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Andy Warhol received a magazine commission to create a portrait addressed by Thursday’s Supreme Court decision. Photo: Leonardo Cendamo/Getty Images"/>

As I write this, it is late afternoon in Australia and after midnight on the American East Coast. I have put together some thoughts from two Anglican priest's homilies in the morning here, with ideas of my own and with images from the 1930's. Father Grant Edgecumbe this morning added the ideas: “Be Salt. Be light. Share a joke.” to tell his congregation of some ways to live out the reputed Assisi maxim: “Preach the Gospel ……… Use words if necessary." “Faith is relational.” said Father Michael Bowie in his homily in his national heritage church across a large city...

On Wednesday evening in between two contemporary art evening sales, a painting by Andy Warhol from his famed 1963 “Death and Disasters” series sold for $85 million at Sotheby’s New York. The result makes it one of the most expensive works by the Pop artist ever to be sold at auction. [Who was Andy Warhol, and why is he important?] Related Articles Large black and white painting in gallery. Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Auction Brings in $314.9 M., Buoyed by $85 M. Warhol and Records for Women Artists Banksy Comes Out On Top in EU Trademark Challenge, Allowing Him To Stay...

The Supreme Court said on Monday that it would review a closely watched copyright infringement lawsuit that pits the Andy Warhol Foundation against the photographer Lynn Goldsmith. The Court’s decision could have major implications for “fair use” of copyrighted materials in art. Few cases related to contemporary art have ever been heard by the Supreme Court. In 1984, Warhol used a 1981 photograph that Goldsmith had taken of the pop star Prince as the basis for a series of paintings. Goldsmith’s picture of Prince was shot on assignment for Newsweek. On commission for Vanity Fair, Warhol used the photograph as...

Lived: Aug 06, 1928 - Feb 22, 1987 (age 58) Warhol's other famous pop paintings depicted Coca-cola bottles, vacuum cleaners and hamburgers. He also painted celebrity portraits in vivid and garish colors; his most famous subjects include Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Mick Jagger and Mao Zedong. As these portraits gained fame and notoriety, Warhol began to receive hundreds of commissions for portraits from socialites and celebrities. His portrait " Eight Elvises" eventually resold for $100 million in 2008, making it one of the most valuable paintings in world history.

A woman from Dallas, Texas, faces up to life if prison if she is convicted on charges she damaged more than $300,000 worth of art at the end of a first date. The damaged art, owned by a prominent Houston attorney, includes two paintings by famed artist Andy Warhol.

Cory Arcangel, a Brooklyn, New York–based artist, was watching a video from 1985 on YouTube (below) in which artist Andy Warhol generates a "painting" of Blondie lead singer Debbie Harry on an early Amiga computer, when he wondered, what became of these files? After a quick message to the Andrew Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, he found out: Sitting in the archives, yet to be catalogued, was a series of 3.5-inch floppy disks. The Computer Club at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh set about retrieving and saving Warhol's mid-'80s digital experiments. When they succeeded this spring, headlines heralded the achievement for...

O’Neal testified on Monday that he was given the portrait by Warhol in 1980 and removed it from her condominium with permission of the trustee of Fawcett’s estate.

Lou Reed, the frontman of the rock band the Velvet Underground, has died at age 71, according to a report from Rolling Stone magazine. The Velvet Underground became one of the most influential bands in rock music by fusing art and music through its collaboration with Andy Warhol in the 1960s, Reuters reports. The magazine did not say how Reed died and his representatives could not immediately be reached.

Lou Reed, a massively influential songwriter and guitarist who helped shape nearly fifty years of rock music, died today. The cause of his death has not yet been released, but Reed underwent a liver transplant in May.

Velvet Underground legend Lou Reed holds a rare press conference at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, where he voices his concern about the NSA's surveillance methods as revealed by the Guardian. He also discusses the financial challenges for musicians in an era of free downloads and streaming services

The Velvet Underground was an American rock band formed in New York City, initially active from 1965 to 1973. The best-known members were Lou Reed and John Cale, who both went on to find success as solo artists- the legendary Andy Warhol also manged them for three years. Although never commercially successful, the band is often cited by many critics as one of the most important and influential groups of the 60s- trailblazers well-ahead of their time. The Velvet Underground first gained a degree of fame and in 1966 Manhattan when they were selected as the house band for Andy...

MoveOn.org is hosting an event at the Andy Warhol Museum to salute graphic artist Shepard Fairey, who created the Obama "Hope" poster. The artist was busy today working on an installation across the street from the museum.

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With a white mop of hair, crisp button-down shirt and tie, fake eyelashes aside, Marc Jacobs is transformed into fabled pop art Andy Warhol in Interview magazine’s June-July double issue.

ATLANTA - Runaway bride Jennifer Wilbanks has struck a deal for a TV project about her misadventures, irritating some people in her hometown. ReganMedia, which publishes books and produces TV shows and movies, said Thursday that it has acquired all media rights to the stories of Wilbanks and her fiance, John Mason. The New York company did not say whether any money had changed hands. In a statement, company President Judith Regan called the tale "an unexpected and compelling story of love and forgiveness that has certainly taught me a thing or two." ReganBooks has published novels such as Wally...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Contemporary and post-war art sold respectably if not spectacularly at Sotheby's on Tuesday led by "Liz," Andy Warhol's portrait of actress Elizabeth Taylor, which fetched $12,616,000. The vibrant Warhol silkscreen from 1963 was easily the top lot of the auction which took in just over $68 million, or $5 million above the low pre-sale estimate. Sixty lots of the 73 on offer found buyers and records were set for 10 artists. They included Chuck Close whose large-scale portrait "John" sold for $4,832,000 including Sotheby's commission. The work easily eclipsed the old mark of $2.8 million but...

How an Original Velvet Underground Acetate Wound Up in Portland (And Could Be the Most Expensive Record in the World!) Yard sales are like junior high dances. You show up full of anticipation, bump into a lot of people, and then leave disappointed. But in both cases, an ineffable sense of possibility spawns return, over and over. Maybe this time I'll slow dance with Tiffany Pfeiffer. Maybe this time I'll find a first edition of Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49. Maybe my life will change within the hour. And so earlier this year, with flickering expectation, Warren Hill...

President Bush was denounced as an 'evil f---' at a fundraiser this week for Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry. The event, held at Manhattan's Intrepid's Sea-Air-Space Museum Thursday night, featured a vulgarity laced performance by techno-rocker Moby, who invited Kerry onstage for a sing-along tribute to punk rock godfather Lou Reed. As the duo perfomed Reed's classic "Walk on the Wild Side," Kerry "froze," according to the New York Daily News, when Moby reached one particularly obscene portion of the song. Then, after the song ended, Moby denounced Bush to the crowd of Kerry-backers as "an evil f---," the...