Fans wonder who shot Andy Warhol and why after watching Netflix's The Andy Warhol Diaries. Let's uncover Valerie Solanas' shooting attempt. Other queries include, 'How did Andy Warhol die?' He passed away due to cardiac arrhythmia in February 1987. Meanwhile, the woman who shot Andy Warhol, Valerie Solanas' cause of death was pneumonia in 1988.
You don't have to be familiar with pop art to appreciate Andy Warhol's work. The Pittsburgh-born artist, who rose to stardom with his silkscreen paintings of Campbell's Soup Cans, influenced numerous artists, filmmakers, musicians, and social media stars with his unique and multidimensional brand.
The person behind his larger-than-life character, on the other hand, is an ambiguous mystery that Netflix's new documentary mini-series The Andy Warhol Diaries may attempt to answer.
The title is a specific reference to Andy Warhol's subsequently published journals, The Andy Warhol Diaries, edited by Pat Hackett, a longtime friend, and collaborator of Warhol's.
Director Andrew Rossi explores the story of the journals over the course of six episodes, featuring interviews with Hackett including several colleagues, art experts, historians, and celebrity friends, including Debbie Harry, Rob Lowe, and John Waters.
Previously, we touched on Jean-Michel Basquiat, Jon Gould (his death), and Jed Johnson.
Who Shot Andy Warhol? Why Was He Shot?
Netflix's The Andy Warhol Diaries concentrates on Andy Warhol's life in the 1970s and 1980s, and no narrative of the artist's last two decades can be presented without mentioning Valerie Solanas' shooting of Warhol. Valerie Jean Solanas was an American radical feminist.
As Andy separated himself from people like Solanas who were in his circle during the Factory days, the impact of this event caused Warhol to radically change his business tactics, changing from the king of 1960s counterculture to the commercial artist of the 1970s and 1980s.
Before the incident, Solanas had been a hanger-on at the Factory for a few years. She had been attempting to convince Warhol to create a play she had written called Up Your Ass since 1965, a play so dirty that the artist believed it was part of a police sting operation. Warhol misplaced the script, which meant he couldn't return it to Solanas when she asked.
Solanas began writing The SCUM [Society for Cutting Up Men] manifesto that year, a feminist tract in which she expressed her goal to "wipe the ugly, leering male face off the map".
Solanas got impatient as she waited for her play to be delivered. Warhol attempted to please her by casting her in his 1967 film I, A Man, but it failed miserably. Jose Diaz, the curator of the Andy Warhol Museum, told History.com:
She obviously knew that Andy would borrow ideas, or steal ideas, and so she became paranoid that he didn't in fact lose the play, but wanted to keep it, claim it, and make it his own.
Solanas revealed that Warhol's activities were changing her life when she handed herself over to a cop the day of the shooting. When asked why she did it, she simply stated, "Because he's a piece of garbage."
The shooting occurred at the Factory, and several witnesses were there. Warhol was physically and emotionally wounded as a result of the incident, and he was compelled to wear a surgical corset for the remainder of his life.
Valerie Solanas Cause of Death: What Happened to Her After Shooting Andy Warhol?
Valerie Solanas was a radical feminist and writer who was born on April 9, 1936, in Ventnor City, New Jersey. She had a difficult childhood, and she claims that her father sexually abused her on several occasions.
She also left her grandparents' house at the age of 15 and had two children with a married man in 1953, who were subsequently taken away from her. Despite these obstacles, Valerie graduated from high school and went on to acquire a psychology degree from the University of Maryland, College Park.
Valerie came out as a lesbian in the 1950s, and after dropping out of the University of Minnesota's Graduate School of Psychology, she began composing the Society for Cutting Up Men (SCUM) manifesto, which became famous. It was published in 1967 and claimed that only women can save the planet and that the male sex should be extinguished.
After Solanas shot Andy Warhol, she immediately surrendered and confessed to the police. She got a mental evaluation while in police custody and was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, however she was found able to stand trial.
She was given a three-year sentence for assault and released in 1971. After that, Solanas appears several times in The Andy Warhol Diaries, the Netflix show that bears his name. In 1988, Solanas died of pneumonia at the age of 52.
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