Watched another episode of the Warhol documentary last night. It covered the part of his life when a lot of his friends, and especially his lover, John, got the ‘gay cancer’ in the mid-1980s. The ‘gay cancer.’ For some reason, that sounds so much worse than AIDS. So sad.

Andy was such a talented artist, and not just for what he created in terms of paintings and films. The whole idea of being a celebrity, and your personality—your personal brand— being the work of art itself is just brilliant. They point out that although some others had done it before—Oscar Wilde, Salvador Dali, Gertrude Stein—but he was the one who really popularized it.

And now everyone is doing it; a pale imitation of it, at least.

Everyone is seeking their 15 minutes of fame. It comes, then disappears before you even realized it had arrived.

And Warhol started going on these ridiculous sitcoms like The Love Boat, but only appearing as himself. It was like he was injecting himself into pop culture. Kind of elevating these stupid, disposable media products and lampooning them, almost exploding them. A real life person popping up next to Richie Cunningham. Interacting with the artifice. It’s very meta.

Warhol’s relationship with Basquiat was so sad. They seemed to genuinely love and appreciate one another on multiple levels. An older, established, white artist, and a upcoming, brilliant young Black artist. But then the media got in the way, the critics said some horrible things, and Warhol couldn’t understand everything Basquiat was going through as a young Black man. I think it really hurt them both. Tragic. Especially when you think about what happens next and how they both end their lives.

The death of two icons. Two Sons. Two Saviors of the art world, of our culture.