Andy Warhol's Factory
(translation by Mrs. Penny Ewles-Bergeron)
New York, January 1981
It all began on 23rd November 1980, with Lella (my wife), Filippo (our son), Lucio Amelio and Thomas Arana. We were at San Carlo opera house for a concert by flautist Severino Gazzelloni. The music was hardly over, and the audience still applauding, when there began a general stampede in reaction to a strong earthquake. Several days later, riding the wave of fear and despair that overwhelmed our city, we set about turning our luck around - each according to his or her role or special skills. Lucio decided to put out an appeal to all the artists of the world to donate one of their works to Naples. The realisation of such a plan would depend on the cooperation of the American art world and above all of Leo Castelli and his ex-wife. On the first of January 1981 everyone headed off to New York.
The occasion was the first exhibition in America of Ernesto Tatafiore, of whom it gives me pleasure to recall that I was the first collector. Lucio, Michele Bunonomo, Ernesto Tatafiore, VittorioBaratti, Lella and I left at various times to meet up later in New York.
At the dawn of my 42nd year, we picked up Ernesto at the Fuorigrotta exit of the Naples Tangenziale. Thanks to my atavistic fear of flying, (the result of childhood traumas), I had been living on Remy-Martin and mini pizzas from Moccia’s for two days prior to the trip. Once at the airport of Fiumicino and seated on the plane, I fell into a deep slumber from which I emerged only in New York.
On the far side of customs control, Ernesto and I were like Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin on the town. We rushed to the hotel. There our friends awaited us. Lucio and Michele, because of work commitments, had caught a plane from Copenhagen. There followed seven nights in grand style. Parties, nightclubs, restaurants with ice-skating rinks, Chinese and Italian restaurants, dinners at Lucio’s friends’, theatre, jazz concerts, museums, art galleries, long walks in Central Park to sober up and recover from the overindulgences of the night before.
Amongst the most intriguing moments for Lella and me in New York - meeting Leo Castelli and his ex-wife. We entered Leo Castelli’s gallery. Lucio had no appointment; but as soon as Castelli saw him he dropped everything and ran to embrace him: (Lucio, after the encounter in Naples between European and American culture - Joseph Beuys and Andy Warhol - which culminated with a Dino Luglio show at City Hall, had entered the constellation of world-class gallery owners). We set off together for breakfast. Lucio and Michele spoke English; Lella and I did not. We followed the rhythm of their language and their expressions ranging from perplexed to convinced, but in the end a bottle of champagne ratified the Moral Patronage of Leo Castelli for Lucio’s initiative.
Another unforgettable moment was on the terrace of the twin towers, an obligatory trip at the time. I had my photograph printed onto a tee shirt that I kept with me for more than ten years. Then, threadbare as it was, I threw it away. After the photo was done we came back down. At the first bar we bought a coffee and there I realised I had left my travel bag with money, passport and everything else, up on the twin towers. Michele helped me to get it back. The bag, as it happens, was still there on the floor next to the photo machine. What panic (before), what joy (after)! On our return to Naples, I advised Lucio and accompanied him to the delightful notary Ferdinando Tozzi, who prepared the articles and drew up the contract for the creation of the Terrae-Motus Foundation.
It was with the visit to The Factory of Andy Warhol that I lived out the fantasy and magic world of E.T.A. Hoffmann. The Factory’s interior carried you off to old abandoned English castles steeped in history and romance. We rang the bell and a man of Austrian elegance (Andy’s manager?) opened the door, introductions were made and straight away Lucio, with his eternal unpredictability, suggested to Lella that she get her portrait done by Andy. Lella accepted, thanks more to her fondness for Lucio than to a desire for self-promotion. Lella, alas, left us at the end of July of that same year, but she did live to see the portrait that I had mounted straight away on the wall.
It was her final pleasure to see herself in all her beauty and charm. While hairdressers, makeup artists and assistants worked under the orders of the electrifying Andy, I wandered the corridors of the studio. Beginning with the first shoes painted by Andy, I saw his entire artistic journey up to the 80’s. The picture and the photographs had been left higgledy-piggledy along the corridors and this meant one could stroll through the history of American consumerism from the post war period to the 80’s. Once the ritual of photographing Lella was over, Lucio told me that Andy wanted to take my picture. At first I resisted and then I gave in for politeness’ sake and out of regard for Lucio. And all the time Andy watched us with his Peter Pan eyes.
This is what I remember of a distant journey to New York.
Salvatore Pica