“Moments after Valerie Solanas entered Andy Warhol’s sixth-floor office at 33 Union Square West on June 3, 1968, carrying two guns and a massive, paranoid grudge, their lives would be changed forever. She thought he was going to steal her manuscript, he ignored her calls.” – Sarah Pruitt

Tonight’s assigned reading delved into the ideas explored in Valerie Solanas’ SCUM Manifesto. Interested in the subject, I did some more research about Valerie Solanas’ life and came across an article from history.com that describes the time she attempted to murder Andy Warhol. The story itself is rather interesting and so I decided to focus on it for this blog post.

Andy Warhol was a world-renowned artist, film director, and producer known for his pop art paintings that included pictures of Campbell’s soup cans and stylized portraits of celebrities. Solanas was “A radical feminist writer and activist” according to the history.com article. She had written a play and approached Warhol with a request to produce it; however, that didn’t exactly work out. Warhol instead offered her an acting role in his 1967 film “I, A Man,” which Jose Diaz, a curator at the Andy Warhol Museum, claims was “vulgar, humorless” and “Even Andy and his crew thought it was a bit too much.” She was paid $25 for the gig.

Getting back to the play, Solanas had apparently given Warhol a copy of the manuscript, which he then lost—it was later found in a trunk. Warhol had stolen intellectual property before, so Solanas was paranoid that Warhol was just going to steal her play and produce it for himself. She repeatedly called him and threatened him over the phone until he decided to stop picking up her calls. Then, on June 3, 1968, Solanas visited Warhol’s new office armed and shot him and an art gallery owner he was meeting with.

Warhol was briefly declared dead at first, yet the doctors were able to revive him. However, he “would be forced to wear a surgical corset for the rest of his life to hold his organs in place.” After the shooting, she decided to approach a police officer whom she told: “He had too much control over my life.” After several rounds of psychiatric evaluation, she was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. She pleaded guilty to the assault charges and was sentenced to three years in prison.

Unfortunately, Solanas’ reputation is characterized by this event for many people. A lot of people overlook her contributions to the feminist movement and discount her credibility because of it. However, although some of her ideas may have been rather radical, it’s important to understand that she still played an important role in the feminist movement.

Article: https://www.history.com/news/andy-warhol-shot-valerie-solanas-the-factory