Terese Schulmeister: FLESH FLASH

16 June 2011 – 27 August 2011
Opening: 15 June 2011, 7 pm

Painting – Action Films.
Presentation of the publication ANDY’S CAKE – Stories of Andy Warhol’s Factory by Otto Muehl and Terese Schulmeister; drawings, letters, and relicts on the creation of the film.

The film ANDY’S CAKE – Stories of Andy Warhol’s Factory, which is now available in a DVD edition, presents a session of film scenes from Andy Warhol’s Factory, in which different artists of the Austrian and international art scene appear in strange episodes as Andy’s antagonists, such as, Maria Lassnig as Valery Solanas, who shoots at Andy, Oswald Oberhuber as Jackson Pollock who argues with Robert Rauschenberg (Peter Weibel), Edek Bartz as a singing Bob Dylan and Nam June Paik as a priest who gives the last sacrament to a dying Andy, before he knocks on the castle gate of Hermann Nitsch’s Prinzendorf, in order to go down in an orgy of blood and chaos.

I first had the idea for this film in 1990 because of Otto Muehl’s occupation with Andy Warhol and his Factory, for one thing, which in some ways resembled the Friedrichshof commune with their artistic productions; another reason was my curiosity and interest in the material and my passion for filming. From the time I first bought a video camera in 1983, I had shot a series of shorter and longer films according to ideas of Otto Muehl in the commune (Inferno, Vincent, Picasso, Back To Fucking Cambridge, Der Führer kommt, among others). Andy’s Cake was, however, shot first after the dissolution of the commune, with Theo Altenberg as Andy Warhol, and with befriended artists as the collaborating actors. The scene with Otto Muehl as Andy’s painting mother, Julia Warhola, was made on the day prior to his arrest in 1991; until then he had also worked on the filming. After that we briefly discussed the concepts.

The premiere took place in 1993 at the Vienna Secession with the attendance of many of the actors, who were honored and thanked with a sugar-glazed cake covered in snakes, “Andy’s Cake.” Prints of the letter design of the cake, the invitation cards, and poster by Otto Muehl are included in this edition as well as the film stills of some of the selected film images.

Text: Terese Schulmeister, 2011.