METZ.- This exhibition, at the Centre Pompidou-Metz, highlights the influence of New York's musical scene, underground cinema and choreographic vanguard in Andy Warhol’s (1928-1987) work, and celebrates the 50th anniversary of Warhol’s meeting with the New York rock band the Velvet Underground, before he became their producer.

"I never wanted to be a painter; I wanted to be a tap dancer", said Warhol, even if the work of the high priest of pop art is often reduced to its pictorial dimension. "I don't paint any more, I gave it up about a year ago and just do movies now. Painting was just a phase I went through." Many of the artist’s declarations show how his work, deeply protean, went beyond painting as Warhol himself thought.

All along the exhibition, music takes the visitor on a journey to rediscover Warhol’s work through 150-some photographs by Stephen Shore, electrified by the world at the Factory, Nat Finkelstein, Hervé Gloaguen, Fred W. McDarrah, David McGabe, Billy Name and Steve Schapiro, his movies and an assortment of Warhol’s most emblematic works (Ten Lizes, Brillo Soap Pads Box, Campbell's Soup Cans, White Disaster and Big Electric Chair). In addition, archives and vinyl record covers – considered by Warhol as genuine art work – confer a visual and auditory tone on the oeœuvre of Andy Warhol.

Recounting Warhol’s meeting with the Velvet Underground 50 years ago, decisive in the emergence of a darker sensibility in the swinging sixties, the exhibition space has been transformed into the legendary Silver Factory. With its walls covered in aluminium, the Factory was like a giant mirror, a studio as well as a meeting place for the underground scene, where concerts, screenings and parties took place. For artists, the Factory was a place for everyone; a place where Warhol worked on producing Superstars. As the archetype of the total art work itself, it hosted multimedia shows, a mix of artistic performance and night club where life and art work merged into one. Within the scope of the exhibition, and presented for the first time in France, the Exploding Plastic Inevitable invites visitors to dive deep into this fascinating experience.

Fine connoisseur of the experimental music of his time, Warhol transposed its composition rules into the pictorial field, and drew inspiration from it, producing all sorts of avatars: vinyl record sleeves, drawings, photos, polaroid shots, and more. Dance, and more precisely research by the Judson Dance Theater, played an essential part in the model Warhol transposed to the Factory. The presentation of RainForest (1968), a dance piece by Merce Cunningham where the dancers perform among Warhol’s Silver Clouds, comprises one of the exhibition's highlights.

The Warhol Underground exhibition was produced in partnership with the Andy Warhol Museum, one of the four Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh.