Andy Warhol’s 1978 Zurich retrospective brought his earlier work back before him at a moment when he felt unable to face it. The press conference at the Kunst Museum, Zurich consisted of photographs rather than a speech; afterward, he signed Campbell’s Soup Cans and portfolios for about two hours. His diary’s brisk record of cab fare, press obligations, and his judgment that the work was old preserves the tension between the public ritual of a retrospective and his own distance from the art on its walls.

The Press Conference

On Thursday, May 25, Warhol was in Zurich for the retrospective. After getting up at seven and satisfying a craving for soft-boiled eggs, he bought newspapers and took a cab to the museum. The press conference required no remarks from him: photographers took pictures, and he did not have to talk. The entry gives the occasion a distinctly procedural character, recording the visit through small expenses and practical details as well as the event itself.

Facing Earlier Work

The retrospective posed a different difficulty from the press conference. Warhol wrote that it was hard to look at a retrospective and that he pretended to look at the walls; he could not face his old work, which he considered old. The diary offers no explanation beyond that terse assessment. Its significance lies in the contrast it leaves intact: a museum gathering presented his work for public attention, while the artist recorded his unwillingness to engage with it.

Signing and the Missing Pictures

The press occasion continued into a signing that lasted about two hours. Warhol signed many Campbell’s Soup Cans, portfolios, and other items, turning the retrospective into a setting not only for looking at past work but also for its circulation as recognizable objects. His entry ends that account with a separate disappointment: Peter Brant had never sent his pictures. The diary does not clarify which pictures he meant or what their absence changed, but its placement makes the failed expectation part of the record of the Zurich visit.

The Diary as Record

The episode survives in the daily account Pat Hackett took down from Warhol. Their weekday calls gathered his activities and cash expenses into a diary, and the entries could include small transactions alongside encounters with art and the press. Here, the cab fare and newspaper purchase share space with the retrospective and Warhol’s reaction to it. That form does not resolve the gap between public presentation and private response; it preserves both in the same compact account.