Art News

Folk-Rock Duo Dean & Britta Take Its Warhol Soundtrack on Tour

NEW YORK (REUTERS).- Between 1964 and 1966, Andy Warhol created nearly 500 “screen tests” — short, silent, filmed portraits of the famous and unknown personalities who made their way through the Factory, Warhol’s Manhattan studio. In 2008, the Andy Warhol Museum and Pittsburgh Cultural Trust commissioned the dreamy folk-rock duo of Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips (former members of indie-pop band Luna) to provide music for 13 of these silent clips and perform the songs as part of a live, multimedia presentation of the shorts. Wareham and Phillips viewed hundreds of the screen tests in the museum’s archives and chose 13 subjects, including Lou Reed, Nico, Edie Sedgwick and Dennis Hopper. Sponsored by the museum, the project has toured since September 2008 and released a DVD last year, but now Dean & Britta are responding to demand for the music itself. A double-CD package, “13