Andy Warhol Birthday Party Celebrates Pop Art In St. Pete
ST. PETERSBURG, FL — The second annual Andy Warhol Birthday Pop Art Party takes place Sunday, 2 to 5 p.m., at The Floridian in St. Pete to celebrate the iconic pop artist.
This is a new date for the art show, which was rescheduled because of Hurricane Debby’s hit to Florida earlier this month.
Dozens of Warhol-inspired pieces will be on display throughout the afternoon. There will also be specialty cocktails served in Campbell’s soup cans, live painting, and an array of impersonators representing icons from that time period — Warhol, Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley.
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Entry to the show is free with advance registration or $5 at the door.
The event launched last year when The Floridian’s marketing director Steph Cicillini and local artist and curator Luke Heath realized Warhol’s birthday was coming up and thought it could be a good way to bring the arts community into the venue.
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“I wanted to build community-based events that would also flourish in our St. Pete culture and the local arts in general,” Cicillini told Patch. “I thought, wow, it would be really great if we could get a bunch of artists together, get some music and really make a day out of it.”
They pulled that inaugural show together in about a month.
“Then, after seeing that original turnout, we figured, let’s give it another shot,” she said.
Calling the event more “visual entertainment” than art show, Heath thinks it’s a fun way to make the arts accessible to more people in the community.
“We use Andy Warhol as the crux of (the event) because he’s kind of like the face of the pop movement. He’s probably the one pop artist that everyone knows,” he told Patch. “We wanted to capture as many people as we could. And with his birthday around this time (Aug. 6), it’s a good time to do something like this.”
Artist Lucky Leroy, a longtime Warhol impersonator, not only has a piece in Sunday’s show, he’ll also once again embody the artist, even filming his own versions of Warhol’s screen tests.
Warhol filmed his infamous screen tests — hundreds of portraits of individuals, those famous and those who weren’t. Between 1963 and 1966, he captured them on silent, black-and-white, 100-foot rolls of film and each screen test lasted about three minutes, according to The Andy Warhol Museum.
Lucky Leroy has long had a connection with Warhol. Both are originally from Pittsburgh and lived in New York City.
“He’s one of my favorite artists. I’ve always felt connected to him and he’s an obsession,” Lucky Leroy told Patch.
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He also currently has a Warhol-inspired exhibition, “Florida Famous,” on display through the end of the month at FloridaRAMA, formerly The Fairgrounds, at The Factory.
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