Warhol Beyond the Icons: Film and Print in Ghent

All Tomorrow’s Parties brings together printed material from the Herbert Foundation archive and 22 films on loan from The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. The exhibition presents Warhol as filmmaker, writer, publisher and book maker, moving beyond the image of the artist known mainly for his Pop Art paintings. The selection of films changes during the exhibition, allowing visitors to discover different aspects of Warhol’s cinematic world.

Warhol described his working method as “carefully unplanned”. He often set up a camera and allowed people, conversations and time to unfold with minimal intervention. The Screen Tests are a striking example. Figures including Marcel Duchamp, Lou Reed, Nico, Edie Sedgwick, Susan Sontag and Bob Dylan simply face the camera. Originally filmed at 24 frames per second and shown at 16, the portraits acquire a slow, intense quality. The visitor is left watching people who are also, unmistakably, watching back.

Empire

The film programme changes during the exhibition. From October to December 2026, visitors can see Empire (1964), Camp (1965) and Hedy (1966), alongside the continuously screened Screen Tests. From January to March 2027, the selection changes to Sleep, My Hustler and Poor Little Rich Girl. From April to June, Blow Job, Afternoon and The George Hamilton Story take their place. Empire, which observes New York’s Empire State Building for hours, is less a conventional film than an experience of looking, waiting and noticing.

Poster Andy Warhol

Blow Job, made in 1964, also shows how radically Warhol approached filmmaking. The camera remains focused on a man’s face, while the sexual act suggested by the title is never shown explicitly. Warhol frequently worked with non-professional performers, limited direction and long takes. His films can appear almost effortless, yet this apparent lack of intervention was itself part of his artistic method. Fascinated by cinema from an early age, Warhol visited cinemas regularly in Pittsburgh and later on in New York and dreamed of Hollywood.

Printed matters Warhol.

The exhibition also explains a less obvious connection between Warhol and the Herbert Foundation. Warhol is not represented by artworks in the collection of Annick and Anton Herbert. Instead, he belongs to their Collection Imaginaire: artists who form important intellectual and artistic reference points for the collectors, even when their works are absent from the physical collection. The Herberts were particularly interested in Warhol’s printed matter and films because these challenged conventional ideas about art, authorship and the art world.

The 'Loods'

For international visitors, Herbert Foundation is a contemporary art institution in central Ghent that houses the collection and archives of Annick and Anton Herbert. Its 'Loods' venue presents temporary exhibitions, while Herbert Foundation-106, a former frame factory, displays key works from the Herbert collection through weekly guided visits. The Warhol exhibition is presented in the Loods at Coupure Links 627A. It is open Friday to Sunday, 2–6 p.m., until 27 June 2027. More information: https://www.herbertfoundation.org/en

All Tomorrow’s Parties invites visitors to look at Warhol differently: not through his most famous images, but through the people he filmed, the publications he produced and the slow passage of time in his cinema. The result is an exhibition where the most interesting discoveries may be the connections between works rather than the familiar icons.