Andy Warhol’s Index (Book)

With assistance of Stephen Shore, Paul Morrissey, Ondine, Nico, Christopher Cerf, Alan Rinzler, Gerald Harrison, Akihito Shirakawa and particularly David Paul. Several photographs by Nat Finkelstein. Factory fotos by Billy Name. New York: Random House, 1967. Quarto, First edition, silver card ‘tinfoil’ wrappers (a few handling creases, front free endpaper beginning to ‘unglue’ from upper panel, text block shaken), pp. [76], with various movable parts. The book was printed with two variant bindings : a hardcover with lenticular cover and a softcover, of which this is a good, complete example.

‘Index may be regarded as both a component of and a reflection on one of the most daring and experimental phases of Warhol’s career, running from the May 1965 announcement of his ‘retirement’ from painting to the February 1968 abandonment of the East 47th Street Factory for offices on Union Square – a period that, as a whole, has also remained surprisingly overlooked within art history … Appearing to reviewers as “an index to all his thoughts”, Index encapsulates the full range of Warhol’s contemporary endeavours, from the temporarily abandoned silkscreen paintings and sculptures to silver pillows, cow wallpaper, films, video experiments, audiotape projects … photography, fashion, music and the Exploding Plastic Inevitable (EPI), the multimedia spectacle surrounding Velvet Underground concerts… Index presents Warhol simultaneously at his most populist and his most uncompromising, eschewing the camp appropriation of mainstream commercial projects in favor of a remarkably candid foregrounding of homosexuality, transvestism, sadomasochism and illicit drugs ‘ – Branden W. Joseph, White light / white noise, contained in Andy Warhol : From A to B and Back Again, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 2018, p. 43.

Index includes ten inserts or feature pages designed by Warhol with the intent of making Index an adult book of childlike wonder. The special features include:

1. Pop-up castle (in good working order)
2. Accordion-pleated squeeze toy (the ‘squeak’ still squeaking)
3. Pop-up Bi-plane (in good order)
4. spring-mounted “Chelsea Girls” promotional disc (intact and fine)
5. cardboard photographic polyhedron (still attached with its string)
6. previously unreleased Lou Reed Velvet Underground flexi-disc (detached but intact)
7. “nose job” overlay (fine)
8. pop-up Hunt’s Tomato Paste can (good working order)
9. “For a Big Surprise” faux LSD Andy Warhol blotters (eight of ten present)
10. the balloon melted and pages adhered as common

Andy Warhol’s Index (Book) is notoriously difficult to find complete with all its ephemeral components, and in good condition. With the exception of the plastic balloon (which unless removed at the time, invariably melts into the pages of Warhol’s wonderbook), this is a particularly fine example of what is regarded as the artist’s first photobook.