Third Warhol Blog Post

The Andy Warhol Diaries mostly presents a public side of Warhol. Is this the way he wanted to be portrayed? He had control over what he wanted recorded in the diary entries and what he wanted to leave out? Do we as readers ever get a full idea about who Warhol is as a person? Or, is it rather that we get impressions, imprints, or glimpses of Warhol? Many times the diary entries involve Warhol's interactions with others, or his opinions on other people. Do we locate the autobiographical within the interactions of Warhol with other people? This is not Warhol's only autobiographical text, and I also have read parts of his book The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again). This book is written differently than his diaries. This book is similar to Barthes' autobiographical text. The difference is that Warhol often refers to himself as "I" unlike Barthes who tends to switch between "I" and "he" and so on. However, Warhol takes on different ideas - love, death, art, time, work, fame, beauty, etc - and elaborates on them. Warhol is good at sometimes revealing his true ideas and sometimes made-up ideas. How do we discern what Warhol really thinks? How do we discern the autobiographical in his texts? Is it possible to piece together the imprints of Warhol to get an idea about his true self? There are some moments when there is a rupture in his text or in an interview that shows a glimpse of Warhol. For instance, sometimes there are moments when his spiritual side shines through the more superficial public side. Is this Warhol? Can we see this in his art? Was his Last Supper Series the culmination of his spiritual side shining through? However, there is more to the autobiographical in this series than just revealing part of Warhol's spiritual side. He creates the series in a way that is unique to Warhol and by doing this, he signs the piece. As a viewer, we must discern where the signature is located in order to understand the imprints of Warhol's self.