CITYist

If Andy Warhol was a woman, and that woman was a garden, how might it grow? Photographers Paul Solberg and Christopher Makos, longtime friends who collaborate in a prank-infused partnership dubbed “The Hilton Brothers,” set out to answer this strange question in their exhibit “Andy Dandy.” The show is a collection of diptyches—paired pictures—with Warhol in drag and vibrant blooms.

Soulberg took stills of everyday English-garden type flowers, like roses, daffodils, and daisies, that shine in overbright tropical hues, which were well-matched to Makos’ black and white 1981 series of Warhol channeling his innermost Veronica Lake. In one, he stands bare shouldered, with a toss of Marilyn Monroe hair beside the full bloom of a red, red rose, the passionate shade of a poison apple and a lady’s lipstick. A taxi-cab yellow Gerber daisy shies away from a michevious secretary character. As a feminine film noir star, Warhol ponders adjacent a royal purple pansy with nearly translucent petals.

The exhibit, which has been touring Europe since 2008, will be rooted in America for the first time this fall. Warhol’s magazine Interview is throwing the opening party at Clic Gallery on September 14. The images are cheeky and colorful in a way Warhol would surely have winked over his shoulder at.

Images courtesy of Clic Gallery