Berlin

Berlin is a brief but sharply observed stop in Andy Warhol’s March 1982 European travels. Its place in the diary is defined by a visit to a film set: an encounter with Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Brad Davis that turns the city into a setting for watching public images being made and compared with the people behind them.

A Stop on the European Trip

The diary dates the Berlin visit to March 2, 1982. Four days later, it records Warhol in Paris for an exhibition opening, placing Berlin within a sequence of European travel rather than presenting it as a sustained stay. The record gives no broader account of the city; its focus is the particular cultural encounter that took place there.

Fassbinder’s Film Set

In Berlin, Warhol went to see Fassbinder filming Querelle, based on Genet’s work. Brad Davis was the film’s star, and Warhol had his picture taken with him. He also asked Davis to sign an ashtray for Jon Gould, making the object a small keepsake carried out of the encounter and intended for someone absent from the scene.

Fassbinder’s appearance became part of Warhol’s account of the visit. He wore leopard-skin jodhpurs, a striking departure from the plain black leather he reportedly usually wore. Someone standing nearby suggested that Fassbinder had dressed that way especially for Warhol; the diary presents this as the person’s speculation, not as a confirmed explanation. Warhol compared Fassbinder’s look to that of a circus trainer, registering the theatrical force of the clothes without claiming to know the director’s intention.

Faces On and Off Camera

Warhol described Davis as unusually delicate-looking and judged him better in person than on the cover of Interview. That comparison links the Berlin encounter to the magazine’s broader work of presenting public figures through interviews and images. Here, the difference between the printed cover and the person on set becomes a compact observation about how celebrity appearance changes across contexts: Davis is at once a film star, a magazine image, and someone Warhol meets and photographs in Berlin.