I’ll Be Your Mirror. Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests

Scenography

The exhibition shows a selection of Andy Warhol’s famous cinematic portraits – the Screen Tests. Stefan Hurtig developed an exhibition design that is inspired by set photographs from Warhol’s Factory studio.

Even as a child, Andy Warhol was fascinated by Hollywood films and stars. Between 1964 and 1966, Warhol directed 472 film portraits using a 16mm camera that he had acquired in 1963. For this, the artist brought people from his surroundings, stars, actors, writers and artists in front of his camera. Each shoot took no more than two and a half minutes – exactly one roll of film at a shooting speed of 24 frames per second. The films were played back at 16 frames per second, making them just over four minutes long on average. This temporal stretching lends the expression of the filmed poses something sublime, sometimes even surreal.

A spiral-shaped tour draws visitors into the museum until they reach the last, completely windowless room. Along an exhibition route that creates five different spatial atmospheres, the Screen Tests are presented in various forms, sizes and combinations. Stefan Hurtig draws on the laconic vocabulary of the improvised settings of the Screen Tests. In documentary photos and in some of the Screen Tests themselves, one can see the improvised shooting situation of these films: quickly constructed light stands made of chairs, simple plywood panels as backgrounds, low-tech materials as mounts and seating and walls and pillars covered with silver foil. These elements are cited in Stefan Hurtig’s exhibition design, which is more reminiscent of mirrors than mirroring.