LIMA.- MATE - Museo Mario Testino announces a new exhibition in their Temporary Exhibition Space of films by American artist and filmmaker Andy Warhol, renowned figure in the Pop Art movement. Open to the public from Saturday 13th December, this is the first exhibition of the artist’s films in Peru, and will be opened by Eric Shiner, Director of The Andy Warhol Museum.

Warhol (1928 - 1987) became famous worldwide for his work as a painter, film director, producer, writer and as an influential member of various social circles that included prominent intellectuals and celebrities. In the short five year period between 1963 and 1968, he created 650 films, many of which are now considered classic avant-garde films. The many “Screen Tests” recorded by Warhol particularly stood out- films where the artist portrayed an array of characters who visited his studio known as “The Factory”.

“I only wanted to find great people and let them be themselves…and I’d film them for a certain length of time and that would be the movie.” – Andy Warhol, POPism: The Warhol 60’s.

Andy Warhol: Film Portraits at MATE - Museo Mario Testino is set to show some of the most important films from the artist’s career made during the 1960s. This selection includes the videos; Kiss (1964 - 1965), a series of short films with the participation of people like Naomi Levine, Gerard Malanga, Rufus Collins, Ed Sanders and others; Mario Banana (1964) played by Mario Montez, actor and great icon of the scene during the 50s and 60s; Lupe (1965) and Face (1965) with the appearance of the model and muse Edie Sedgwick, and a selection of Screen Tests with video portraits of Marcel Duchamp, Billy Linich, Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, Nico, among others.

“We’re thrilled to present the films of Andy Warhol in Peru for the first time,” says Geralyn Huxley, curator of film and video at The Andy Warhol Museum. “It is fitting that Warhol’s film portraits are featured in the museum dedicated to Mario Testino, a photographer whose work has captured the luminaries of his day, as Warhol’s work did in his day.”

In the words of Mario Testino, founder of MATE - Museo Mario Testino “When I travelled to New York in the 1980s I was asked to photograph Andy Warhol for the Italian magazine Per Lui. I went to his studio and I was impressed by how he worked with so many people in such an embracing way. He was an artist who broke the rules and that’s what most influenced my career. It seems important to show his work at MATE and for the public to see part of his oeuvre of work which isn’t perhaps the most well known, but has marked many ways in which cinema is done today.”

The exhibition Andy Warhol: Film Portraits opens its doors to the public on Saturday, December 13, 2014 and will close on Sunday, March 15, 2015. Entrance is S /. 3.00 and opening hours are Tuesday to Sunday from 11:00 a.m. to 8:00 pm. MATE - Mario Testino Museum is located at Avenida Pedro de Osma 409, Barranco.

MATE is sponsored by Lexus and the exhibition Andy Warhol: Film Portraits is conducted through the auspices of the BCP - Private Banking and Multivision. It is through the support of these companies who are committed to culture in Peru that we can realize efforts like this new exhibition.