Waiting for the man ... Lou Reed in Amsterdam. Photograph: Olaf Kraak/Getty
It's not often that gallery visitors get the full red carpet treatment, but at last night's opening of the Andy Warhol retrospective in Amsterdam everyone got their 15 minutes of fame. Literally: we stepped onto a crimson stairway before being papped by a sensory blast of images and media installations.
It wasn't just the art that was drawing the crowds. For one night only the Stedelijk became a performance space for Lou Reed, who was in Amsterdam for the opening of an exhibition of his photographs of New York. At the Warhol retrospective, Reed recited poems and lyrics, and dryly responded to an audience Q and A: "Do you like Amsterdam?" "I love Amsterdam". (Reed has a sound fanbase here.)
His opener, fittingly projected onto screens, proved a great example of how artist convergence can enhance an already great themed show. The memories of Warhol were precisely chosen, many drawn from Reed's 1990 collaboration with John Cale, Songs for Drella. The nuggets included a riff on Warhol's yearnings to leave his small town, for better skin, and musings on those "images worth repeating".
This was a finely pitched and relevant performance which enhanced, but did not overshadow, the Warhol show. Reed spoke about Warhol as an artist who quit the traditional art form: "It is fascinating to me that someone who could really draw did not use that talent". It was performance biography and an improv piece between two collaborators: one very much alive, the other much remembered and reproduced. Recalling their first meeting, Reed talked of how Warhol emerged into his life at a time when he was "very, very, very poor" in New York. "Amazing that of all the people to walk through the door there he was," he said.
Warhol's relevance was emphasised by the show's design. Screens and mirrors were everywhere. Reed recalled how Warhol asked him during the recording of I'll Be Your Mirror why the song had to end, before deciding to loop the end of the track... "I'll be your mi... I'll be your mi..." "Andy Warhol made the first loop", Reed told the audience.
A great place to end Reed's show, and usher us into Warhol's world, with its polaroids, screen tests, cow wallpaper, and the rest of this brilliant exhibition. Reed's presence raised the bar for gallery performance - who needs lectures?
