Pop Genius

As everyone knows, Andy Warhol (seen in a Jamie Wyeth portrait) was one of the most important artists ever. Less well-known was his private career as a writer. Every day, Warhol recorded his activities in diary entries, and it was only after he died in 1987 that the contents of those diaries were initially published -- to the surprise of many and to the horror of quite a few who were mentioned in them. Since then, it’s gone through multiple printings.

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More About

• Andy Warhol
• Jamie Wyeth
• Martin Scorsese
• Books and Literature
• Arts, Entertainment, and Media

The Warhol Diaries have been published in a single phone-book sized volume available at bookstores all over the world. It reveals that not only was Warhol a social gadfly, dandy and world-class kook, but underneath that guise was an extremely insightful sociologist and social theorist. His perspective was phenomenal, since he knew every Who who was Who in his era, and he left behind written comments about nearly all of them.

His circle of friends and acquaintances included not only the other New York art world luminaries of his time, like his good buddy Met curator Henry Geldzahler, but also celebrities from fashion such as Halston, entertainment divas like Liza Minnelli and film auteurs like Martin Scorsese. And there on the pages of his diaries is Warhol running into them on the streets of the Upper East Side, in the darkened back rooms of Studio 54, or at his personal studio, nicknamed the Factory, but absolutely never at his swank townhouse that only he, his servants and a handful of close friends ever saw until after he died.

Downtown Denver’s Dikeou Collection is hosting a Warhol reading group that’s meeting tonight 7 p.m. to discuss the Warhol Diaries. The freewheeling event will be led by collector and curator, Devon Dikeou. The Dikeou Collection is located in the Colorado Building, 1615 California Street, Suite 515, 303-623-3001, and can be found on the web at www.dikeoucollection.org. As with the Dikeou Collection itself, admission to the Warhol reading group is free and open to the public.
Thu., July 31, 7 p.m., 2008