SCENE: Another 15 Minutes

The 20th anniversary of Andy Warhol’s death next year is creating buzz about the famously misunderstood artist, who uniquely grasped the function of celebrity and mass media in modern society and redefined the barrier between art and commerce. This month Phaidon Press publishes a 15-lb., 624-page visual biography, including 2,000 images, many rare or unpublished. In September PBS will air a documentary by Ric Burns anointing Warhol as the most significant artist of the second half of the 20th century and featuring previously unseen footage of Warhol in his studio in 1962. Also this fall Sienna Miller will star in a biopic of Edie Sedgwick set in 1965, the year she became known as Warhol’s muse. And taking inspiration from his work, Levi’s just launched a Warhol Factory X line of ultrapremium jeans, tops and jackets at Barneys and Fred Segal. “Andy’s probably clapping his hands somewhere,” says photographer David McCabe, who followed Warhol around for an entire year circa 1964. “This is exactly what he planned. He was very calculated.”