Andy Warhol, “Knives,” 1981. © 2019 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Shoes, eggs, kitchen knives, a bunch of bananas, ballet slippers and flowers; this is the sequence of framed Polaroids I saw as I walked into the Jack Shainman gallery in Chelsea; which currently houses a wide selection of rarely and never-before-seen photographs by Andy Warhol that span 20 years. Warhol, a seemingly ever-present figure in New York City’s gritty history, was an artist constantly surrounded by other artists. From well-known musicians to popular writers, Warhol’s crowd was never dull and far from what the everyday person would consider ordinary. This is why the aforementioned images, being the first one is introduced upon entering the quiet gallery, are as surprising in their mundanity as they are candid.

Jack Shainman Gallery, 2020. © 2019 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Although Warhol is best known for his pop art and possibly even some experimental films, he is said to have photographed constantly – everything from the corners of a room to the people that filled it. This Chelsea display is proof of just that. The exhibition’s 193 pieces are a collection of Polaroids, some signed with initials by the artist himself, large photos stitched in blocks of four identical photos and individual images printed in varying sizes. Regardless of the type or size of print, each photo is pressed behind the glass of a simple, clean black or white frame with corresponding black or white borders. This gives every image, whether a telephone on a nightstand or a nude portrait of a man, the quality of fine art – of something that deserves contemplation.

Andy Warhol, “Telephone,” 1982. © 2019 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Andy Warhol, “Nude Male,” 1977. © 2019 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

While the main installation space is expansive, it is divided by a thick white wall at its center. On one side of the wall, nine different portraits of Warhol hang in a grid-like fashion while the other side is adorned with two larger frames of four of the same images stitched together in each. Their arrangement throughout the gallery nicely echoes the structures in Warhol’s photography. Though some of his captures appear to be sporadic snapshots of everyday life, there is the unmistakable trace of someone who notices every curve in a disarray of shoes and is thus carefully composing even the most random-seeming objects.

Jack Shainman, 2020. © 2019 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Andy Warhol, “Shoes,” 1981. © 2019 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

In a smaller, almost triangular section of the gallery, two walls with Warhol’s “Screen Tests” projected on them come to a point. The space creates somewhat of a cove at the center of the gallery’s otherwise open floor. The two recordings playing on a loop depict those who frequented The Factory, Warhol’s Manhattan studio. Although the people on camera may be unknown to the casual viewer, they are cleverly used to mimic the photographic tendencies evident in the rooms around it. The subjects silently engage with the camera as if they can see the person viewing it on the other side. They are handled in the same journalistic manner Warhol employs when photographing objects. In this way, every inch of Andy Warhol Photography: 1967 - 1987 presents the facts of the artist’s life as fragments we are able to understand through the people and things they chronicle.