The Warhol Look (Hardcover)

by  by Mark Francis

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Bulfinch Press (December 4, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 082122476X

This beautifully illustrated book was issued to accompany the 1998/99 major travelling exhibition of the same name.

It focuses on some of the different stages of Warhol's career starting with his fashion illustrations and shop window-dressing from the fifties and early sixties. It then goes on to the 'Factory' style of the sixties and the nightclub and celebrity scenes of the seventies and eighties.

'The Warhol Look' is packed full of wonderful images and photographs, not just by Warhol but also by other artists, designers and photographers. This is especially true of the middles section Covering the sixties. Many forgotten images and magazine spreads are illustrated, providing extra clues as to how mainstream culture viewed Warhol and his associates.

Perhaps the most illuminating parts of the book are devoted to Warhol's fascination with transvestites and Warhol's side line of modelling. The essays accompanying the latter especially provides a fresh insight into Warhol the man and Warhol as a mirror.

The book provides yet more conclusive proof of Warhol's influence on mainstream fashion, art, design, and even, with 'interview' magazine publishing. It examines his links with the downtown avant-garde and underground scenes of the sixties and his distancing from it after his shooting in 1968. It then illustrates his growing obsession with celebrity and fame in the seventies and eighties.

Overall, this is a wonderful book for all Warhol fans, and for anyone interested in fashion, design and the various New York downtown scenes in between 1950's and the 1980's.

O'Toole opens by taking us for a trip down porn's memory lane, looking first at the stag films of the twenties and thirties, before moving onto the mondo and nudy films of the fifties and sixties. Then follows a detailed and interesting look at porn's golden age in the seventies. Less well known films, such as 'Sensations' and 'Web Rainbow' are looked at, as well as the usual 'porn classics' - 'Deep Throat' and 'The Devil in Miss Jones'

The book the goes on to look at the video boom, the porn viewer, censorship, and the Internet. The Porn Viewer chapter, containing interviews with many self confessed porn consumers is revealing and perhaps goes some way to dispell the myth of porn consumers being sad lonely males looking at dirty magazines in their grotty bedsits.

Also interesting is the chapter on censorship, especially here in the UK. O'Toole goes into quite some detail about what can and can't be shown in Britain and compares it with the US and the rest of Europe.

Sadly, I feel the book lets itself down when it discusses the feminist arguments against porn. O'Toole strives too hard to argue that porn is only made by consenting adults. While I wouldn't agree with one feminist theory that all women in porn are victims, forced to take part in something that the loath. I feel that the book ignores the many who are tricked, niave or 'economically' forced to appear in porn. Also O'Tootle ignores that porn, like much of contemporary culture, runs the risk of objectifying women. Women who are thin, big breasted and always 'up for it'.

Having said that, I do feel that 'Pornocopia' is a good introduction to this under research neglected form of popular entertainment. The book is easy to read, avoiding that stuffy academic style that many cultural study books often have. O'Toole is obviously a fan of his subject, which shows through in his sympathetic and understanding portraits of the films and their stars.