Pop Out: Queer Warhol (Series Q) [Hardcover]

Jennifer Doyle (Editor), Jose E. Munoz (Editor), Jonathan Flatley (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 082231732X | ISBN-13: 978-0822317326 | Publication Date: April 1996

Andy Warhol was queer in more ways than one. A fabulous queen, a fan of prurience and pornography, a great admirer of the male body, he was well known as such to the gay audiences who enjoyed his films, the police who censored them, the gallery owners who refused to show his male nudes, and the artists who shied from his swishiness, not to mention all the characters who populated the Factory. Yet even though Warhol became the star of postmodernism, avant-garde, and pop culture, this collection of essays is the first to explore, analyze, appreciate, and celebrate the role of Warhol's queerness in the making and reception of his film and art. Ranging widely in approach and discipline, "Pop Out' demonstrates that to ignore Warhol's queerness is to miss what is most valuable, interesting, sexy, and political about his life and work. Written from the perspectives of art history, critical race theory, psychoanalysis, feminist theory, cinema studies, and social and literary theory, these essays consider Warhol in various contexts and within the history of the communities in which he figured. The homoerotic subjects, gay audiences, and queer contexts that fuel a certain fascination with Warhol are discussed, as well as Batman, Basquiat, and Valerie Solanas. Taken together, the essays in this collection depict Warhol's career as a practical social reflection on a wide range of institutions and discourses, including those, from the art world to mass culture, that have almost succeeded in sanitizing his work and his image. General readers with interests in Warhol, Pop art, and gay and lesbian issues will find this book appealing as will more academic audiences working in art history, queer theory, cultural studies, postmodernism, and popular culture. Contributors include: Jennifer Doyle, Jonathan Flatley, Marcie Frank, David E. James, Mandy Merck, Michael Moon, Jos Esteban Mu-oz, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Brian Selsky, Sasha Torres, Simon Watney, Thomas Waugh.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Pop Out fulfills its fabulous missionNto reclaim Andy Warhol as a queer artist/iconNwith a painterly thoroughness. Andy would have said it best: OGre-e-eat!OONMichael Musto blurb from Douglas Crimp to come after Christmas

About the Author

Jennifer Doyle is Assistant Professor of Engish at the University of California, Riverside.

Jonathan Flatley is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Virginia.

José Esteban Muñoz is Associate Professor in Performance Studies at New York University.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 280 pages
• Publisher: Duke University Press (April 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 082231732X
• ISBN-13: 978-0822317326
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,669,660 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars asking big questions, February 27, 2008

By 

Bruce P. Barten (Saint Paul, MN United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Pop Out: Queer Warhol (Series Q) (Paperback)

Art has given certain institutions the power to challenge the individuals within modern society to determine their own personal reactions to various situations. Linear thinking is likely to seem murky trying to sort out all the aspects of this that people who study find interesting.

I lived for years in Minneapolis and was considered crazy enough by people who lived there that certain issues this book raises have also played a part in my own evaluation of how things like undercover sting operations work. It seems rather small compared to war, bombs, the death of journalists, television stations that are bombed for broadcasting propaganda, and the state of politics in 2008, but that merely reflects that I did not escape having a hell opf a context when I left Minneapolis.

There are people who are trying to shape society so that all these things reach an equilibrium in which nobody cares, and reading this book might help you know how they feel.

8 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars oh well......, January 5, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Pop Out: Queer Warhol (Series Q) (Paperback)

I didn't think this book was particularly strong. It has writings from academics whom I totally admire. And I understand why people would study gayness as it relates to 1960s popular culture. Still, this book has very little about Warhol and his sexuality in it. A person is better off reading a biography of Warhol, especially those written by the people who knew him personally. This was quite an unimpressive anthology.