Scars by Brigid Berlin

Brigid Berlin (1939-2020) was an American artist and former Warhol Superstar, best known as Andy Warhol’s closest confidante and for her obsessive diaristic recordings of her life during the 1960s and 1970s that took the form of tape recordings, Polaroids, and handmade “trip books,” essentially diaries that were comprised of collages, drawings, prints, clippings and other ephemera. Bob Colacello wrote, “In recording life, she captured our times. By myopically depicting her own transgressions and self-indulgences, she has prophetically reflected the narcissism and exhibitionism, the craving for fame and confusing of fame and infamy that have become staples of American popular culture.” 

The eldest daughter of Muriel “Honey” Johnson Berlin, a socialite, and Richard E. Berlin, chairman of the Hearst Media empire for 52 years, Berlin became a self-described “troublemaker” at an early age and spent most of her life reacting against, and sending up, the social conventions of her youth. She appeared in many of Warhol’s films including The Chelsea Girls (1966), Imitation of Christ (1967), **** (1967), The Loves of Ondine (1967), Nude Restaurant (1967), Tub Girls (1967), Women in Revolt (1971), and Andy Warhol’s Bad (1976). In the 1990s, she appeared in two films by John Waters, Serial Mom (1994) and Pecker (1998). In 2000, she was the subject of the documentary, Pie in the Sky: the Brigid Berlin Story, directed by Vincent Fremont and Shelly Dunn Fremont. In 2015 her work was the subject of a monograph titled Brigid Berlin: Polaroids published by Reel Art Press, and co-edited by Vincent Fremont, Anastasia James, and Dagon James with essays by Bob Colacello and John Waters. That same year Berlin had a solo exhibition of her Polaroids and Tapes at INVISIBLE-EXPORTS, NYC curated by Anastasia James. Both the monograph and the exhibition were reviewed widely by the national and international press. 

Between 1968 and 1974, Berlin created audio tape recordings and used Polaroid film to capture her surroundings, producing thousands of cassettes and photographs and her artistic practice, in turn influencing Andy Warhol to integrate both mediums more substantially into his own practice. Berlin often incorporated her own body and the bodies of others into her work. As early as 1966, she began making “tit prints,” by covering her own breasts in ink and pressing them onto surfaces. As she began to document her life through Polaroid photography, she also began to make her “trip books” which sometimes focused on one subject such as one titled the “Cock Book,” 1968-73 a three-volume work comprised of ink prints of penises. In 1970, around the time that Andy Warhol sat for Alice Neel’s portrait that featured Warhol shirtless, displaying his scars resulting from surviving a shooting in 1968, Berlin, who documented the portrait painting session, also took countless photographs of Warhol’s scars in the Factory at 33 Union Square West. After they developed, she would run down to Union Square, to Warhol’s amusement, and sell the Polaroids for $10 each. Perhaps inspired by Warhol’s scars following the shooting, in 1971 she started creating her “Scars” trip book. Berlin persuaded friends and visitors to Warhol’s studio, to make ink imprints of their scars from their various body parts and then write the story of how the scar was obtained alongside the ink impression. The original “scars” were created on blank pages in one of Berlin’s notebooks and this collection was published in 1972 by Telegraph Books under the title Scars by Brigid Polk.

“After meeting Victor Bockris and Andrew Wylie, partners at the small publishing imprint Telegraph Books, it makes sense that Brigid would agree to publish one of her conceptual books with them – a Trip Book of ink prints of people’s scars with the subjects describing how they got their scars in their own handwriting.” - Vincent Fremont

The scars book contains notable subjects including Peter Fonda, Viva, Taylor Mead, Patti Smith, Gerard Malanga, Brice Marden, Geneviève Waïte, Larry Rivers, John Giorno, Rene Ricard, Peter Beard, Lillian Roxon, and Bill Berkson. Originally published by Telegraph Books, this slim volume is now exceedingly rare and is being reprinted for the first time by The Waverly Press to mark book’s 50th anniversary. Each page has been painstakingly restored and the volume expanded with new essays by Vincent Fremont and Victor Bockris who oversaw the publication of the original 1972 edition.

“When I look back at our attempt to capture the cutting-edge voices of the early seventies in the ten books we published, there is no question that Brigid Polk’s Scars was by far the most creative, original and valuable book we published.” - Victor Bockris

For the serious collector, we are offering a premium deluxe edition that comes with Brigid Berlin’s estate signature stamp, hand signed by Vincent Fremont and hand numbered in an edition of only 30 copies. The deluxe edition also comes with a 4x5” archival, pigment print of one of Brigid Berlin’s 1971 Polaroids of Andy Warhol’s scars. Each print is hand numbered and stamped with Berlin’s estate stamp.

This new edition of Scars is limited to 400 copies and is sure to be an instant collector’s item.