The New York Public Art Fund will present a tribute to Andy Warhol in Union Square this spring, a short distance from where the Factory once stood from 1968 until the artist’s death in 1987. The second Factory (the White Factory as opposed to the Silver Factory, which was located in midtown from 1962-1968) was just around the corner from Max’s Kansas City at 33 Union Square West. It was also the site where Valerie Salonas’ assassination attempt occurred and where Interview magazine was launched.


 Sculptor Rob Pruitt created The Andy Monument as a tribute to the late artist, who publicly signed and gave away copies of Interview magazine at the street corner where the monument will stand beginnning March 30th, 2011.

Public Art Fund Director and Chief Curator Nicholas Baume says that, “The figure is based on a combination of digital scanning of a live model and hand sculpting, its surface finished in chrome, mounted on a concrete pedestal. It depicts Warhol as a ghostly, silver presence: a potent cultural force as both artist and self-created myth.” As Rob Pruitt observes, “Like so many other artists and performers and people who don’t fit in because they’re gay or otherwise different, Andy moved here to become who he was, to fulfill his dreams and make it big. He still represents that courage and that possibility. That’s why I came to New York, and that’s what my Andy Monument is about.” ‘

Really looking forward to this, and hope that the Public Art Fund can manage to make the sculpture a permanent presence to remind passerby’s of the once-cultural/historical significance of the now Sephora-ed and Babies-R-Us-ed out strip.

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‘ You know the song “New York, New York,” and how for year after year people have come to New York to “make it.” One of the most important examples of that is Andy Warhol, who spawned a generation of people who think they can make it here in this city. Andy Warhol embodies the spirit of the city that still draws people. Every day a thousand more kids come to New York propelled by his legacy. And even if the decades pass and Warhol becomes a vaguer and vaguer character, there will still be something here that’s directly linked to him – this pilgrimage, or calling, coming here from the Midwest, Eastern Europe or South- East Asia, to make it big, to be an artist. I think there should be a destination in New York to mark all those journeys. Its work function is totally dependent on increased heart rate, speed in breathing, and increase buy viagra in india in porosity. The medicine is invented by sildenafil generic canada the British scientist and this has something to do with back pain. Without successful treatment of ED, a man can’t even dream of an free sample of cialis intercourse . This is only the reason why ED, these days, is not an unusual health levitra sale condition.

There are hundreds of monuments to politicians in the New York City, but I can’t think of any monuments to artists, and other figures who actually represent the lived experience of most of the people who live here. When I was a teenager, I visited Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris, where Jim Morrison and Oscar Wilde are buried. I was struck by the throngs of people that came to visit the tombs of their idols. When Andy Warhol died, his family had his remains sent back to Pittsburgh, where he was born, and so no such marker for him exists in New York. So a public statue of Warhol has a sense of righting a wrong.

Andy, like so many other artists and performers and people who don’t fit in, moved to New York to be himself, fulfill his dreams and make it big. That’s why I moved here, and that’s what my Andy Monument is about. Of course it could be argued that someone could just go to the Modern and look at his Soup Cans, but I think there is something to being truly out in streets of New York, to have something you can visit at 4:20 in the morning with your friends.

I will be unveiling the Andy Monument at the North-West corner of Union Square on Wednesday, March 30 at 6:00PM. I hope you will be able to join me to celebrate one of our own. ‘


Rob Pruitt
New York
March 2011