Viewpoints brings together alternative perspectives on Warhol and his work, featuring writers and academics invited by Firstsite and the University of Essex.

In this opening talk of the series, Professor Sean Nixon, Head of Sociology and Director of MA Advertising, Marketing and the Media at the University of Essex, explores Andy Warhol’s relationship to the world of commercial art and advertising in New York in the ‘50s and ‘60s.


Viewpoints: Andy Warhol, New York Advertising and the Creative Revolution

Viewpoints brings together alternative perspectives on Warhol and his work, featuring writers and academics invited by Firstsite and the University of Essex.

Dr James Harvey, Lecturer in Film Studies at Essex, explores how Warhol challenged and repurposed the Hollywood tradition of ‘Screen Testing’, highlighting the empathic power of the human face, so vital to the Hollywood style.

Viewpoints: Screen Tests: Challenging Empathy in Warhol's Faces.

Viewpoints brings together alternative perspectives on Warhol and his work, featuring writers and academics invited by Firstsite and the University of Essex.

Three stories from Andy Warhol’s New York
Dr Jordan Savage, Lecturer in US Literature in the Department of Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies, recounts anecdotes about three poets Valerie Solanas, Patti Smith and Frank O’Hara, sharing intimate details of their lives, poetry and relationship to Warhol.

Viewpoints: "That's what you think of the city" (Frank O'Hara)

Viewpoints brings together alternative perspectives on Warhol and his work, featuring writers and academics invited by Firstsite and the University of Essex.

Essex Alumnus Dr David Giles, Reader in Media Psychology at the University of Winchester, shares insights into Warhol’s celebrity portraits, looking at how he transformed his subjects into products, and asks how we might we best understand Warhol’s ’15 minutes of fame’ claim today.


Viewpoints: Tinned celebrities: How Warhol made soup out of Marilyn, Mao and Minell

Firstsite is a visual arts organisation based in Colchester, Essex. Our mission is to make contemporary art relevant to everyone.