WARHOL-O-RAMA
a serial portrait of the serial portrait pioneer
by Peter Oresick
WARHOL-O-RAMA
Poems by Peter Oresick
Carnegie Mellon University Press
Publication Date: August 6, 2008
Paperback | 102 pages
$16.95 US | 978-0-88748-503-9
Read an excerpt
Twenty-one years after his death, why does Andy still matter?
The art market now values a Warhol for three times as much as a Rembrandt. The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh is the largest single-artist museum in the United States. According to New York Magazine, "The press loves him, young artists discuss him reverently, foreigners consider him essential. . . . Early on, of course, people recognized that Warhol represented more than the sum of his pictures."
On August 6, 2008, Andy's eightieth birthday, Carnegie Mellon University Press will publish Warhol-o-rama, a poem by poem serial portrait of the serial portrait pioneer—and one of Carnegie Mellon's best renowned alumni.
Warhol-o-rama surveys this extraordinary life—and robust afterlife—of a global cultural icon. In a rollicking poetic sequence, Peter Oresick reads Warhol through the eyes and words of others: from critics to Catholics, from adoring fans to Carpatho-Rusyns (Warhol's ethnic heritage). With techniques of Warholian parody and appropriation, while drawing on the rich Warhol mythology, Oresick renders, even in Warholian terms, a most unorthodox and remarkable portrait of an American artist whose fifteen minutes of fame seem to have no end in sight.
Advance Praise for Warhol-o-rama:
"We Pittsburghers are a little proud of Andy, a little ashamed. I had the privilege of eating ice-cream cones with him and driving him to the train station in 1949, so I can attest to the incredible knowledge and accuracy of Oresick's poems; but I'd also like to attest to their wit, originality, and loveliness. It's déjà Warhol all over again. " – Gerald Stern, winner of the 1998 National Book Award for Poetry
"Warhol-o-rama is brimming with a distinctive energy that genuinely evokes Warhol's genius. It's the sort of imitation that—like the best translations—pays highest tribute to the model's brilliance. Oresick's relentless experiments with form and sound-play are ingenious, sparkly, utterly resourceful." – Laurence Lieberman, poet, critic, and author of God's Measurements
"Andy Warhol has found his poet in Peter Oresick. Warhol has captivated world culture more so than perhaps any other artist in history. Do you want to know the truth about Andy Warhol? The truth is in the dazzling truths of Warhol-o-rama." – Lawrence Joseph, poet and author of Into It and Lawyerland
Cover photograph:
Andy Warhol, Edie Sedgwick, and the Empire State Building, 1965, on the roof of David McCabe's studio. ©1996 by David McCabe. Gelatin silver print 14 x 11 in. (35.6 x 27.9 cm.) The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh.
Cover design: Ashley Nelson