According to Andy Warhol, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes. Hardly anyone in his retinue, however, proved able to withstand the scrutiny of the movie camera he began using in 1963. When Warhol picked up a 16mm Bolex, he continued the photographic experiments he began by using photo booth portraits of the people who inhabited his studio.

For the movies, each of his subjects received pretty much the same instructions: Be still and don’t blink - for the duration of a roll of film, which was three minutes. While most people have a sense of self that allows them to strike a pose while making an entrance, or to get the attention of a stranger - or to maintain a look from one frame to the next before a still camera - Warhol’s experimental films, which he called Screen Tests, show that the guise usually crumbles in a surprisingly short time. His title couldn’t have been more apt; although his subjects were not being filmed to see how they might perform in a future project, everyone's ego was severely tested.

Left to right: Installation view; photo: Scott Rudd, courtesy the Museum of Modern Art. Andy Warhol. Kiss (1963-64), courtesy The Andy Warhol Museum. Andy Warhol. Screen Test: Lou Reed (1966), courtesy The Andy Warhol Museum.

Twelve Screen Tests were selected for an exhibition opening this Sunday at the Museum of Modern Art, and are projected on the gallery walls at large scale and within frames, some measuring seven feet by nine feet. The Screen Tests were filmed at the standard speed of 24 frames per second (fps) but were always intended to be projected at 16 fps. This results in a slow, dreamy, fluidity that borders on the surreal, and which prompted Warhol’s subjects to call his films, “Stillies,” a term that has stuck. Another result is that each three-minute take had a duration of four minutes when projected.

In addition to the Screen Tests, Kiss, a 54-minute montage of couples kissing, is projected in a 50-seat movie theater created especially for the exhibition. Utterly mesmerizing, Kiss shoots down what was the prevailing notion of Hollywood glamour at the time it was created.

Andy Warhol: Motion Pictures, opens Sunday, December 19^th and continues through March 21, 2011. MoMA invites everyone to create their own Screen Tests and contribute them to the museum’s multimedia website. Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53^rd Street, NY, NY.

121710