studio, the Factory. They were asked to pose, lit with a strong key light, and filmed by Warhol with his stationary 16mm Bolex camera on silent, black-and-white, 100-foot rolls of film. Each screen test lasted only as long as the roll of film. The resulting 2¾ minute films were projected in slow motion so that each lasted four minutes. Songwriters Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips, formerly of Luna and currently with Dean & Britta, wrote soundtracks for thirteen of the Screen Tests, and created, along with The Andy Warhol Museum, a live multi-media presentation. Dean and Britta perform onstage with their band (Anthony Lamarca and Matt Sumrow), while the Warhol films are projected overhead. Dean & Britta’s songs provide a new context for experiencing Warhol’s films, and reveal new or previously hidden qualities in these engaging film portraits. 13 Most Beautiful . . . Songs for Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests was developed by Ben Harrison, associate curator for performance, with Geralyn Huxley, curator of film and video, and Greg Pierce, assistant curator of film and video of The Andy Warhol Museum. “I probably came to Warhol via the Velvet Underground, he has had a huge influence on the history of rock music. You could make a case that he was one of the first punks, in two ways. 1) He suggested that anyone could be an artist, and that an artist could try his hand at anything. 2) Punk rock celebrates the commonplace and the ugly, and elevates it, and I think Warhol did the same.” —Dean Wareham “[S]ound and image powerfully entwined.” —Ty Burr, Boston Globe 13 Most Beautiful . . . Songs for Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests is a project jointly commissioned by The Andy Warhol Museum and Pittsburgh Cultural Trust for the Pittsburgh International Festival of Firsts 2008. Executive Producers: Mark & Tobey Dichter