Adelaide Festival 2023 to present Andy Warhol exhibition

Exclusive to Adelaide, Andy Warhol & Photography: A Social Media will reveal an unseen side of the celebrated pop artist through more than 250 works, spanning photographs, experimental films, screenprints and paintings.

Decades before social media, Warhol's photography was candid, collaborative and social, attuned to the power of the image to shape his public persona and self-identity. A Social Media offers a fresh perspective on the influential artist, as well as behind-the-scenes glimpses into his own life and the lives of friends and celebrities, including Muhammad Ali, Bob Dylan, Debbie Harry, Mick Jagger, John Lennon, Liza Minnelli, Lou Reed and Elizabeth Taylor.

Headlining the 2023 Adelaide Festival's visual arts program, A Social Media brings together works from national and international collections, as well as AGSA's own extensive collection of 45 Warhol photographs which will be shown together for the first time.

AGSA director, Rhana Devenport said exhibition attests to Andy Warhol's enduring relevance as an artist and cultural figure in an era defined by social media.

"With cross-generational appeal, this is an exhibition of our times which begs the question, was Warhol the original influencer?" Rhana said.

Revealing Warhol from both in front of and behind the camera, the exhibition will also feature works by his photographic collaborators and creative contemporaries such as Brigid Berlin, Nat Finkelstein, Christopher Makos, Gerard Malanga, Robert Mapplethorpe, Duane Michals and Billy Name.

A Social Media will also include iconic Warhol paintings never-before-seen in Adelaide, including his famed Pop Art portraits of Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley from the 1960s, demonstrating how Warhol translated many of his photographs into paintings and screenprints.

Exhibition curator Julie Robinson explained the significance of Andy's work.

"Photography underpinned Warhol's whole artistic practice - both as an essential part of his working method and as an end in its own right. He took some 60,000 photographs in his lifetime," she said.

"His candid images, which capture his own life as well as the lives of his celebrity friends, offer audiences a revealing insight into Warhol the person, taking viewers beneath the veneer of his Pop paintings and persona.

"Andy always carried a camera and would whip it out on occasion to record something or someone. It was an aide memoire. In preparation for a portrait, he would shoot a roll of Polaroid film and lay the images out on a table, asking the subject which ones they preferred and focusing on what he regarded the 'perfect shot' for the silkscreen. Andy's portraiture was his way of giving prominent members of his audience a promise of immortality."

Adelaide Festival artistic director Ruth Mackenzie said it was thrilling to work on the project.

"Today more than ever, with the popularity of social media, Warhol's idea of 15 minutes of fame is incredibly relatable and this exhibition will be a must-see during the festival season next year."

The exhibition opens at AGSA as part of the 2023 Adelaide Festival on March 3 and runs until May 14. Tickets are now on sale at agsa.sa.gov.au.