Xenon

Xenon was a New York discotheque that recurs in Andy Warhol’s diary as a place of parties, celebrity encounters, and social negotiations. Its opening drew immediate attention from people around Warhol, and its later appearances reveal a club that was more than a backdrop for nightlife: invitations, access, and the memory of a perceived slight could shape who felt welcome there. The diary’s account moves between the glamour of hosted events and the practical vulnerability of being turned away.

Opening and Early Attention

Before Xenon opened, Warhol attended a large lunch at his office for Peppo Vanini, the club’s electricians, and Billy Kluver, identified in the diary as the head of Experiments in Art and Technology, or E.A.T. The combination of club workers and an art-and-technology figure places Xenon in a social world where nightlife, art, and professional connections could meet. Warhol also considered whether the success of a club could be reproduced by franchising a theme, then concluded that a club usually depended on an individual who could command attention. His observation offers a personal theory of nightlife: a concept or brand might attract interest, but a distinctive human presence made a room work.

When Xenon opened, Stevie Rubell asked Bob Colacello to go there and spy for him. The request makes the club’s arrival an event that people in Warhol’s circle watched closely, even before it became a regular setting in the diary. At a screening of Grease, Catherine Guinness was with Stevie Rubell, who was friendly to Warhol. Warhol attributed the change in attitude to a mistaken report in New York that he had been standing in line to get into Xenon. The episode links the new club to the circulation of gossip: even an inaccurate account of someone’s access could affect how they were received elsewhere.

Parties and Nightlife

Xenon soon appears as one destination among several in a busy social calendar. In December 1978, Warhol noted a party there for the opening of Superman. The brief entry gives no account of the party itself, but its placement alongside work, visitors, and other outings shows how the club’s events entered the ordinary rhythm of his diary rather than standing apart as exceptional occasions.

In March 1979, after a Beach Boys concert at Radio City Music Hall and a dinner hosted by Salvador Dalí, the younger people in Warhol’s party wanted to go to Xenon for Pelé. Warhol’s description of New York as full of Brazilians, like Carnival, frames the club event within the excitement surrounding Pelé and the concert crowd. Xenon could thus serve as an onward destination after other public and private gatherings, drawing together people whose evening had already taken them through music and dinner.

The club also surfaces in Warhol’s account of a party hosted by Diane von Furstenberg for Nona Summers and her husband. Warhol encountered familiar figures there, including Barry Diller, and reported that Diane von Furstenberg was looking forward to reading Popism. At the same gathering, Silvinha arrived with Richard Gere and described Warhol as her model for the sixties, while she would try to be his eighties. The diary does not identify this as a Xenon event; rather, it records the surrounding social circuit in which Xenon’s status and Warhol’s access were discussed. Later, after dinner with Diana Ross and others, Warhol and his companions went to Studio 54, where a CBS Records party filled the club. The contrast between the diary’s destinations underscores how Xenon belonged to a broader nightlife map rather than replacing other venues.

A Dispute Over Access

The clearest conflict over Xenon arose when Warhol offered to get two young men into the club. He called Xenon, identified himself, and was challenged by the person who answered, who did not believe that he was Andy Warhol. After a callback to verify his identity, the staff member told him that the club did not want to see him again. She connected the decision to an Interview party at Studio 54 that had taken place on the same night as Xenon’s anniversary celebration.

Warhol said that he and his colleagues had not known of the scheduling clash until afterward. He could not tell whether the employee was embarrassed by having questioned his identity or was conveying a decision made by someone else; he speculated that Howard Stein might have been consulted, while noting that Peppo Vanini would probably not have been so unkind. The diary preserves that uncertainty rather than resolving who was responsible. What is definite is the consequence: Warhol was refused, and he calculated that the club was turning away thirty dollars in business from the two prospective guests.

The episode also changed how Warhol approached access. He concluded that he should not call clubs himself, because the attempt to help the young men had exposed him to a humiliating refusal. He then phoned one of them and honestly explained that Xenon had said it never wanted to see him there again. Rather than inventing an excuse to protect his standing, he passed along the rejection directly. In this small scene, the power to admit or exclude becomes personal: the telephone, the disputed voice, and the proposed guest list matter as much as the club’s reputation.

Return and Changing Associations

The rebuff did not remove Xenon from Warhol’s social geography. In 1980, he heard that Halston had gone there with Bianca Jagger, a pairing he described as a first. The report presents the club as a place where the movements of well-known friends remained newsworthy, even when Warhol was not the person attending. After Studio 54 closed and was sold, Xenon also appeared among the surviving destinations of the same nightlife world, though the diary does not claim that it took Studio 54’s place.

By 1982, Warhol was again going to Xenon. After dropping John Reinhold and his daughter Berkeley off, he went with Curley to collect Curley’s friend, then took a cab to the club. There he encountered Howard Stein. Cornelia Guest had invited Warhol to a party at Stein’s home in East Hampton; Warhol saw a reciprocal social exchange in their connection, with Cornelia helping Stein enter East Hampton society and Stein helping her get into Xenon. The detail makes access a form of currency that could move between the club door and other social circles.

At Cornelia Guest’s birthday party at Xenon, photographers asked Warhol to pose with Sylvester Stallone, who was across the dance floor and did not want to be photographed with women. Warhol went over, and Stallone spoke with him about a forthcoming film with John Travolta. The club’s dance floor thus became a working setting for photographers and celebrity encounters, not simply a place to dance. In 1983, Warhol and Cornelia Guest cohosted a Xenon Oscar party. He disliked the awards and regretted putting his name on the event because hosts could make enemies by forgetting to invite people. The episode returns to the cost of access and hosting: a public invitation could enlarge a social gathering while making its exclusions conspicuous. That same year, Warhol felt embarrassed to tell a cabdriver to take him to Studio 54 for a Fiorucci party, a small reminder that even a familiar destination could carry an awkward public charge. Across these entries, Xenon stands out less as a fixed portrait of a building than as a recurring threshold, where celebrity, hospitality, reputation, and admission continually met.