Andy Warhol exhibit recalls impostor's trip to U.

0 Comments | Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Jan 3, 2008 | by Joe Bauman Deseret Morning News

Andy Warhol was coming to the University of Utah.

The date was Oct. 2, 1967, and I was editorial assistant on the Daily Utah Chronicle, the U.'s student newspaper. Warhol at the time was a revolutionary artist, a man who was turning convention on its head, the creator of fabulous silk screen prints of JFK and Marilyn Monroe, the Campbell Soup can painter, the director of strange underground films.

Warhol's visit was big news -- bigger than the antiwar demonstrations and the protests against tuition hikes that I had been covering.

It was even bigger than the arrival of the vice president, Hubert Humphrey, which I also had covered -- sort of -- a year before. During a press conference at the airport, I had started to ask Humphrey a question, identifying myself as J. Bauman of the Daily Utah Chronicle. At that moment, in front of hundreds who had gone to the airport to welcome him, in front of Gov. Cal Rampton, Boy Scouts, high school majorettes and band members, and of course TV and print reporters, a reel of my tape recorder flopped off. I bent over and scrambled to retrieve the reel, which just kept unrolling along the tarmac, tape stretching behind.

Not missing a beat, Humphrey had said, "Yes, J.," and patted me on the head.

This time I was going to do it right. I was armed with a complimentary ticket to Warhol's lecture, "Pop Art in Action," and my Mamiya C-3 twin-lens reflex camera. I got a ride to the airport so I could interview him on the way back. And I planned to take a close-up that "the Chrony" could use.

Looking back over 40 years,

among my memory gaps are how I got the ride and how we returned. I have a feeling that the people who ran the Lectures and Concerts Series at the U. had sent a limo to pick up Warhol, and I had hitched a ride with them. Or maybe taxicabs were invoked.

I do recall two events at the airport: first, a cloud of white dust blew off Warhol's hair, which I took to be powder he had sprinkled on as decoration; second, someone with him insisted that I absolutely could not take a photograph. Warhol was far too shy.

You could tell he was shy by his silence, by his vague, evasive murmur if I asked a question, by the dark sunglasses he wore.

I was determined to at least get a photo. Sitting in the back seat next to him, I handed Warhol a page from the Chrony with an article previewing his lecture.

The vehicle rolled along and Warhol studied the page intently. I looked ahead, my camera just above my waist, then looked down. The Mamiya's viewfinder was at the top, and if you folded down the magnifying lens inside you could look at the ground glass and focus. Facing forward, I rotated my camera to the right, focused, and snapped a picture.

We dropped Warhol and company at a hotel and I returned to campus. By 8 p.m. the ranks of folding chairs in the university's Union Building Ballroom were filled. Warhol and an assistant, a man wearing silver shoes with turned-up toes, were fiddling with a movie projector. I sat nearby.

My wife-to-be -- a fellow student named Cory Wilcox -- arrived with her mother, and they made their way through the crowd. Cory and I weren't dating yet, but I admired her, and I kept my eyes on them as they crossed the room. Suddenly the sound system and projector died, just as I saw Cory trip across the power cord. Minutes of confusion and exclamations followed until the problem was solved and the plug back in.

Warhol showed some excruciating snippets of one or two of his movies -- black and white images, grainy film jerking, faces sliding across the screen, streaks and bright splotches, horrible sound quality. The Q-and-A that followed was as bad. Warhol gave brief, pointless answers.

Next stop for Warhol and his student entourage was a dinner in his honor. I believe it was thrown by the art faculty. My recollection is that it was in the Panorama Room in the Union Building. A group of students, including me, trooped in after Warhol and were invited to join in.

The food was delicious, but the conversation was distasteful, even hostile. A professor questioned Warhol closely as he was trying to dine. One question concerned the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Where in that edifice was a certain famous work of Warhol's? Wasn't it on the (say) eighth floor in a nook between this work and that work?

Warhol agreed that it was.

"Ha! The museum only has (not as many as the question indicated) floors!"

Warhol jumped from his chair and stalked out. Affronted on behalf of our idol, disgusted with these faculty dinosaurs who could not appreciate a modern master, we sycophants jumped up and followed him.

We careened through the night in someone's car, picking up friends as we went, and ended up at a party on the west side of town. I seem to remember it was near Capitol Hill. The house was almost devoid of furnishings. A portable record player on the floor hammered away and we partied '60s-style. (Never mind the details.)

Someone drove me back to the Chronicle, where it was past deadline. The next day I got busy writing an indignant article. But one of the editors killed my story.