UNDERGROUND MOVIE FLIP BOOK
Andy Warhol and David Dalton [Designers]
Andy Warhol and David Dalton [Designers]: UNDERGROUND MOVIE FLIP BOOK. New York: Roaring Fork Press, 1966. First edition [published in ASPEN Number 3 : The Pop Art Issue]. 32mo. Stapled printed self wrappers. [72] pp. Halftone stills from Andy Warhol’s “Kiss” and Jack Smith’s “Buzzards Over Bagdad,” arranged as a reversible Flip Book. Lightly handled, but a nearly fine example. 2.75 x 6 stapled booklet presenting snippets from Andy Warhol’s “Kiss” and Jack Smith’s “Buzzards Over Bagdad” as a flip book. Solo edition of this small artists’ book, originally included in ASPEN Number 3 : The Pop Art Issue.
For the uninitiated, ASPEN called itself a multimedia magazine of the arts and was originally published from 1965 to 1971. Each issue of Aspen was delivered to subscribers in a box, which contained a variety of media: printed matter in different formats, phonograph recordings, and even a reel of Super-8 film.
Aspen was conceived by Phyllis Johnson, a former editor for Women's Wear Daily and Advertising Age. While wintering in Aspen, Colorado, she got the idea for a multimedia magazine, designed by artists, that would showcase "culture along with play." So in the winter of 1965, she published her first issue. "We wanted to get away from the bound magazine format, which is really quite restrictive," said Johnson.
Each issue had a new designer and editor. "Aspen," Johnson said, "should be a time capsule of a certain period, point of view, or person." The subject matter of issue number 1 and issue number 2 stayed close to the magazine's namesake ski spa, with features on Aspen's film and music festivals, skiing, mountain wildlife, and local architecture.
If Aspen was an art director's dream, it was also an advertiser's nightmare. The ads, stashed at the bottom of the box, were easily ignored. And although Aspen was supposed to publish quarterly, in reality the publication date of each issue was as much of a surprise as the contents. "All the artists are such shadowy characters," publisher Johnson said, "that it takes months to track them down." After issue 5+6, there were no more ads in the magazine.
Perhaps Aspen was a folly, but it was a vastly pleasurable one, with a significant place in art history. The list of contributors included some of the most interesting artists of the 20th Century. And as an examplar of creative publishing, Aspen was a wonder. Its contents, however, are all but lost: few copies of Aspen have survived.
Kiss is a 1963 silent American experimental film directed by Andy Warhol, which runs 50 minutes and features various couples—man and woman, woman and woman, man and man—kissing for 3½ minutes each. The film features Naomi Levine, Gerard Malanga, Rufus Collins, Johnny Dodd, and Ed Sanders. Kiss was followed by Eat (1963), Sleep (1963), Blow Job (1964) and Blue Movie (1969). This was one of the first films Warhol made at The Factory in New York City. [Wikipedia]
Buzzards Over Bagdad is a 1951 8 minute American short film directed by Jack Smith and starring Jeanne Philips [Mehboubeh] and Doris [The Love Bandit]: MEHBOUBEH, the slave woman, lifts the artificial elephant off the love bandit's chair . . . and creates a pasty novelty . . . .