13 Most Beautiful…Songs for Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests

“13 Most Beautiful…Songs for Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests” is a theatrical and cinematic concert experience featuring a baker’s dozen of Pop Art pioneer Andy Warhol’s “Screen Test” films — made in the mid-1960s to spotlight his self-made Superstars and the era’s cultural icons in larger-than-life close-ups — presented with live musical accompaniment by dream-pop duo Dean & Britta and their band.

This special program initially was commissioned in 2008 by The Andy Warhol Museum and Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, and since then has been presented on rare occasions around the world. The Bob Dylan Center will present the regional premiere.

Over the course of 13 warmly enveloping songs — including originals like “Knives from Bavaria” and “Herringbone Tweed,” and a gorgeous cover of Bob Dylan’s “I’ll Keep It With Mine” — Dean & Britta create the perfect guitar-bass-drums-vocals soundtrack to these hypnotic films, each one chosen for its striking visuals that work in symbiotic tandem with the pristinely played music. Part rock concert, part film screening, part archeological dig unearthing New York City’s 1960s art scene, “13 Most Beautiful…Songs for Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests” is an unforgettable night at the theater.

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Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests

After acquiring a 16mm Bolex camera in 1964, Pop Art iconoclast Andy Warhol began filming his screen tests, devoting a single 100-foot reel of film to each subject, each lasting approximately 2 minutes and 45 seconds, then slowed down to extend their projection time. Between 1964 and 1968, Warhol filmed nearly 500 screen tests, featuring figures such as Salvador Dalí, Bob Dylan, Allen Ginsberg, Dennis Hopper, Nico, Lou Reed, Edie Sedgwick, Susan Sontag and Ingrid Superstar. Regarding his choice of subjects and format, Warhol said, “I only wanted to find great people and let them be themselves and I’d film them for a certain length of time and that would be the movie.”

Dean & Britta

Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips — beloved as members of the iconic indie rock band Luna, as a recording and performing duo, and as solo artists—have released 20 some albums in their various incarnations, and have composed music for films including “The Squid and the Whale,” “Mistress America” and “Irma Vep.” Magnet magazine describes Dean & Britta as the “most effortless mod couple, a duo whose sleek, icily romantic pop can serve as both sophisticated art-gallery soundtrack and lovey-dovey fireplace music.”