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I consider that a moral act. And I consider it immoral that I missed.
I should have done target practice.1
- Valerie Solanas commenting on her near-fatal shooting of
Andy Warhol in 1968
Valerie Solanas took the elevator and got off at the fourth floor
She pointed the gun at Andy saying you can't control me anymore . . .
Valerie Solanas waved her gun pointing at the floor
From inside her idiot madness spoke and bang
Andy fell to the floor
And I believe life's serious enough for some retribution
I believe being sick is no excuse
And I believe I would've pulled the switch on her myself
- John Cale and Lou Reed, 'I Believe'
Introduction
In the early afternoon of June 3rd, 1968, the summer of the student uprisings across the US, Valerie Solanas waited, clutching a paper bag, outside Andy Warhol's new gallery and office space, the Factory, at 33 Union Square, New York. It was a warm summer day but Solanas was heavily dressed and she had even applied a little makeup - from all accounts something she reserved for special occasions. When Warhol and his assistant arrived in a taxi, Solanas rode with them in the elevator up to the gallery. After exchanging a few words with Solanas, Warhol and his entourage went about their business, ignoring her presence. A few minutes later, Solanas pulled a .32 calibre automatic pistol from the paper bag and fired three times at Warhol. Only one bullet hit her target, but it seriously wounded Warhol, 'entering through the left lung and hitting the spleen, stomach, liver and oesophagus before penetrating the right lung and exiting from the side.'2 She then fired at a visiting art dealer, hitting him in the left buttock, before catching the elevator down to the ground floor. Later that evening, having surrendered herself and the gun to a traffic policeman in Times Square, Solanas was taken to the 13th Precinct Booking Room where she openly confessed to the shooting of Warhol.
It is this incident for which most people remember Solanas, if they remember her at all. In popular accounts of the shooting, her guerrilla action was always already mediated by her victim's celebrity status as representative of the...