While it's true there are some Warhol pieces I've enjoyed simply for their cleverness, there's very little to nothing of his I'd ever dare call "art."

That's something I could never get T to understand while he was still alive, that the people who came to his shows wanted his art, but they also wanted to meet and learn about the artist. He always insisted there was a divide, and I always told him that even if there was, his fans wanted to meet and get to know, on some slight level, HIM as a person and as a creative individual whose work they loved.

He was too close to his canvases to understand why anybody else would make a fuss, but at $1500-$2500 a pop, the collector obviously "got it."

I just wish he'd lived long enough to be comfortable in the skin of fame...but he didn't.

Star-fucker? If that were so, I'd have found somebody easier to live with. He wasn't near "star" until we met and I said "my God, you HAVE to get these paintings out to where somebody other than you can see them." And I wont even mention the album covers and stuff he did, because it doesn't matter.

So yeah, star-fucker. Assbag.

fnarf: I somewhat agree with you, but I also can see it from a fan perspective. T and I stood in line once to meet the surviving animators who worked on freaking Snow White.

THOSE were artists. I think all of them except maybe one or two are dead now (we met them back in the 90s, when they were all in their 80s) and I don't regret having done so. Talking to them did add to the film experience, if nothing more than for having heard some of the behind-the-scenes stories about the creation of the film.

So yeah, on some level, meeting the artist can add a layer to the overall experience of whatever the "art" happens to be, at least for me.