Photo credit: Janet Donovan
“I wrote the play,” Pascal Blondeau told Hollywood on the Potomac at the Residence of the Ambassador of France Gérard Araud after his multi-art performance headlined as “Ultra Violet & The Factory Tribute” at The Phillips Collection with special guests Laurence Cohen on vocals and Vincenzo Mingoia on piano. His one man show “Only You Could Have a Face Like That” / “Avec ta gueule pas comme les autres” pays tribute to Ultra Violet. Dressed in purple from her hair down to her shoes, the Warhol Factory icon and pop artist was a striking figure on the New York art scene for more than 50 years. Throughout the play, accompanied with songs and reading, the spectators witness personal and vibrant stories of the friendship between Ultra Violet and Pascal Blondeau.
Pascal Blondeau
“Pupil, studio assistant, and muse of Salvador Dali in the fifties, central member of Andy Warhol’s Factory in the sixties, Ultra Violet (1935-2014) emerged as a prominent and established avant garde artist who was exhibited throughout the world. Playfully and intuitively, she used time and talent to create works that are infused with energy, light, spirituality, symbolism, profundity, global meaning, and humor. Ultra Violet’s paintings, 3-D constructions, mixed-media installations, and drawings reveal a visual universe filled with rainbows, angel, blue skies and white clouds, but they also contain material related to the chaos and destruction that challenges our 21st century world. Above all, this artist sought to fill the viewer’s eye and mind with light.” Program notes
Ultra Violet and Pascal Blondeau Photo credit: Pascal Blondeau
About Blondeau: In 1989, the renowned singer Alice Dona opened a music school in Paris, where Pascal was accepted. There he studied dance, singing, comedy, and scenography for six years. After graduating he worked in Theaters and on TV shows throughout Paris. Blondeau then moved to New York, where he met Ultra Violet, the superstar of Andy Warhol’s Factory. Ultra Violet soon became his most beloved mentor. In 2011, Blondeau collaborated with Ultra Violet on the exhibition “9/11 OH MY GOD” held at The Invisible Dog in Brooklyn. This exhibition drew inspiration from oppositions such hot/cold, beautiful/ugly, soft/hard, etc. These sometimes frightening dichotomies provide Blondeau with passionate subjects for his art.
It was no surprise that the Residence was drenched in violet in honor of Ultra Violet.
Some guests even wore purple for the occasion.
Ambassador Araud, JoAnn Mason, John Mason and Pascal Blondeau
Although Pascal never met Warhol, he told us “that all the superstars from Andy Warhol’s factory didn’t like Andy Warhol a lot because at the end an art piece of Andy’s is now valued at $30, $40 million dollars. For the stars from factory, it is is nothing. He was not the best friend of Violet at the end.”
As for Ultra Violet songstress, she told us “that I tried to convey as much of Pascal and so I translated his feelings, the very deep feelings that he had while he was with her because she knew him very, very well. I tried to reproduce those feelings and those emotions in that very role.”
The Scene:
Andy Oros and Steve Clemons