On June 21, 2013, I was The Warhol’s representative at the opening of “Life, Death and Beauty” at the new Heydar Aliyev Center in Baku, Azerbaijan. The exhibition was curated from The Andy Warhol Museum’s collection by Gianni Mercurio. The Heydar Aliyev Center, designed by famed architect Zaha Hadid, looks both at the history of Azerbaijan and important cultural figures around the world. The Center decided that Andy Warhol, the world’s most famous artist, would be a fitting opening show for them. Attended by leading government representatives and figures from the Baku cultural world, the evening was a fascinating mix of people who were deeply knowledgeable about Warhol and others to whom his work was new.
In my remarks, I said that Andy Warhol would probably have loved Baku for its shopping as its main thoroughfare has every luxury brand imaginable including Gucci, Prada, Chanel, Bulgari, and Tiffany.
