Your first though before entering the latest show in the East Village outpost of the Brant Foundation might be, “Um, okay, it’s another Andy Warhol exhibit.” Your next thought, after entering, will be “Wow, I never get tired of Andy Warhol!”
Neither does Peter Brant, possibly the greatest collector of Warhol’s work. The new show, which follows successful mountings of shows of Jean-Michel Basquiat and Julian Schnabel, is titled “Thirty Are Better Than One” after the 1963 piece that repeats an image of the Mona Lisa in black and white.
It’s Brant’s favorite piece in the exhibit, which consists of over 100 pieces which are drawn almost entirely from his own collection. “It links the Renaissance to Duchamp,” he notes.
Other works on the walls that he is particularly fond of are the “Red Elvis” and the first Warhol that he ever purchased, a drawing of Campbell’s soup cans executed with crayons and pencil in 1962. All periods and media are represented, from drawings, silkscreens and sculpture to Polaroids and an example of the “Oxidation” series, accomplished through the use of a common bodily fluid contributed by his various assistants.
The only piece on view that doesn’t belong to Brant was once in his collection. The large “Mao” (approximately 12 feet by 15 feet) was donated by the collector to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1977, but it wasn’t a case of the institution standing on his doorstep hoping for a contribution. It was more like, “Take my Warhol, please!”
Brant explained to the preview audience last week that he offered it to the Met and they initially turned it down, so he “sweetened the pot” with an early Dan Flavin single light sculpture and another Warhol — a flower painting — but they still said no. Henry Geldzahler, who was working for the museum at the time, suggested that Brant throw in something from his Art Deco collection, so an additional donation of some Dunand furniture and…
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