from the series Ladies and Gentleman

In 19 75 Andy Warhol received one of the most substantial (and problematic) commissions from the Italian art dealer Luciano Anselmino: a series of portraits of New York drag queens and transgender people. Already fascinated by the queer culture, Warhol, named the series Ladies and Gentleman, after the Rolling Stones’ 19 74 concert film, but decided to leave the subjects anonymous. For fifty dollars each, customers and patrons of the Golden Grape nightclub were invited to the Factory to pose in front of Warhol’s Polaroid, unaware they were part of a much larger project. Warhol exceeded the commission: he took over five hundred photos, in which people were portrayed in a rather classic style, shown in half-length and three-quarter views. Later the photos were used as the basis for silk-screen printing with torn strips of bright colours highlighting certain details of eyes, hair and clothing, following the technique he had developed for the famous Mao works in 1971, and then retouched by hand. The series was first exhibited in a controversial monographic exhibition in Ferrara, in 1975, and then in 1976 at Anselmino’s gallery in Milan, accompanied by a text written by Pier Paolo Pasolini, probably the last essay he wrote before his death, and one of his few pieces about contemporary art.