In Death, Andy Warhol Parties On With Livestream
Andy Warhol once said that in the future everyone would be famous for fifteen minutes, and there seems to be so much to say about that.
One, as we found out, Andy Warhol was right. More than anyone that succinctly, Warhol and his pop-art stylings managed to predict with eerie accuracy the “viral” fame of the future, a future he never got to see.
Warhol died in 1987 at the age of 58, having defined art culture in a hugely important era and leaving a legacy far beyond Campbell’s soup cans. To say Warhol’s influence reigns over modern design to this day is an understatement, and it seems a massive tragedy that had the artist gotten just ten more years, he’d have lived to see the internet and reality TV show culture he so accurately described in that statement.
But Andy Warhol was also famous for his parties. And on his 85th birthday, more than 25 years after he died, he’s having another one.
In Warhol’s hometown of Pittsburgh, the artist is buried — and a museum dedicated to his live, legacy, and massive contribution to art is streaming live video from his graveside in a project called Figment.
The name was one Andy chose himself, when he once said:
“I never understood why when you died, you didn’t just vanish, and everything could just keep going on the way it was only you just wouldn’t be there. I always thought I’d like my own tombstone to be blank. No epitaph and no nam. Well, actually, I’d like it to say ‘figment.’ ”
Andy Warhol’s grave livestream isn’t the only way the artist lives on — when he died somewhat suddenly from a post-operative arrythmia back in 1987, he bequeathed his fortune solely to a fund for the “advancement of the visual arts.”
