Blow Job + Horse

Date: 19 February 2002 | Season: Andy Warhol Tate

warhol_horse

BLOW JOB + HORSE
Tuesday 19 February 2002, at 6:30pm
London Tate Modern

The Factory as haven and outlet for homosexual expression.

Andy Warhol, Blow Job, USA, 1963, 41 min
Andy Warhol, Horse, USA, 1965, 100 min

Warhol’s Factory provided both a haven and outlet for overt homosexual expression. The notorious (but inoffensive) Blow Job is a single sustained close-up of an anonymous boy’s face as someone, out of camera range, performs fellatio on him: all of the action takes place below the frame. Horse exposes the machinery of cinema as the lights, microphone and studio surroundings remain in shot. The film foreshadows Lonesome Cowboys (1967-68) as a camp parody of the western, revealing the genre’s concealed homoeroticism.