Warhol-Mania: pre-packaged for your consumption

Andy Warhol Portfolios: Life & Legends, ¡Viva David Tineo! A Retrospective of Tucson’s Muralist and Art Educator and Ed Mell: Paintings of the New West
Receptions: Friday, February 26, see times below
Director’s Circle Champagne reception starts at 4:30pm
Museum members, sponsors, and special guests reception starts at 5:30pm (non-members $10)
Tucson Museum of Art, 140 N. Main

Members only receptions at the TMA kick off  the weekend, so if you’re special, you get to go to these for free.  The 5:30pm reception is open to the public, but non-members must pay $10. Tucson icon, muralist, educator, and activist David Tineo and Phoenix painter, sculptor and illustrator Ed Mell will be there in person. Tineo is most famous for his scores of murals and paintings celebrating Chicano culture and examining Mexican and American history. Mell’s work is standard Western genre fare consisting largely of romanticized landscapes and nature studies, but his quartz-like treatment of these subjects give many pieces unexpectedly futuristic edge.

Ed Mell: "Desert Flare"

Factory Party with Under Velvetground
Starts at 7:30pm
The Rialto, 318 E. Congress
$10

Experience a recreation of Andy Warhol’s Silver Factory, right down to the “man” himself — guests are welcome to lounge with “Warhol” and his “Super Stars.” Music from Under Velvetground — a Velvet Underground cover band — projections, dancers, and other shenanigans. Guests are encouraged to dress in their 1960s worst.

POP
Starts at 10:30pm
The Rialto, 318 E. Congress
$3

The Factory Party changes hands with Powhaus Productions taking over the Rialto once again for POP, so be as wild as you want to be as a Warhol film character, art piece, 60s scenester. Musical guests include Naim Amor and other surprise guests, rock and roll music DJed by Dan Shapiro, and hosted by Kitty Katt, Desert Diamond Dallas, and Clif Taylor. This time they are finally adding a photobooth set — probably along with their usual party photogs documenting dancefloor revelers — so you can order prints and proudly display yourself in all your outrageous costumed glory above the fireplace mantle.

Warhol: Dylan to Duchamp
Reception: Saturday, February 27, 6pm-12 mid
Eric Firestone Gallery, 403 N. 6th Ave.

Kroll recently unearthed a mother lode of photographs exclusive to the show by local photographer Bob Broder who spent two days on location with Warhol on “Lonesome Cowboys” in Oracle, Arizona in 1968. His black-and-white prints of the pale, bleached blond, Arriflex-toting greenhorn in a cowboy hat haunting the ghost town sets of Rancho Linda Vista and Old Tucson are the revelation of the show. In tandem will be a continuous viewing of “Warhol Out West,” local auteur Charles Littler’s Super-8 documentary on “Cowboys.”

Kroll says of the exhibit, “Like any important phenomena, it is the documentation that colors the subject, that defines the artist and the time. Andy was a major cultural force. He lived in the limelight. He loved to be in front, as well as behind, the camera.”

P.S. I hear there is some sort of afterparty for this at the gallery that’s supposed to go till 4am. VSP’s (Very Special People) only? I don’t know, but now you do.

TYP First Fridays: Pop Art
Friday, March 5, 8pm-12 mid
Tucson Museum of Art, 140 N. Main
Admission: $10 before 8:30pm, $20 after 8:30pm; bring 3 canned goods for the Tucson Community Food Bank and receive $5 off admission

TYP (Tucson Young Professionals) First Fridays provides the opportunity for corporate types of all ages to network and get a dose of culture. The evening starts off with a special community event – two local organizations Tucson Digital Arts Community (TDAC) and American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) will compete in an interactive “Canned Art Extravaganza” fundraiser for the Tucson Community Food Bank. Each group will be challenged to create a piece of art inspired by Andy Warhol, using canned goods donated by guests. Bring three cans to donate for the event and receive $5 off admission, then watch as these artists go to work. In celebration of the Pop Art theme, a DJ will get the dance floor hopping inside while a local band provided by Tucson Rock Alliance will perform in the museum courtyard. The main gallery will be open for the Andy Warhol Portfolios: Life & Legends exhibition, including portraits of Muhammad Ali, Marilyn Monroe and a Campbell’s Soup series.  Hors d’oevures are free, but bring cash for the bar and business cards to swap for the 8-9pm networking reception.

POP! Goes The Loft
Thursdays in March, 8pm
The Loft Cinema, 3233 E. Speedway
Admission: $10 general, $8 members

Every Thursday in March starting at 8pm, The Loft will be screening various Warhol films including Poor Little Rich Girl, Kitchen, Vinyl, Couch, Blow Job and My Hustler. Bring a can of Campbell’s Soup to any of the four Warhol nights in March (all soup collected will be donated to the Tucson Community Food Bank), and you’ll be entered into the POP RAFFLE for a Warhol-inspired prize pack. The series kicks off on Thursday, March 4 with Lonesome Cowboys.  Filmed at Old Tucson Studios and Linda Vista Dude Ranch, the film is Andy Warhol’s bizarre satire of Hollywood westerns, very loosely inspired by Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. There will also be a costume contest before the movie, so come in your best Warhol-inspired get-up for the chance win a (sur)prize.

Picture This! Art for Families: Wonder of Warhol
Sunday, March 7 at 1pm
Tucson Museum of Art, 140 N. Main
Free

Mondays at the Museum: Wine, Chocolate and Warhol
Monday, March 8 at 3pm
$45 each session or $110 for all three Mondays at the Museum
Tucson Museum of Art, 140 N. Main

Join Ryan Granruth, sommelier, The Lodge at Ventana Canyon, and experience a pairing of wine/champagne and chocolate, and then tour the Andy Warhol Portfolios: Life & Legends exhibition with Chief Curator Julie Sasse. Mondays at the Museum is a series of seminars leading up to the CRUSH Wine Festival on April 9 and 10. Tickets can be purchased online or by calling 520-624-2333 ext. 111.