Monday 2 November 2009

Question for Nov 2 - PS

X (1931-1987) was an American painter, filmmaker, record producer, author and public figure. He founded the visual art movement called as pop art. Among his accomplishments are designing iconic American products such as the Campbell's Soup cans, and Coca-Cola bottles. In the mid 1960s, X adopted and helped found the band Velvet Underground. Influenced by X, David Bowie recorded a song called X for his 1971 album Hunky Dory. The X Museum, one of the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, is dedicated to X's life and artwork, and is the largest American art museum dedicated to a single artist, holding more than 12,000 works by the artist.

X is most famous for coining the widely used expression "Y" (a phrase, not a single word).

Valerie Solanis, the founder and only member of Society for Cutting Up Men (SCUM) shot to fame by nearly killing X by firing 3 bullets at close quarters. The incident inspired X to come up with the memorable quote: 'In the future, everyone will get their Y'. X's comment and the insight it expressed emerged from his own fascination with media and celebrities. The phrase Y is often used in reference to figures in the entertainment industry and other areas of popular culture. "X"ian is often used as a synonym for Y. In 1986, X had a short-lived MTV television series, X's Y, featuring celebrities, artists, musicians, and designers.

Identify X and Y.

11 comments:

Ankur said...

X = Andy Warhol
Y = '15 minutes of fame'

AJ said...

X is Andy Warhol and the phrase is "15 minutes of fame". I will admit, had to google the phrase.

Gaurav said...

X - Andy Warhole

Y - 15 minutes of fame

IC said...

X has to be Andy Warhol. Don't know about Y. Can think of the word "mojo". But that's not a phrase :-(

Nikhil said...

Andy Warhol and his 15 mins of fame.... Lot of clues in your question :).

Kiran Vyakaranam said...

I know X is Andy Warhol...no clue what Y is

Gypsy said...

X = definitely Andy Warhol
Y = probably "one time wonder" or "fifteen minutes of fame"
something to do with short-lived hype in entertainment world

Gypsy said...

trivia: he made an eight hour silent movie filming only the empire state building with a fixed camera!

Sailesh Ganesh said...

I'm guessing Y is "15 minutes of fame". No idea who X is.

Rahul said...

Andy Warhol, fifteen minutes of fame. Cleverly framed question :)

The Answer said...

X = Andy Warhol
Y = 15 minutes of fame

Congrats Ankur, Anshul, Gaurav, Nikhil, Gypsy, Rahul. Partial congrats to IC, Kiran and Sailesh.

Some more crazy trivia (from wikipedia) about some of the movies he made:
- One of his most famous films, Sleep, monitors poet John Giorno sleeping for six hours.
- The 35-minute film Blow Job, is one continuous shot of the face of DeVeren Bookwalter supposedly receiving oral sex from filmmaker Willard Maas, although the camera never tilts down to see this.
- Another, 1964's Empire, consists of eight hours of footage of the Empire State Building in New York City at dusk.
- The film Eat consists of a man eating a mushroom for 45 minutes.