Andy Warhol’s “Screen Tests”
Moving Images that Practice Standing Still

If the camera is a weapon, then the only defense is to gaze back. Those who are filmed find themselves in an interesting and contradictory situation: On the one hand, at the mercy of the camera, while on the other hand, a space is created that the subject can occupy and fill. One can, so to speak, create an image of oneself.

A Penchant for Stillness

Hardly anyone knew how to use the dynamic between artist and model as effectively as pop art legend Andy Warhol (1928–1987). Even if today the foreman of the New York art commune The Factory is primarily associated with his glamourous surroundings and a short-winded consumer world of “15 minutes of fame,” Warhol certainly possessed a fondness for stillness and introspection. And quite obviously, an impressive amount of patience.

In his Screen Tests series, the artist brought hundreds of more or less prominent personalities from the cultural scene in front of his camera between 1963 and 1966, including the musician John Cale, the painter Salvador Dalí, the artists Niki de Saint Phalle and Yoko Ono, and the singer and style icon Nico. And that is enough to describe the project. Because what is otherwise only the prelude to the actual recordings — lighting, camera settings, checking the telegenic charisma of the actors — is the actual work here. The black-and-white Screen Test short films concentrate entirely on the faces of their protagonists who move only minimally, if at all. The artist wanted no sounds, no action — just maximum deceleration. 

Not surprisingly, the series of works was inspired by a collection of mug shots of criminals. Warhol’s camera experiments are indeed formally films but feel as close to photography — and perhaps even portraiture — as the moving image can get. A medium of restlessness trying its hand at stillness. The gaze of the static camera, however, is not quite as unforgiving as in the police photos — or in a Hollywood or modeling agency casting. The Screen Tests do not want to judge or measure; they want to observe and be an archive of moments.

Intimate, Exceptional Works

How powerful and emotional a duel of gazes can be — with or without a screen — is demonstrated time and again in art. Marina Abramović, for example, proved this in 2010 with her endurance performance The Artist is Present. For three months, the artist sat silently opposite visitors to the MoMA in New York — and moved many of them to tears, simply by looking back.
Marina Abramović, “The Artist is Present,” 2010, Museum of Modern Art, New York, March 9–May 31, 2010 | Andrew Russeth, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons Some of the participants in the Screen Tests also react violently to being observed by the camera. Staying still is particularly difficult when being watched and made vulnerable. Some of those filmed protect themselves by looking away, others accept the challenge and look unwaveringly at the viewers for three minutes. In today’s media world, which is often based on quick cuts and consumable morsels, the Screen Tests are a somewhat anachronistic exercise in patience. One that is worthwhile, however, because the films are intimate, exceptional works in Warhol’s career, which has so often been defined by his fascination with the superficial. Artists, models, and audiences meet here in such a human way that, at some point, everyone lays down their weapons.