In the summer of 1965, Andy Warhol was loaned consumer grade video equipment by the Norelco Company. He recorded 10 tapes, including one of Edie Sedgwick. On September 29, 1965, Richard Ekstract, publisher of Tape Recording magazine who had arranged the loan, threw a party at an abandoned private railway station under the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York City, where these tapes were shown. Later that fall, Warhol shot the film Outer and Inner Space, in which he seats Edie Sedgwick in front of a television screen showing her pre-recorded video image; as the videotape plays, she responds to her own duplicate and talks with someone off-screen. The result is a fascinating dual portrait, which highlights Sedgwick’s beauty as well as her fascinating personality.
On the 50th anniversary of this 1965 party, The Warhol celebrates this seminal moment in the history of video art by streaming excerpts of the original video tapes featuring Edie Sedgwick on September 29, 2015, at 2 p.m., on Periscope. Follow us on Twitter @thewarholmuseum to be part of this live event.
