Like a Little Dog: Andy Warhol's Queer Ecologies

Like a Little Dog explores Andy Warhol's lifelong personal and artistic interest in nonhuman life, showing that Warhol and his collaborators wondered about the qualities humans share with other life forms, the vulnerability of life, and the unpredictability of desire. It disputes the traditional claim that culture and creativity distinguish the human from the merely animal and vegetal, exploring the possibility of art as an earthy and organic force.

Format: Hardback
Length: 232 pages
Publication date: 22 November 2022
Publisher: University of California Press

Like a Little Dog delves into a previously overlooked aspect of Andy Warhol's artistic journey: his lifelong fascination with nonhuman life. In this captivating book, Anthony E. Grudin provides a fresh perspective on the iconic artist by exploring the intersection of animal and plant studies. Through this lens, Grudin reveals that Warhol and his collaborators engaged in the same inquiries that captivate these fields, such as exploring the shared qualities between humans and other life forms, the interconnectedness of vulnerability and desire, and the rigid enforcement of the human/animal/plant hierarchy.

Warhol's fascination with nonhuman life permeated every aspect of his artistic practice, beginning in his early years and continuing throughout his prolific career. His close creative collaboration with his mother, Julia Warhola, played a significant role in shaping his transgressive animality. This unconventional approach permeated Warhol's diverse artistic endeavors, from his commercial illustrations and erotica to his writing, painting, installation, photography, and film.

Grudin challenges the conventional notion that culture and creativity set humans apart from animals and plants. Instead, he proposes that art can be seen as an earthy and organic force, imbued with appetite and desire at every level. By arguing that nonhuman life is central to Warhol's work in ways that mirror and anticipate influential texts by Toni Morrison and Ocean Vuong, Like a Little Dog establishes an entirely unexplored field in Warhol scholarship.

This groundbreaking study offers a fresh and insightful perspective on Warhol's artistic oeuvre, shedding light on his profound fascination with the natural world and its profound impact on his creative vision. It is a must-read for anyone interested in Warhol, art, and the complexities of human-nonhuman relations.

Weight: 771g
Dimension: 254 x 178 x 18 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780520383579