Love Child
Andy Warhol and Philip Johnson had a love child that was born in 1966, two years after the World’s Fair in New York City.
The love child lives in the New York State Pavilion (NYSP), which was built as a union between Warhol’s art and Johnson’s architecture. Johnson’s structure produced the ideal womb for Warhol to give birth to their love child named Silver Clouds. Silver Clouds is constructed of mylar pillows that float within and above the NYSP as representations of their love for each other’s work. Their love child’s spirit is alive and well as inhabitants frolic on and within the mylar pillows. The NYSP and Silver Clouds combine to provide a space to cavort and therefore enable people to freely love one another. The offspring of the frolicking will become cyclical and future generations will return to the NYSP to produce their own love children. Warhol and Johnson seems an unlikely pair to romp in public, but their love child from 1966 is suddenly fifty years old. Half a century has passed, yet Warhol and Johnson’s physical offspring is youthful and playful as it is open to all as an environment for episodes of hijinks. Warhol and Johnson’s careers were based in and around decades of antics to disrupt the norm in art and architecture and their love child continues to set that precedent. This type of precedent is always needed to reveal that the avant-garde of one moment in time eventually becomes the standard of another generation. What once was a pavilion for a World’s Fair has now become a house for a love child. Silver Clouds is looking forward to a rebirth with all the attitude and soul that her parents Warhol and Johnson embodied. Acting as host, Silver Clouds represents part of the past and future, but she’ll always be a house in the mood for love.
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