Warhol's avant-garde China materializes

By Zhang Xin (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-05-28 10:34

He is known for his portrait of late Chairman Mao Zedong, a rendition of bold colors that went on to become one of the most recognizable images of the Chinese leader for the rest of the world.

Unknown to many, late avant-garde artist Andy Warhol had also envisaged a futuristic city when he visited Beijing 27 years ago.

It is an image that has turned into reality.

"If Andy Warhol was still alive today, he would be able to see those amazing things he thought of coming true Andy was a futurist," renowned US photographer Christopher Makos said of his friend, who died in 1987 aged 58.

The 61-year-old photographer, who has worked with some of the most influential artists of his time, was in Beijing this week to launch a documentary which retraces the steps he took with Warhol in 1982 and rediscovers his friend's personal history.

Speaking to China Daily on Tuesday, Makos presented a series of photos he took of Warhol, including ones shot in front of the Forbidden City and on a section of The Great Wall that showed Warhol in his "most relaxed and personal moments".

Makos still had the bag he bought from the Friendship Store in 1982 that contained his cherished items of the three-day trip - toothbrushes from the Beijing Hotel, their printed itinerary and even a copy of the China Daily newspaper.

"The bag is just like a magic time capsule taking us back to that time," Makos said.

In his hour-long documentary, Andy Warhol: Back in China, Makos also managed to climb the section of The Great Wall again to find the same graffiti he spotted with Warhol three decades ago.

"You see how China has transformed and yet remained the same," Makos said. "Transformation" also proved to be the term Makos used most on his latest trip to China.

He spoke highly of the cultural atmosphere in the country, with a vibrancy and exuberance that Warhol would have approved of, compared with the scene in 1982 when there were basically "no lipstick, pop music, neon lights and nightclubs".

"Beijing today has the same vital spirit as New York had in the 1970s", he said.

"Young people here are very open minded ready to experiment in the arts, compared with the dominance of the traditional arts back in the 1980s," he said.