Andy Warhol: The execution of a dream

Associated media

Darrelyn Gunzburg finds that all is perhaps not as it seems at ‘Os Mistérios Da Arte: Andy Warhol and Pietro Psaier’

‘…a shaman of modern times who did nothing more than to rearrange the essence of reality, the truth of the reality of the historical moment that lived in his works… Before anyone else, Warhol noticed the importance of examining the present in progress.’

(Maurizio Vanni, curator of Os Mistérios Da Arte: Andy Warhol and Pietro Psaier)

Long before Ram Dass published his seminal work on spirituality, yoga and mediation in 1971, Remember, Be Here Now, the title of which became an iconic phrase of the Seventies New Age movement, at the end of the 1950s Warhol was already fascinated by the plethora of images that cascaded across society through the mass media. He saw connections between the world and the icons and messages that threaded that world together and he sought the language that would make sense of that emerging present. Through his work he endeavoured to capture time and its everyday-ness through the objects that society used. As a result he reproduced objects that would be instantly recognized by anyone on the High Street.

This collection emphasizes why it is important to see works of art directly rather than as reproductions in a book, no matter how fine. The images are silkscreened onto handmade paper and the leaves and twigs used to create the paper help create the design. Such an embellished background is not apparent in the photographed catalogue and the portraits — ranging from singers Prince (Double Prince), the Beatles (Beatles), John Lennon (War is Over) and Jimi Hendrix (Jimi Hendrix) to professional boxer Muhammed Ali (DeluxeAli) — gain a multi-layered multifaceted complexity.

Paradoxically and poignantly we become aware of the passing of time and the texture of lives. Underlying this theme of the fragility of life and dominating this exhibition is an electric chair, said to be the electric chair used by Warhol for his paintings and which, we are told, he rented from Psaier in 1965 and which was only returned to Psaier after Warhol’s death.

Between 2003 and 2007 this exhibition appeared in numerous art galleries in Spain, including ‘The Factory: Andy Warhol & Pietro Psaier’ at the Verbum Museum in Vigo, Spain from 3 May to 29 July 2007 and ithas now crossed the border into Portugal. It raises a question: who was ‘Peitro Psaier’? The chairman of the Board of Directors of the Eugénio de Almeida notes in the catalogue that Psaier is ‘an Italian artist whom Warhol met in 1960s and who became his friend’.

Psaier’s brief biography in the catalogue states that he was employed by Warhol between 1964 and 1967 and exhibited work with Warhol in 1978 in Brussels. An Internet press release dated February 2008 from John Nicholson Auctioneersstates that ‘Whilst working as a waiter in the Greenwich Village Gaslight Café in 1964, Pietro Psaier met Andy Warhol and an extraordinary bisexual [sic] relationship blossomed.’

Yet according to Gary Comenas on Warholstars.org, Pietro Psaier does not feature in any books about Warhol or his art and although said to be born ‘in a small town outside Rome in 1936’ no birth certificate for him has ever been sighted. Wikipedia has removed Psaier's biography from its site, and representatives of the Andy Warhol Foundation and the archivist for The Warhol museum, Matt Wrbican,have denied Psaier’s existence.

Furthermore, in email correspondence with me, Comenas confirmed that Andy Warhol never owned an electric chair but worked instead from a photographic still and that  ‘the same electric chair that is being exhibited was once offered for sale on eBay’.

Comenas continues: ‘The electric chair exhibited is not in any way similar tothechair in Warhol's paintings’. A comparison of the chair in the exhibition with Tate Online’s screenprint and acrylic-on-canvas painting of Warhol’s Electric Chair, 1964, presented by Janet Wolfson de Botton in 1996, confirms this is so.

Comenas’ investigation revealed that ‘the Psaier paintings are a scam by John and Nadia Fairchild who are known art forgers in the UK (See http://www.warholstars.org/andy_warhol_pietro_psaier_1110.html)  The officer who arrested them originally was Richard Ellis, who also set up the Art & Antiques Squad of Scotland Yard. He is no longer working with the Met Police but can be reached through: http://www.artmanagementgroup.com/expertise/.’

The exhibition allegedly presents some images created by Warhol himself. Without confirmation from the Warhol Foundation and the Warhol Museum, however, it is hard to ascertain their veracity.

In an ironic way Warhol may have found this exhibition, on loan from a private collector, enjoyable. Warhol’s great axiom was that in the future everybody would be world famous for 15 minutes. It seems ‘Psaier’ may have captured that stage for slightly longer.