Previously Unknown Podcast Episode 3: On Andy Warhol

Michael Dayton Hermann is a New York based multidisciplinary artist, award-winning arts professional with 20+ years of experience, and author of Warhol on Basquiat and Andy Warhol: Love, Sex, and Desire. His artwork draws upon the inescapable bombardment of digital imagery to confront the familiar and examine the subconscious from unexpected perspectives. In his role as Director of Licensing, Marketing, and Sales at The Andy Warhol Foundation, Hermann conceived Andy Warhol: Machine Made, a ground-breaking online auction of five unique NFTs presented by Christie’s, in addition to developing numerous high-profile Warhol projects including The Andy Warhol Diaries docuseries on Netflix and collaborations with Comme des Garçons, Dior, Tiffany, Supreme, Absolut and many others, generating nearly $100M in revenue to support the philanthropic work of the Andy Warhol Foundation.

Donna De Salvo is a curator, writer, and consultant who has worked with numerous national and international artists and museum collections.  She is currently Senior Adjunct Curator, Special Projects, Dia Art Foundation, where she most recently co—curated an exhibition of Jack Whitten's Greek Alphabet Paintings.  She was the Whitney's first Chief Curator and Deputy Director for Programs where she oversaw the museum’s curatorial department and program of exhibitions and acquisitions and was centrally involved in the development and design of the museum's new building and galleries.  She led the team for its inaugural exhibition, America Is Hard to See.  Ms. De Salvo has organized many exhibitions on the work of Andy Warhol, including: Andy Warhol: Disaster Paintings, 1963 and Andy Warhol: Hand-Painted Images, 1960-62 (both Dia); Success is a Job in New York: The Early Art and Business of Andy Warhol (Grey Art Gallery), and in 2018-19, the Whitney’s widely-acclaimed retrospective, Andy Warhol—From A to B and Back Again. Ms. De Salvo has also organized exhibitions or commissioned the work of Barbara Bloom, John Chamberlain, Roni Horn, Maren Hassinger, Anish Kapoor, Barbara Kruger, Steve McQueen, Barnett Newman, Hélio Oiticica, Ed Ruscha, Cy Twombly, Lawrence Weiner, and Joe Zucker, amongst many others. She has held curatorial positions at Tate Modern, London; the Wexner Center in Columbus, Ohio; Dia Art Foundation, in New York; and the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, and The Parrish Art Museum, formerly. Southampton.

Bob Colacello was born in Brooklyn, NY, and raised on Long Island. He graduated from Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in 1969, and Columbia University Graduate School of the Arts in 1971 with an MFA in Film. By then he had been hired to run Andy Warhol’s new magazine, Interview, a job he held for thirteen years, becoming one of the artist’s closest creative collaborators. His memoir of that period, Holy Terror: Andy Warhol Close Up, was acclaimed by The New York Times, as “the best-written and the most killingly observed” book on the so-called Pope of Pop.

From 1984 to 2017, Colacello was under exclusive contract to Vanity Fair, writing profiles and investigative pieces on cultural, social, and political subjects, ranging from the American heiress Doris Duke to the artist Balthus to King Juan Carlos of Spain. In 2004, he published a biography of the Reagans, Ronnie and Nancy: Their Path to the White House. He is the co-author, with photographer Jonathan Becker, of Studios by the Sea: Artists of the East End of Long Island. Bob Colacello curated a group show at the Vito Schnabel Gallery’s St. Moritz, Switzerland location in 2017, titled The Age of Ambiguity: Abstract Figuration / Figurative Abstraction. The exhibition featured works by Jean-Michel Basquiat, The Bruce High Quality Foundation, Jeff Elrod, Jacqueline Humphries, Rashid Johnson, Jeff Koons, Adam McEwen, Sterling Ruby, Borna Sammak, Julian Schnabel, Andy Warhol, and Jonas Wood.

A selection of Colacello’s photographs from the late 1970s and early 1980s was published by 7L Steidl in 2007, under the title OUT. Solo exhibitions of Colacello’s photographs have been presented at Vito Schnabel Gallery, New York and St. Moritz; Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris and London; Mary Boone Gallery, New York, NY; Govinda Gallery, Washington D.C.; Steven Kasher Gallery, New York, NY; the Boca Raton Museum of Art, Florida, and the Newport Art Museum, Rhode Island. Colacello’s photographs have been included in group exhibitions at the Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, PA; MoMA PS1, Long Island City, NY; Tate Modern, London; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; Hamburger Kunsthalle, Germany; Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY; and Museu Serralves, Portugal. In February 2021, Ivorypress presented a solo exhibition of Colacello’s photographs in Madrid, accompanied by an artist book, It Just Happened. Colacello was named Associate Director of the Peter Marino Art Foundation in Southampton, New York in the summer of 2021. He hosts a series of panel discussions, titled “Brunches with Bob,” featuring artists in the Marino collection, including Francesco Clemente, Tom Sachs, Rashid Johnson, Vik Muniz, Sanford Biggers, Jean-Michel Othoniel, and Johan Creten.