Andy Warhol’s Velvet Rage And Beatury exhibition in Berlin, Neue Nationalgalerie got a lot of attention, especially when our team arrived on a Sunday afternoon and was surprised by the big queue of people who wanted to visit it for the last day of its presentation. The exhibition is curated by Klaus Biesenbach, Director of the Neue Nationalgalerie, along with Lisa Botti as co-curator. Curatorial assistance is provided by Nikola Richolt.
The title of the exhibition, “Andy Warhol: Velvet Rage and Beauty,” pays homage to the book The Velvet Rage (2005), in which author Alan Downs describes the experience of growing up and living as a gay man in a predominantly heterosexual world. Warhol died in 1987 at the age of just 58. He left behind a complex body of work that influenced subsequent generations of artists, but during his lifetime, he never experienced open acceptance for this specific aspect of his work. At a time when queerness seems increasingly under threat in many societies, the 2024 exhibition in Berlin takes the opportunity to showcase these powerful works for the first time—and hopefully not the last.
Andy Warhol is one of the most famous and widely-discussed artists of the 20th century. While his works featuring consumer goods and celebrities gained widespread recognition, one theme that appeared as early as the late 1940s and continued until his untimely death in 1987 received little attention: Warhol’s continuous quest to visually capture his (mostly male) ideal of beauty and desire.
For the first time, the Neue Nationalgalerie is presenting a comprehensive overview focused thematically on this central aspect of Warhol’s various creative phases.
With more than 300 works—including paintings, prints, drawings, photographs, Polaroids, films, and collages—the exhibition in the upper hall provides an extensive and inclusive understanding of Andy Warhol, who never publicly “came out” during his lifetime.
From Warhol’s early drawings to the Screen Tests and films of the 1960s, the Torso paintings of the 1970s, and his artistic collaborations with Jean-Michel Basquiat in the 1980s, along with countless photographs, Warhol explores physical beauty and vulnerability, fragility and strength, and his own diversity and fluidity—often through self-portraits. In his lifetime, many of his explicit depictions of the body were considered immoral, perverse, or even pornographic and illegal. As a result, many of these works received little visibility in the art world and were never introduced to a broader public.
From Warhol’s early drawings to the Screen Tests and films of the 1960s, the Torso paintings of the 1970s, and his artistic collaborations with Jean-Michel Basquiat in the 1980s, along with countless photographs, Warhol explores physical beauty and vulnerability, fragility and strength, and his own diversity and fluidity—often through self-portraits. In his lifetime, many of his explicit depictions of the body were considered immoral, perverse, or even pornographic and illegal. As a result, many of these works received little visibility in the art world and were never introduced to a broader public.
In the exhibition foyer, Double Elvis (1963) faces Portrait of Jean-Michel Basquiat as David (1984). Warhol’s Double Elvis portrays Elvis Presley, the iconic movie and music star, whose provocative moves made him a symbol of both scandal and desire. Based on a still from the 1960 Western Flaming Star, the image highlights Elvis’s waist-level pistol, adding a subtle sexual charge and linking the film image to Pop Art’s serial nature.
In 1984, Warhol created a double portrait of Basquiat, inspired by Michelangelo’s David. Using fragmented photos of his friend’s body, Warhol reassembled them into a monumental work. Like Double Elvis, this piece reflects Warhol’s fascination with repetition and idealization, echoing themes he explored in other portraits, such as those of Mick Jagger and Joe Dallesandro. Though separated by two decades, these works reveal Warhol’s consistent use of motifs like stylization, serialization, and the doubling of iconic figures.
In addition to the “Double Elvis” (1963) from the Nationalgalerie’s Marx Collection, special international loans come from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Mugrabi Collection, NYC; mumok – Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna; and a large number from the Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh.
To check the current program of the National Galerie in Berlin, click here.
