The exhibition was installed thematically by floor, beginning on floor seven and working its way down through the galleries, just as the museum’s permanent collection galleries are installed. I put together a plan to highlight each theme, on each floor. A curator would talk for two minutes about a specific theme each Tuesday for six weeks at noon (our fans are online the most at noon).

I pitched this to our Associate Curator of Art Jessica Beck, and she was all for it! Each week, she chose to focus on either an artistic pairing or an exhibition theme more broadly.

After looking at what other cultural institutions were doing, I noticed two things: 1) the videos that used a lavalier microphone made for much better listening; 2) a steady camera makes for much better viewing. Armed with a mic and a tripod, we set off to start the series.*

After six Facebook Live videos, we’re starting to look at the analytics and learning a bit about what to do and not to do in the future.

Lighting

Lighting is key to a successful video. For our second video, the lighting in the gallery did not allow for a spotlight on the curator. Though the artworks were lit behind her, she was in in the shadows. That video received the fewest reactions and the fewest shares.

Wi-Fi

Check your Wi-Fi strength. The Wi-Fi is typically strong in most of our gallery spaces, with only a few dark spots. However, we happened to pick one of those spots on the second floor to record our fifth video. The video lasts for 53 seconds and abruptly cuts out. After this happened, we talked about what our next step should be. Move to a new gallery space and try again? Post a comment in the video that we’re fixing the problem and try again later? Post a comment apology and focus on next week?

We chose the latter. With a simple, “Sorry the live video cut out! Wifi issues in the gallery.,” we were off to plan for our next, and final, Andy Warhol | Ai Weiweibroadcast for the following week. Rather than broadcast from the museum’s education studio The Factory to talk about Ai Weiwei’s cat wallpaper, we changed our plan and recorded again on the second floor, this time talking about a different artwork, but ending on the same artwork we tried to include in the previous week’s video.

Time limit

The original plan suggested a two-minute video format, thinking that would be long enough to tell a rich story, but short enough to not lose an audience. Looking at our audience retention analytics, for five of the videos, we saw between 7–10% retention. The video that cut out after only 53 seconds has a 25% retention, which suggests that a shorter live video might be more effective for our audiences.

Though we tried to keep the videos to two minutes, even doing run-throughs before we went live, storytelling is fun, and we ended up with our videos averaging just over three minutes in length (not including the video that was cut short).

Promotion

For this series, I chose not to heavily promote it. The first live video was not promoted in advance at all, in case it went terribly wrong. Later videos were promoted on Facebook with individual posts and comments within the videos, as well as on Twitter with images and links. In fact, one of the promotional tweets for the final live video received 690 engagements, though I think it might have been more for the image attached rather than the message.

Next is a deeper dive into the analytics and upping the production value. We’ll start thinking about such things as audience retention, promotion, and purchasing a light kit. We’ll also think about experimenting with answering live comments and questions from our viewers.

If you haven’t experimented with Facebook Live, develop a strategy and go for it. It’s a relatively low impact storytelling platform with the potential for big results. We will be using the platform again, and hopefully more frequently, as we discover more of what works and what our fans want to see and hear.

*We purchased a RØDE smartLav+. The sound quality was very good, even when the galleries were loud. We will probably purchase an extension cable in the future. We purchased an Accmor Tablet Tripod Adapter, which did not have an adjustable depth so the iPad occasionally slipped out of the adapter.

We’re thrilled to be part of this international project and to collaborate as sister institutions. Though the last time we collaborated on a social media driven project, it was a friendly competition. In 2015, our museums entered into #CarnegieClash, pitting collection objects against each other in a bracket-style competition for the public to vote for its favorite. In the end, Pittsburgh’s beloved Dippy beat out Miniature Railroad & Village®, Vincent van Gogh’s Wheat Fields after the Rain, and Andy Warhol’s Silver Clouds.

For @52museums, we decided to engage a different theme each day. As four disparate museums with singular collections, it can sometimes be a challenge to decide on themes or ideas that work for all of us. But after a bit of back-and-forth, we decided to feature some of the most important things to all of us—our people, our spaces, our collections and objects, and, of course, our city.

So far, we’ve explored #CarnegieSpaces, #CarnegiePeople, #CarnegieObjects, and #CarnegieTBT. Follow us @52museums, and stay tuned for #CarnegieBackstage, #CarnegieAnimals (yes, there will be cats), and #CarnegiePittsburgh.

Let us know what you think and what you want to see more of!

Being The Warhol, we of course had to have our own spin on the competition. We enlisted a local artist, Brian Holderman, to take over The Warhol’s voting page. To see our takeover in action, vote using warhol.org/carnegieclash—keep your eye on the header.

We’re in the second round of voting and down to three images from our collection: Silver Clouds, Flowers, and Red Jackie. Which Warhol artwork will you choose to represent The Warhol in the final four? Let’s get a Warhol work of art to go all the way and represent the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh for the next year!

Red Jackie, 1964
Wearing Oleg Cassini and white pearls, Jackie was the epitome of elegance—her look was timeless. Warhol made numerous portraits of her, in good times and in bad, and the source image for this portrait is from an early, happy time.

Flowers, 1964
These still-life paintings created in various sizes—from miniature to monumental—were depicted as artificial, acid-colored abstractions of the natural world. The source for the Flowers series was a Patricia Caulfield photograph of hibiscus from the June 1964 issue of Modern Photography. First shown in Leo Castelli gallery the same year, the canvases were arranged in multiple grid formations, covering the gallery walls.

Silver Clouds [Warhol Museum Series], 1994
This interactive sculptural installation encourages viewers to play with floating, reflective Silver Clouds. Working with engineer Billy Klüver, Warhol originally wanted to make a floating light bulb, but when shown the reflective, silver Scotchpak material at Bell Laboratories, Warhol reportedly said, “Let’s make clouds.”

The Warhol Store Sales Associate Erik Pitluga:

“Yesterday I found myself once again at Kennywood Park on a beautiful day. The park wasn’t too crowded, and I was able to ride nearly every ride. I’ve been visiting the park for as long as I can remember, and I try to make it there at least once each summer. This summer I was given the chance through The Warhol’s staff retreat. What set this visit apart from every other visit in my life was the smartphone riding around in my pocket with me. In the downtime between rides, I found myself taking photos and videos for the first time ever of the park that I’ve known and loved. Editing and sharing them provided me a few minutes of entertainment while I waited in line under the blistering sun.”

Swings

A video posted by Erik Pitluga (@rapturesupersale) on Jul 20, 2015 at 9:05pm PDT

Phantom’s Revenge

A video posted by Erik Pitluga (@rapturesupersale) on Jul 20, 2015 at 12:43pm PDT

It’s a bird. It’s a plane!

A video posted by Erik Pitluga (@rapturesupersale) on Jul 20, 2015 at 10:30am PDT

Check out Kennywood on Instagram.

We asked Ryan a few questions as he settles into his new role and home in Pittsburgh.

Q: Pittsburgh is a city of neighborhoods. Which did you choose to make your home? Why?

A: I moved to Downtown just last week. My partner and I like being in a diverse environment with a lot of things going on, and I prefer not to use a car when possible. I can walk to work, which is nice, there’s a local YMCA nearby and a lot of busses and such. I enjoyed visiting various neighborhoods while looking; I got a crash course on Pittsburgh in the past few weeks!

Q: What are you most excited to explore in Pittsburgh?

A: I think it’s a very beautiful city. I’m excited to walk over the Andy Warhol Bridge every day and watch the seasons change. I have met a lot of people who are very passionate about this city. I like that, and I’m sure it will all become clear eventually. I need to find the good pool-playing bars, and I’m looking forward to visiting the other Carnegie museums. Really, I’m just excited to make new friends, be a good colleague, and do some decent work.

Q: What artist do you most admire? You can’t say Warhol…

A: I guess one way to figure that out would be to look at the projects I’ve done. For instance, I greatly admire each artist in the 9 Artists exhibition I curated a few years ago. But, I admire so many; artists amaze me daily.

Q: With which object in The Warhol’s collection are you most excited to work?

A: I don’t think I can answer that yet, but many of the drawings and films have this very particular ability to explore intimacy in a vulnerable and surprising way that I keep coming back to. I think the most interesting part of Warhol’s legacy resides somewhere in the idea of intimacy.

Q: If a catastrophic event befell the museum, which artwork would you save?

A: Probably a drawing…that would be a beautiful story, no? Something small and symbolic that no wealthy collector is interested in, but that makes those who love Warhol raise their eyebrow and smile and say ‘hmmm.’ But, you know, the correct answer is that I guess it will come down to the circumstances and what the procedures are.

Q: What are you reading right now?

A: Douglas Crimp’s Getting the Warhol We Deserve.

Q: What can you not live without?

A: Love, food, water, shelter. Not necessarily in that order.

Q: You’re from Dublin. What do you miss the most from home?

A: My family and friends. Laughing and arguing.

Q: Are you an artist?

A: I think I approach the world a little bit like an artist might.

Q: We have two camps in the museum…cats or dogs?

A: Bunnies. No competition.

Check back soon to read about Ryan’s curatorial vision for The Warhol and where he sees the museum’s direction heading in the coming years.

Julia and Warhol had a close relationship. Like most great mothers, Julia cared for him during childhood illnesses and encouraged him to develop his artistic talent, having artistic inclinations herself, and in 1952 she left her home on Dawson Street in Pittsburgh, PA, to move into her son’s New York City apartment.

The pair began to collaborate on a number of projects, Warhol often enlisting his mother to add her old-fashioned penmanship to hundreds of his drawings, from advertisements to album covers to book illustrations. Julia penned “The Exotic Calf” onto a work Warhol illustrated for Flaming-Joffe Ltd., a small leather goods company he produced advertisements for in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and her detailed penmanship adorns the ca. 1961 drawing Horoscopes for the Cocktail Hour (“Champagne Cocktail”), included in the book Horoscopes for the Cocktail Hour by Robert Cumming and Warhol.[1]

Among her favorite subjects to draw were angels and cats, and Julia is perhaps best known for her calligraphy in 25 Cats Name Sam and One Blue Pussy (Warhol regularly kept the misspellings and errors in his mother’s texts, noted by the missing ‘d’ in ‘Named’). This book—a collaboration between Julia and her son—was published in 1954 and features 17 cat illustrations in Warhol’s signature blotted line style. The book was followed in 1960 by Holy Cats by Andy Warhol’s Mother, a 22-page tome featuring Julia’s cat and angel drawings and her calligraphy.

Julia remained in New York until 1971, when upon returning to Pittsburgh for a visit she suffered a stroke. She passed away the following year and was buried next to her husband in Bethal Park, PA, in St. John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Cemetery, the same cemetery where Warhol was laid to rest in 1987. You can see a live feed of the family plots through our Figment project.

Here’s to a happy mother’s day spent with friends and family, and hopefully some cats and angels too.

[1] “Champagne Cocktail” Place, with finesse, one lump sugar in cold champagne glass. Add a dash of aromatic bitters and a cube of ice. Fill glass with sparkling, chilled champagne. Elegant Librans enjoy their champagne on strawberries

[2] When you are in the Caribbean this Winter and have live Fish at your disposal Prepare a Waterzoie For any late afternoon snack. Any Fish will do. Scale and clean the fish and drop into a Pan with just enough cold salt water to cover, add a piece of bitter parsely [sic] roots and a few peppercorns, set to cook on a large open fire and serve in an earthenware timbale, (ED. note … since peppercorns are not available in the tropics be certain to xxx procure a supply From new york before you leave.)

What is not as well-known is how Warhol celebrated Christmas with his family and friends. Warhol’s nephew Donald Warhola says that a typical gift Warhol would receive as a child was a piece of fruit, such as an orange or a banana. While Warhol very much enjoyed giving gifts, Warhola suspects that this humble gift-giving tradition carried on into his adult life.

During visits to “Uncle Andy’s” New York townhouse, Warhola says Warhol would often go into a small elevator he used as a closet and pull out “gifts” for his nephews (note the price tag in photo above). During the early 1980s, on two occasions, Warhola remembers receiving wrist watches, which had been Warhol’s staff Christmas presents from the previous year. The plain-looking watches—Swatch and Muratti brands—were a treat for the nephews. Warhola thought they were “hip” and wore his Swatch for years. He has at least four watches from Warhol—each surplus from stashes of the staff Christmas gifts—and he quips, “Another year, another watch.”

Multiple years of gifting watches to his staff and nephews points to Warhol’s love of collecting, and to his collection of antique watches, which he often wore on his wrist on top of his sleeve.

“I have the watches in my nightstand,” says Warhola. “Every once in a while when I clean out the drawer, I come across them, and I remember.”

When Chief Archivist Matt Wrbican looked through the items while preparing the Time Capsule for the exhibition, a baby studio portrait signed on the verso in fanciful script “HRH the Prince of Wales” and rubberstamped “W. & D. Downey” caught his eye. In the TC526 “class picture,” the little Prince sits, propped up against the box, between two Marilyns.

Andy Warhol’s Time Capsule 526 and its contents, 1982, mixed archival material, Overall (Box): 10 x 18 x 14 in. (25.4 x 45.7 x 35.6 cm.), The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.

The museum’s archives team set out to research the photograph and came across a similar-looking image—a baby boy in the same highchair—on the website of the National Portrait Gallery in London. The boy is identified as King George VI, the younger brother to the baby in Warhol’s image—Prince Edward, Duke of Windsor, King Edward VIII, who famously abdicated the throne in 1936 to marry Wallis Simpson. The Gallery confirmed the identification of the baby in the Warhol image and said it was taken just before July 4, 1895, when W. &. D. Downey registered the copyright for the sitting, which included 10 poses, one of which The Gallery has online.

Brothers William and Daniel Downey were among the royal family’s favorite photographers. W. & D. Downey opened its first photography studio in the 1850s in Newcastle before opening a second in London in 1872, actively photographing until the mid-twentieth century.

Andy Warhol, Flowers, 1965 (signed and dedicated in 1967), from Sotheby’s “The Duke and Duchess of Windsor” estate sale catalogue, 1997, Lot 861

It is not known how Warhol came into possession of the photograph, but there are a few connections between the artist and the Duke and Duchess. A Warhol flower painting—reportedly given to The Duchess as a hostess gift by the artist himself in 1967—sold for $39,100 to an anonymous buyer in a 1997 Sotheby’s sale of the estate of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. The auction catalogue notes that their library held two books with Warhol’s work: “a Spanish primer illustrated by [him],” which is most certainly Margarita Madrigal’s Magic Key to Spanish (1953), and a copy of the 1975 THE Philosophy of Andy Warhol (from A to B and back again) with the typically terse dedication “Duchess (sic) / love A.W.” Former Warhol superstar Brigid Berlin, a Manhattan socialite and daughter of former Hearst media empire CEO Richard E. Berlin, talked about her parents’ friendship with the royal couple, and Warhol’s work was shown at the Tate Gallery in 1971, in the 1970s at The Mayor Gallery, and at Anthony d’Offay Gallery in 1986, all in London.

Warhol had no shortage of friends in the UK, including rock stars Mick Jagger and Nick Rhodes, heiress Catherine Guinness, photographers Cecil Beaton and David Bailey, and interior designer Nicky Haslam, and we can only assume that one of them played a role in his coming into possession of a baby portrait of a King of England.