The essentials:
Exhibit:Andy Warhol: In His Wake
Artists: Ultra Violet, Taylor Mead, Billy Name, Ivy Nicholson, Anton Perich, Steve Joester, Amy Cohen Banker, Cynthia von Buhler, Pamela Martin, William Tisdale, Molly Weingart, and Gary Azon
Gallery: Carrozini von Buhler Gallery
Location: 407 West 13th Street, 2A, NYC
Hours: Tuesdays, Thursdays & Saturday from 2 PM – 6 PM.
Cost: Free
Opening reception: Thursday, February 22, from 6 – 10 PM
Exhibit closes: March 14, 2007

All done up in self-conscious eccentricity, The Carrozini von Buhler Gallery imagines itself as the Silver Factory for Andy Warhol: In His Wake. The show—and yes, it’s more than a stuffy retrospective; it’s an interactive carnival-ride of paintings, photography, projections, and sculptures—opens February 22, on the twentieth anniversary of Warhol’s death. Stepping into this gaudy time vortex, you will see the work of some of the Factory’s celebrities, Ultra Violet, Taylor Mead, Billy Name, and Ivy Nicholson. Additionally, two artists who documented Warhol and seven artists who have been influenced by Warhol pay homage to one of the most influential pop artists.

Back in the ’60s, Andy Warhol’s Silver Factory was more than just the studio where he created his famous silkscreens and films; it was a denizen of party-goers and luminaries. CVB Space pulls out all the stops to create the whimsical atmosphere of the Factory by suffocating support beams with tinfoil, floating silver pillows, spinning a disco ball, and having a red couch for guests to lounge on. CVB Space’s simultaneous commodification and iconization of Warhol’s Factory embodies the very essence of Warhol’s mass production of pop culture.

Likewise, the artists showcasing their work in Andy Warhol: In His Wake more or less duplicate the Pope of Pop’s visionary style. Cynthia von Buhler, who wore a silver strapless dress to the VIP preview and looked very Dita von Tesse with her black hair and pale skin, stole the show with her tongue-in-cheek work. If you crawl through a hole in the art space, you’ll discover her “Cynth-O-Matic,” a vending machine that celebrates celebrity and commerce by selling 100% Genuine menstrual blood, pubic hair, eyelashes, and nail clippings. Meanwhile, her “Sir Repetitious” features live rats that you, the viewer, can feed. The rats (which are her pets) crawl along pipes that figure as the spine in the transparent torso of what is a depiction of S&M author Gary Kadet. And yes, von Buhler depicted Warhol too, with the fortune-telling machine (like out of the movie Big) “The Great Warhola.”