Product Description
Factory Made: Warhol and the Sixties is a fascinating look at the avant-garde group that came together—from 1964 to 1968—as Andy Warhol’s Silver Factory, a cast that included Lou Reed, Nico, Edie Sedgwick, Gerard Malanga, Paul Morrissey, Joe Dallesandro, Billy Name, Candy Darling, Baby Jane Holzer, Brigid Berlin, Ultra Violet, and Viva. Steven Watson follows their diverse lives from childhood through their Factory years. He shows how this ever-changing mix of artists and poets, musicians and filmmakers, drag queens, society figures, and fashion models, all interacted at the Factory to create more than 500 films, the Velvet Underground, paintings and sculpture, and thousands of photographs.

Between 1961 and 1964 Warhol produced his most iconic art: the Flower paintings, the Marilyns, the Campbell’s Soup Can paintings, and the Brillo Boxes. But it was his films—Sleep, Kiss, Empire, The Chelsea Girls, and Vinyl—that constituted his most prolific output in the mid-1960s, and with this book Watson points up the important and little-known interaction of the Factory with the New York avant-garde film world. Watson sets his story in the context of the revolutionary milieu of 1960s New York: the opening of Paul Young’s Paraphernalia, Truman Capote’s Black and White Ball, Max’s Kansas City, and the Beautiful People Party at the Factory, among many other events.

Interspersed throughout are Watson’s trademark sociogram, more than 130 black-and-white
photographs—some never before seen—and many sidebars of quotes and slang that help define the Warholian world. With Factory Made, Watson has focused on a moment that transformed the art and style of a generation.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 10 reviews)

couldn't put it down - - excellent book

wow... what amazing people, and what an amazing book! i finished it in two days, that's how easy and addicting it is to read. very detailed, and full of great pictures. i closed the book wishing that i could be there, somehow, at the factory in the sixties; i felt like i had bonded with Edie, Billy, Brigid, Candy, Jackie, Holly, Nico... it is a profoundly sad and haunting book, considering how the majority of these people are dead from liver failure, cancer, overdose, suicide. i will definitely read it again and again.
April 17, 2008

Excellent rendering of the events of the time

This book gives an excellent history of Warhol's factory from it's genesis to it's demise, with lotza cool pics too.
May 17, 2007

Good book, but where's the great one?

I wrote this awful review of Billy Name's book on Warhol, and I apologize, because since then I've learned more.
Meanwhile, the book I just read, "Factory Make" is good. Realy good. But not that good.

April 23, 2006

Behind every man ...

... lies the Factory regulars. Watson tells the stories of each of the Silver Factory regulars in parallel, with attention to detail and balance. No shortage of talent and no shortage of self-destructiveness in this group. Focusing on the sixties seems wise because Warhol accomplished little outside of the sixties. Not focusing on Warhol seems wise because such a gifted group has usually been neglected.

This quality of research and of writing are rare. And, if the draft ever comes back, you can learn from this book several good ways to be rejected.

September 16, 2005

Factory Made Well

Many books and articles have been written about Andy Warhol, The Factory, The Silver Sixties and Andy's Superstars but, this book is the only one that takes a comprehensive look at all of the elements of that era that could only happen in the Sixties. I initially got this book because I'm a huge fan of Edie Sedgwick (after having read the AMAZING Edie: An American Biography) and love to find new info and pictures of her. This book didn't shed any new light on Edie (except for the fact she had an affair with the Velvet's John Cale). In fact, I was surprised that the author took alot of info from Edie's biography verbatim. Other than that slight oversight, I cannot get enough of this book. Watson did an amazing job of chronicling the lives of the (many) Superstars Andy "created" and stuck in front of the camera to "say nothing". As much as Andy and his ilk wanted to "say nothing", just their existence said so much and is still being talked about today. Waston also did a superb job of capturing the whys and hows of The Factory, even going so far as to have side notes of the Factory's lingo and quotes from Superstars and other artists. One quote that struck me and sums up is this book was given by John Richardson. He stated, "Although Andy Warhol's famous movies are among the most boring ever made, this book about them is endless fascinating". FM is filled with trivia and candid photos (some of them, never before seen) of that weird and special time at the Factory (the most productive and artistic in my opinion). If you're a fan of Edie, Andy or any of the superstars, this book is a MUST have! You will endlessly re-read the text and pour over the pictures time and again.
June 02, 2005

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