The 1984 Summer Olympics opening ceremony appears in Andy Warhol’s diary as a vivid television moment in the middle of a day organized around fashion, photography, and social engagements. After a three-hour shoot of Grace Jones, Warhol went home to watch the ceremony, found it thrilling, and then continued on to Jones’s dinner.

The Ceremony on Television

On Saturday, July 28, Warhol and his companions had gone to Robert Mapplethorpe’s Bond Street studio for an Interview photo session with Grace Jones. Keith Haring did Jones’s makeup, and Mapplethorpe photographed her while the group stayed for three hours. Warhol then went home to watch the opening of the Olympics on television, recording his excitement without describing the ceremony’s particular performances or events.

From the Shoot to Dinner

The television broadcast was a brief but distinct pause between the studio session and the evening’s social plans. After watching the opening, Warhol took a three-dollar cab to a dinner Jones was giving at Holbrook’s. The diary places the ceremony within this sequence of work and sociability: a public spectacle encountered at home, followed immediately by a gathering in Jones’s circle.