Andy Warhol Says: Be a Somebody with a Body
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Andy Warhol was my gateway into visual art, but I wasn’t drawn to his art nearly as much as his enigmatic persona. The way he so seamlessly navigated high society and underground subcultures, and his philosophy around the arts and life in general is what fascinated me.
Warhol’s obsession with the beauty of everyday objects and glamorous people is reflected in his art, and also how he presented himself. It’s no surprise that he was an avid exerciser. “Andy worked out. He went to the gym and lifted weights,” states Victor Bockris, a former employee who worked for Warhol at his renowned studio known as “The Factory” (quoted in Munro, 2015).
In his book America, Warhol offers somewhat of a deadpan explanation behind his fitness routine, writing that: “Muscles are great, everybody should have at least one they can show off. I work out everyday, and for a while at the beginning I tried to get ‘definition,’ but it didn’t come off that way on me. Now I do have one muscle that appears, and then it seems to go away, but it comes back again after a while” (Warhol, 1985).
Warhol was slender, but he packed on quite a bit of muscle mass. His sinewy physique is revealed in a 1982 photograph of him curling a dumbbell at the gym. The image was shot by photographer and visual artist Christopher Makos, whose photographs of Queer culture and iconic individuals from the 1970s and 80s are invaluable contributions to both the fields of art and journalism.
Warhol’s body is clearly well cut in the photograph. But perhaps if he ate a few more hamburgers (as he did, albeit daintily, in Jørgen Leth’s short film Andy Warhol Eats a Hamburger), he’d have had the protein intake that’s needed to be a bodybuilder! But I digress; Warhol’s commitment to fitness is certainly noteworthy. Regarding his composition, Makos reveals that “Andy worked out about two to three times a week. Lydia, who ran the Soho Fitness Center, would come over and work him out, kind of the way trainers come to people’s houses now. This picture came about because I happened to be there when it was going on” (quoted in Barna, 2019).
Was Warhol’s fitness regimen fueled by insecurities about how he looked? That’s the perspective that writer Cristina Rouvalis conveys, when discussing the exhibition Andy Warhol: My Perfect Body, which was on view at the Andy Warhol Museum in 2017. The reasoning behind this thesis, and what the exhibition also communicated, was that Warhol used art as a means for scrutinizing himself. His early self-portraiture, when he was fresh out of art school and working as an illustrator, is indicative of his desires to alter his look.
One particular feature that Warhol was unsatisfied with was his nose. In portraits of himself from the 1950s, he exaggerated his nose to cartoonish proportions. In another work of art, Warhol altered a copy of his passport photo, essentially performing visual rhinoplasty on himself, as to envision what he’d look like with the ideal nose. He revisited the theme of plastic surgery in other works of art, such as Before and After, 4 (1962).
The aesthetics of bodybuilding also became a theme in Warhol’s work. Be a Somebody with a Body (1986) looks like a modern-day gym and/or supplement advertisement. Warhol’s conscious, witty twist on mass media and consumer marketing expresses the idea that “sex sells.” This concept has inspired the trope of body worship within fitness marketing (see: “An Ode to the Original Fitness Influencer”).
In a review of Andy Warhol: My Perfect Body, arts critic Elisa Wouk Almino (2017) astutely writes, “Sometimes, bodies are purely sculptures, at others they are grotesque objects and vessels for ugly feelings.”
This outlook is common in everyday life, and is especially heightened within the field of personal training. Clients may approach trainers with the goal of sculpting their body into something they idealize. They’re fueled by a desire to conceal, abstract or transform the physical aspects of themselves that they’re unhappy with. The underlying issue behind these emotions and perceptions is almost always greater than aesthetics. Negative feelings and perspectives about body image can stem from emotional and psychological distress such as generalized anxiety disorder, bipolar II and OCD. They can also be triggered by trauma.
Some trainers will oblige their clients without addressing the root causes. In these instances, the physical and aesthetic transformation is a “quick-fix.” In the short-term, the client will feel efficacious because they “look good,” but without honing in on the core reasons why they initially expressed negativity towards their body or persona at large, it can become snake oil rather than a genuine change. While I do actually know some trainers who are also certified in mental health counseling, most are not. However, being aware that a client is experiencing negative self-perception, and offering empathy and encouragement for them to practice self-love, is something that can be done by simply observing and communicating well.
Although Warhol used art and fashion accessories to conceal his real-life fragility and vulnerable nature, these facets of his persona were also sensitively exposed through his work. This duality exemplifies art as a medium that enables us to reflect on our identities, while also suspending our minds and bodies from the confines of reality. Art and fitness are disciplines that let us visualize and reify transformative change. But it’s important not to utilize either practice for the sole purpose of disguising and dissuading us from embracing, amplifying and loving our true selves.
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References, Notes, Suggested Reading:
Almino, Elisa Wouk. “Andy Warhol’s Self-Conscious and Perfect Bodies,” Hyperallergic, 13 January 2017. https://hyperallergic.com/350555/andy-warhols-self-conscious-and-perfect-bodies/
Barna, Ben. “Photographer Christopher Makos Takes
Us Inside Andy Warhol’s Inner Circle,” Interview Magazine, 15 October 2019. https://www.interviewmagazine.com/art/photographer-chris-makos-takes-us-inside-andy-warhols-inner-circle
Munro, Cait. “Andy Warhol’s Friends Reveal Little Known Facts On Eve of New Documentary,” artnet, 17 August 2015. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/andy-warhol-loves-to-lift-weights-and-other-little-known-facts-325344
Rouvalis, Cristina. “My Perfect, Imperfect Body,” Carnegie Magazine, Fall 2016. https://carnegiemuseums.org/magazine-archive/2016/fall/feature-574.html
Warhol, Andy. 1985. America, New York: Harper & Row Publishers.