Warhol's 'San Diego Surf' is Up At MCASD

The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego will offer the West Coast premiere of Andy Warhol’s 1968 film “San Diego Surf” on March 16 at 5:30 p.m. The 90-minute film premiered last year in a private showing at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. It had a subsequent public screening at MOMA Jan. 23-28.

If you are wondering what took them so long to release a film by one of the seminal figures in 20th century art, here’s a chronology:

1968: Andy Warhol and his filming partner, Paul Morrissey rent a house in La Jolla. With a cast including Superstars Viva, Taylor Mead, Louis Waldon, Joe Dallesandro, Tom Hompertz, Ingrid Superstar, Eric Emerson, Nawana Davis and others, they shoot a film loosely based on an unhappily married couple who rent their house to some surfers.

1968: Warhol is shot in his studio by Valerie Solanas a month after filming is complete. Although the film was partially edited, it was never finished and Warhol, who barely survived the shooting, never again worked behind a movie camera. After the shooting, his life and outlook changed.

1987: Warhol dies as the result of what his family believed was a botched operation.

1995-96: The Andy Warhol Foundation commissions Morrissey, with Foundation curator Dara Meyers-Kingsley, to finish the editing.

2012: Film released in a screening at the Museum of Modern Art.

The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego will also offer a pre-screening “happy hour” that will include never-before-shown archival footage by Lee Pratt of Warhol and Morrissey making the film.

Read the full story and more on utsandiego.com