SFX: A Polaroid camera snaps a photo: we hear the whir of the motor, and the film being ejected from the camera. 

NARRATOR:  

Andy Warhol was the very first master of the selfie. He was hardly ever seen without his Polaroid camera in hand. He snapped pictures of — and with — everyone he knew. It’s like he predicted the age of Instagram when he said, “In the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes.”  

SFX: polaroid snaps, but sounds echoe-y, lots of reverb 

NARRATOR:  

But this image, made late in his career, feels different from those earlier snapshots and silkscreens. After capturing every face from Marilyn Monroe to Chairman Mao, here Warhol presents a very unglamorous — almost vulnerable — portrait of himself. 

Andy’s disembodied head is floating in a sea of black, washed over in lavender, a few drips drifting above him like bubbles. His face is low in the frame, with his signature white wig sticking up at all angles, dominating, demanding equal attention to the artist who made it part of his look.  

There are portraits of faces, portraits of busts. This seems to be, in some ways, a portrait of a wig … and the man who lived beneath it.