Fourteen Trip Books WITH Press Clippings.
Berlin, Brigid.
Sixteen Trip Books.
Manuscript/Typescript
Brigid Berlin's Trip Books
The Trip Books of Brigid Berlin and her cohorts at the center of Andy Warhol's Factory document the art scene and socio-political milieu of the 1960s and 70s in diaries comprised of collages, drawings, poems, photos, letters, news clippings, drug labels, and other ephemera that relate to trips (both drug trips and literal journeys), and to daily interactions with the artists, writers, photographers, performers, musicians and poets that comprised her milieu in the 60s and 70s. The Books in this collection are as follows:
1. Berlin, Brigid. Trip Book: 1968.
4to.; blank book filled with drawings, collages, clippings and ephemera; binding broken; hand-made, multicolored dust-jacket.
This trip book is one of the few that makes overt reference to political events contemporaneous to its production. Berlin has pasted a photo of a Huey Cobra on a Vietnam battlefield to the front endpaper. Shortly thereafter Rene Ricard has contributed a two-page spread collaged with an American eagle, gold foil, "Last Stage Money" bank notes featuring Lyndon Johnson's portrait, and a banner that reads, "Johnson is dead--long live gold!"
Warhol has also added drawings to several pages. On one he has drawn a large (upside-down) winged figure in blue magic marker and signed the page, "Andy Warhol." On another he has reprised his familiar flowers motif and pasted in what appears to be a section cut from the "Flowers" cover of his 1968 exhibition catalogue at the Moderna Museet, Stockholm.
Berlin has filled the rest of the book with drawings, collages, and color transfer images.
2. Berlin, Brigid. Trip Book: Andy's Cocks, Candy's Ad, Viva's Drawings.
8vo.; blank book filled throughout with drawings and ephemera; yellow boards covered with red "special handling" stickers, in handmade green dust-jacket. Front pastedown: "If Found Please Return To: [stamped: Bridgit Polk] 23 Lexington Ave N.Y.C."
A reservation card from Luchow's restaurant is laid in. It reads, "This table is reserved for MOLONIE, time: TEA." Warhol has altered the card, writing Andy Maloney in the reservation space and adding "RS" after "TEA" so that it read, "Time: TEARS." Warhol had given Berlin the moniker Brigid Polk so Berlin responded by nicknaming Warhol "Andy Maloney" (because it rhymes with "baloney").
Warhol signed a page, "Andy Maloney" with a heart and drew cocks and shoes on several following pages. One shoe drawing reads, "Will you be my shoe" and another reads, "To shoe or not to shoe."
Viva added many drawings and phrases on succeeding pages. There are several girl's heads, a downcast cowboy, an apparent portrait of Berlin reclining, a nude figure attacked by a bird opposite the phrase "a star is bled," and a semi-abstract, multicolored image opposite the phrase "Dressing at Max's, always delicious."
On another page Candy Darling wrote, "Candy Darling requests Brigid Berlin's company at a party Saturday night March 23, John Wolfson's E. 49 st. Beneath this Berlin has pasted Candy's personal ad which reads, "Transsexual, 32, attractive, planning sex-change soon, seeks understanding and masculine friendship only. No homo's, please! Call Candie, after 10 p.m., anytime weekends, 588-7874."
On other pages are drawings by Rene Ricard, Paul Solomon, and others, as well as several trip drawings by Berlin.
3. Berlin, Brigid. Trip Book: Trip Book: Brigid Can Have Brownies.
8vo.; blank filled with drawings, collages, photos, clippings and ephemera; broken binding; embossed leather boards.
This trip book begins with a note to Berlin ("The Duchess") reading, "write down all you hear and keep all notes in this book for me to see, I must know everything or I am not happy," from Kenneth Rapp (here signing as "The Mayor"). These instructions, by one of the principals of the amphetamine scene that included Berlin, Ondine ("The Pope") and others describe the working method that would characterize much of Berlin's subsequent books and trip art. The book is filled with overheard conversations, color transfer art, signatures and drawings (including a page by Warhol), typewritten pages, collages and ephemera.
4. Berlin, Brigid. Trip Book: Cars.
8vo.; blank filled with drawings, collages, clippings and ephemera; illustrated wrappers.
This trip book, which began as a child's notebook with cartoon car illustrations on the exterior wrappers, is filled with short notes, printed jokes, a few drawings, addresses and phone numbers, and other haphazard jottings.
5. Berlin, Brigid. Trip Book: Earwax.
8vo.; blank filled with drawings, collages, photos, clippings and ephemera; broken binding; leatherette boards, stamped in gilt.
This trip book is filled with drawings, collages, and haphazard jottings by Berlin and others, including a cock drawing by Warhol, a "boot heel and shoe dirt" collage by Ronnie Cutrone, a portrait of Brigid by Viva, and other anonymous works. Labels of amphetamine bottles, Gauloises, news clippings, and other ephemera fill out this book.
6. Berlin, Brigid. Trip Book: Interview, Esquire, Evergreen Review.
4to.; blank book filled with clippings and ephemera; black cloth stamped in gilt.
This trip book is filled with magazine clippings and ephemera related to Brigid Berlin's career as a photographer, performer and playwrite, and to the leading role she played at Andy Warhol's Factory and in New York's avant-garde art scene of the late '60s and early '70s.
There are clippings pasted in from a variety of publications including Interview, Esquire, Creem, Crawdaddy, The East Village Other, The Evergreen Review, The New York Times, The Times of London, The Village Voice, French and German periodicals, and many other publications. Notable among the clippings and ephemera are a review of Andy Warhol's "Pork" (based on Berlin's taped conversations with her mother Honey Berlin), an Esquire article on non-traditional beauty featuring a topless photo of Berlin, a card from Galerie Heiner Friedrich in Munich announcing Berlin's show of Polaroids (which ran concurrently with a Gerhard Richter exhibition), and an announcement for an auction benefitting Max's Kansas City (which included work by Warhol, de Kooning, Judd, and many others).
7. Berlin, Brigid. Trip Book: Incredible '68.
Folio; blank book filled with drawings, collages, photos, clippings and ephemera; black leatherette boards with illustrated metal plate affixed to top panel.
The cover of this trip book is a reproduction of a page from the January 10, 1969 issue of Life Magazine featuring captioned pictures of personalities important in 1968. Besides Warhol (who was shot in 1968) there are pictures of Julian Bond, Peggy Fleming and Herbert Marcuse. Within, the book is filled with Berlin's color transfer art, drawings and collages.
8. Berlin, Brigid. Trip Book: Japan Bound.
8vo.; blank book filled throughout with drawings, collages, and ephemera; japanese bound with hand-colored edges and covers.
This trip book was compiled mostly in 1968. It consists almost entirely of Berlin's abstract drawings and watercolor in a variety of styles. There are also several pages filled with writing, Japanese characters, and dated results of castings of the I Ching (one for Ondine and one for Rotten Rita date 2/12/68), and complicated numerological calculations.
One page is headed Ondine's List and includes the names Debbi Caen, Kenny Rapp (aka Rotten Rita), Helena Swire, John Kelly, Wonton, Rene Ricard, Gerard Malangar, John Cale, Lou Reed, Nico, Katrina, Mary Woronov."
9. Berlin, Brigid. Trip Book: La Jolla Trip.
8vo.; blank book filled with drawings, collages, clippings and ephemera; leather-bound, ornamented with leather cross and fake jewels; leather clasp closure.
Berlin compiled this trip book largely in 1968-69, a period that included a trip to La Jolla, California. It contains numerous drawings and collages in a variety of styles including color transfer images, several pages of Warhol-esque flowers painted with watercolor, a collage incorporating dripped candle wax, and a drawing by Taylor Mead.
Brigid and others contributed numerous pages of entertaining doggerel on a variety of topics.
10. Berlin, Brigid. Trip Book: Life.
8vo.; blank leaves filled with drawings, collages, photographs, clippings and ephemera; binding loose; leather bound.
This trip book is filled with trip drawings and collages incorporating a Rauschenberg-esque color transfer process. Most are portraits taken from magazine clippings (Jim Morrison, Katharine Hepburn, Janis Joplin, Bridget Bardot, the Beatles) or product images (Campbell's Soup, Arm and Hammer, Marlboro, Life Magazine). Highlights of items internally affixed:
A drawing of a horse by Edie Sedgwick.
A telegram from Paul Solomon dated January 9, 1968 that reads, "Dear Bridget Orson
Welles Joseph Pulitzer and Quentin Reynolds join me in wishing you continued success
on the stage."
A letter dated April 12, 1968 from Katrina, a Factory superstar who appeared in ****
(Four Stars, 1966), asking Andy Warhol for "$400 or $350" so that she can be released
from Municipal Jail, San Juan, Puerto Rico. (She was being held for non-payment of a
hotel bill.)
One of Warhol's cock drawings (this one labeled "Viva").
11. Berlin, Brigid. Trip Book: The Money Book.
8vo.; blank filled with drawings, collages, photographs, coins, clippings and ephemera; plaid velour boards.
This trip book is filled with artworks related to money, including photographs of money, collages made of coins, and foreign currencies, as well as several checks made out to Brigid from Max's Kansas City, Saralee Ruiz-Picasso and others,
12. Berlin, Brigid. Trip Book: Prescriptions and Portraits.
4to.; blank book filled with drawings, collages, photos, clippings and ephemera; red leatherette boards.
This trip book is filled with Berlin's intricate trip drawings, collages, color transfer art and miscellaneous jottings. She has also laid in her Theater of the Ridiculous membership card, several courtesy cards from Max's Kansas City, old prescriptions, drug labels, and doctor's business cards. Viva has contributed several drawings including portraits of Berlin, Gerard Malanga, and others.
13. Berlin, Brigid. Trip Book: Purple Velour.
8vo.; blank filled with drawings, collages, photos, clippings and ephemera; broken binding; purple velour boards.
This book is filled with Berlin's intricate trip drawings, collages, and color transfer art, including one collage featuring a label from a package of "Andy Boy Celery Hearts" combined with a photograph of Andy Warhol. A drawing of a camel and a bird by Edie Sedgwick is laid in.
14. Berlin, Brigid. Trip Book: Brigid and Richie.
8vo.; blank book filled throughout with drawings and ephemera; binding broken; black and hand-colored cloth
This trip book was compiled over several years from 1968-1970 and includes numerous pieces of correspondence between Brigid Berlin and her sister Richie Berlin collaged together with drawings, poems, photos, news clippings, and other ephemera (including a phone message on Hotel George Washington stationery inviting Berlin and friends to a party at Robert Rauschenberg's).
15. Berlin, Brigid. Trip Book: Scotch Tape Fetish.
8vo.; blank book filled with drawings, collages, clippings and ephemera; hand decorated covers.
Probably the earliest of Brigid Berlin's trip books, this object began life as an ordinary notebook day planner and is filled with names, phone numbers, and dates (mostly in 1966 and 1967). Gradually, it became more heavily decorated, accruing the intricate drawings, news clippings, tape and thread collages, loosely inserted ephemera, and arcane writings, lists and phrases that would characterize Berlin's subsequent trip books. This trip book, then, is something of a template for Berlin's later work, and as such it reveals her aesthetic debt to such forerunners as Robert Rauschenberg and Joseph Cornell. Later her work would become much more collaborative (and Warholian) but at this stage it remains personal and hermetic.
16. Berlin, Brigid. Trip Book: The Wine Book.
8vo.; blank book filled with wine labels and other ephemera; beige cloth; spine browned.
Berlin has filled the pages of this trip book with wine labels. In some cases she has added comments about the bottle's quality, its price, notations about when she drank the bottle and with whom (e.g., "Vincent Fremont bought this--not bad, not hot").
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